Today, memory must encompass many voices. The one about the Warsaw Ghetto will either be polyphonic, convoluted, and politically entangled—or it will be absent altogether. A broad fire-extinguishing front lurks just around the corner.
[LR editor’s note: In December 2023, politician Grzegorz Braun, of the far right KKP party, used a fire extinguisher to extinguish Hanukkah candles in the Polish parliament. The growing informal alliance between the far right and other “anti-establishment” (including left-wing) figures is called the szeroki front gaśnicowy – broad fire-extinguishing front. This article was originally published the day before the 83rd anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.]
“In 1918, the Jews demanded half of Poland from the Poles. And then the Germans, probably knowing this when they entered Poland in 1939, told the Jews: ‘We will build ghettos for you.’ And the Jews were happy that they would have ghettos, meaning their own autonomy. Jewish sources say that when the ghetto is closed, the Jews are happy that the Germans gave them such a beautiful part of Warsaw,” argues nationalist historian Dr. Ewa Kurek, while KKP MP Włodzimierz Skalik presents her words as “the truth they don’t tell on public television.”
Eighty-three years after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the memory of historical truth seems more threatened than ever. Public discourse is rife with disinformation, manipulation, and harmful simplifications – and the Polish right, under the banner of both Confederations, is making increasingly grotesque accusations against Jews.
This year’s anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is taking place in the shadow of the Middle East war, and Israel’s actions are increasingly shaping the perception of the memory of Polish Jews. Those who wish to remember are divided, as the scandal surrounding this year’s “Daffodils” campaign illustrates.
What exactly are we commemorating?
Established in 1940 as a closed district for Jews, at its peak the Warsaw Ghetto imprisoned over 400,000 people – mainly Warsaw residents of Jewish origin, but also those resettled from surrounding towns and other areas of occupied Poland and the Reich.
From the outset, conditions there were appalling. After the ghetto was sealed in November 1940, the Germans blocked food supplies, leading to famine and epidemics of infectious diseases.
“The uprising cannot be discussed in isolation from the earlier tragedy of the Warsaw Ghetto, because it was merely the final act of that great tragedy,” says Dr. Krzysztof Persak, chief historian at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. “We must remember what happened less than a year earlier, namely the great deportation action between July and September 1942, when the Germans deported almost 300,000 people to Treblinka.”
The uprising broke out after the Germans murdered 80 percent of Polish Jews as part of Operation Reinhardt, deporting them to extermination camps. Camps in Bełżec, Sobibór, and Treblinka were established specifically for this operation. Following the operation, a so-called residual ghetto was left in Warsaw for approximately 60,000 people. Thirty-five thousand of them were assigned “life numbers”—permits to work in Jewish factories. Officially unemployed individuals, if denounced, were immediately sent to the Umschlagplatz, and from there sent to death camps or shot on the spot.
After the great deportation action, the Jews of Warsaw realized that the final liquidation of the ghetto would take place, emphasises Persak.
Faced with imminent death, armed resistance began to be organised. The Jewish Combat Organization (ŻOB) was established.
“The ŻOB wasn’t a unified armed formation with a clearly defined chain of command,” Persak explains. “It was more of a federation of organizations, primarily Zionist youth movements, as well as the Bund—a Jewish socialist and anti-Zionist party—and Communists associated with the Polish Workers’ Party. Historiography assumes that at the outbreak of the uprising, the ŻOB consisted of 22 combat groups.”
Despite deep ideological divisions, the insurgents united in their fight against the occupiers. The Jewish Military Union (ŻZW), a right-wing organisation of Zionist Revisionists, operated in parallel. In the spring of 1943, both groups agreed to divide responsibility for the ghetto’s defence. The January Operation became the impetus for intensifying clandestine self-defence. The ŻOB, with its limited weapons, offered spontaneous resistance to the Germans, while the civilian population went into hiding.
On April 19, 1943, on Passover Eve, the Germans re-entered the ghetto for its final liquidation. The poorly armed but determined Jews began to defend themselves, which initially surprised the Nazis and disorganised their operations.
“The German columns entering the ghetto were fired upon and pelted with grenades and petrol bottles,” says Persak. “After a few hours, the insurgents retreated to their hiding places. In the afternoon, the Jewish Military Union began defending Muranów Square. Fighting there continued until April 22, four days later. Then, ŻZW members retreated to the Aryan side, using a tunnel dug under Muranowska Street.”
The insurgents used bunkers, basements, and sewers. The Germans destroyed the ghetto, setting fire to buildings and blowing up shelters. On May 8, 1943, the ŻOB commander, Mordechai Anielewicz, died a Maccabean death in the bunker at 18 Miła Street. On May 16, the Germans blew up the Great Synagogue on Tłomackie Street, symbolically ending the uprising.
The Jewish Uprising and the Polish Cause
News of the uprising reached the Aryan part of the city almost immediately. The sounds of fighting could be heard in neighbouring districts, and clouds of smoke hung over the ghetto, visible throughout Warsaw. For the non-Jewish part of the city, it was a shock – for years, the antisemitic press and Nazi propaganda had perpetuated the image of Jews as a cowardly nation incapable of fighting.
“The last time Jews fought was 1,800 years ago. Since then, they have been parasitic on the flesh of European nations, universally hated and despised. They fought everyone, but only by deception, never openly, never with weapons in hand. […] Jewish cowardice has become proverbial. They have lost human dignity. Tens of thousands of Jews passively went to the gas chambers or to the bullet, grovelling vilely before the enemy. And suddenly, this same Jewish nation takes up arms. This same nation fights heroically,” wrote Zofia Kossak-Szczucka in an article, “Around the Burning Ghetto”, published in the underground press.
Admiration for Jewish heroism and sympathy for the victims were mixed with indifference, and sometimes even revulsion. However, the act of armed resistance itself gave many people their first glimpse of Jewish subjectivity. For some, this serves as proof that to be taken seriously, Jews must demonstrate strength. Viewed through the lens of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, it’s difficult to deny this interpretation a certain validity. The question remains whether this line of reasoning is justified in any historical and political context.
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was—and remains—problematic for the non-Jewish majority in Poland. National Democrats (ND) groups combat its memory for obvious reasons, while in the Polish People’s Republic, a solitary Jewish rebellion did not fit the official narrative of the Polish people’s common struggle against the occupier.
“During the Stalinist period, the Ghetto Uprising was portrayed primarily as an uprising of working people, Jewish proletarians fighting fascism,” says Professor Dariusz Stola, director of the POLIN Museum. “This interpretation wasn’t entirely false, but it served clear political purposes: it exaggerated the role of the communists while marginalising the participation of their former political rivals on the Jewish scene, namely the Zionists and socialists. The narrative was intended to be anti-fascist and proletarian, but also accusatory of the underground loyal to the Polish government in exile.”
After the war, in July 1945, there were 65,000 Jews in Poland, and by mid-1946, after repatriation from the USSR, there were as many as 220,000. Between 1944 and 1947, most of them left for Palestine, the United States, and other countries. Faced with the destruction of their Jewish world, some simply saw no future in Poland. Others left in response to hostility from Poles: a wave of antisemitic attacks was sweeping the country, and Holocaust survivors faced distrust from the majority community. There were also those who left for the Middle East to pursue the dream of a “Jewish state” after the war. Tsyvia Lubetkin and Yitzhak Cukierman, who survived the uprising, founded the Lochamei ha-Geta’ot, or Ghetto Fighters, kibbutz in the Galilee, which still exists today.
As the Jewish community in Poland dwindled, the memory of the uprising became organically threatened. After successive waves of emigration and the “anti-Zionist campaign” of 1967-1968, which resulted in the departure of most of the remaining Jews from Poland, commemorations of the uprising served to improve the country’s image in the West.
“The authorities were aware of their poor reputation abroad,” explains Stola. “The actions undertaken at that time were largely ritualistic. They wanted to show that the People’s Republic of Poland was not antisemitic. However, few Jews remained who could remember and speak about the war from their own perspective. The subject of the Holocaust was politically sensitive, and publishing reliable studies was difficult because it attracted the attention of censors.”
The three petals that form the Star of David
After the political transformation in Poland, a need, and above all, an opportunity, arose to revive the memory of the Ghetto Uprising. At the initiative of the POLIN Museum, the “Daffodils” campaign was first organised in 2013. As Dariusz Stola explains, the idea for this form of commemoration of the uprising came from museum employee Ewa Budek. The daffodil itself refers to Marek Edelman, one of the participants in the uprising, who survived it and remained in Poland for the rest of his life.
“Edelman, discouraged by ceremonies involving members of the government or the Polish United Workers’ Party Politburo, organised a kind of alternative commemoration,” says Stola. “At that time, he was not only a witness to history but also an important figure in the Solidarity movement. Every year on April 19th, he laid yellow flowers at the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes.”
“I assumed that the pin would be easy and inexpensive to make,” explains Helena Czernek, a graphic designer and author of the paper flower design. “The daffodils distributed on the streets by volunteers are not fully finished. They are received in the form of a closed flower bud, which everyone can then unfold independently, creating a Star of David, thus becoming a co-creator of the memory of the uprising, its heroes, and its victims.”
Over 120 volunteers are involved in distributing the paper daffodils, and the memory of this heroic effort has become a permanent part of Warsaw’s local identity.
“During the first campaign, the museum printed 30,000 daffodils,” recalls Stola. “In recent years, we’ve printed 300,000 paper flowers each.” Over time, the campaign expanded to other cities, but its goal remains unchanged: to commemorate this important event in the history of Warsaw and Poland, the first armed urban uprising in occupied Europe.”
The culture of memory in an age of total polarisation
This year’s “Daffodils” campaign was not without controversy. Demands were raised to exclude the journalist Marcin Szczygieł from the campaign’s ambassadors due to his “one-sided” statements about Israel. At the same time, a petition was submitted to the mayor of Warsaw requesting that the Israeli flag not be flown during official city commemorations. Some see this as an attempt to distort history – after all, those fighting in the uprising used both the Polish and Zionist flags.
Today, the voices of those who would use the memory of the ghetto fighting to silence any discussion about Israel’s responsibility are becoming increasingly louder and clearer. A growing number of people also want to de-Judaise the memory of the uprising. They want to eliminate uncomfortable threads that don’t fit the narrative of bloodthirsty Zionists and morally pure anti-Zionists (or vice versa).
The quality of the debate on memory and its forms is being undermined by the shift of discussion to social media platforms. Algorithms designed to stir up emotions and attract attention increase the reach of extreme and one-sided messages at the expense of balanced, substantive exchanges.
What’s wrong with the debate on memory is illustrated by the current discourse surrounding Marek Edelman. Some argue that, as an outspoken anti-Zionist, Edelman supported the creation of a Jewish state in… Bavaria. Others argue that, yes, he may have been an anti-Zionist, but one who liked Israel and, had he lived, would certainly have defended its good name during the Gaza War. Only Edelman, out of spite, refuses to rise from his grave to concede the point.
The memory of the uprising divides. Therefore, it must be shared.
It’s impossible to view the rising tide of antisemitism without considering Israel’s actions. This belief is shared by a growing number of Jews. “Netanyahu needs antisemitism,” warned Etgar Keret during an author event at the POLIN Museum. Growing hostility helps Netanyahu and his fascist coalition partners consolidate support. If everyone is against Jews and Israel, is there any alternative to the constant escalation of the conflict?
By using starvation as a weapon of war or introducing the death penalty for murders committed with “intent to harm the state,” Israel is increasingly moving away from democratic values. Therefore, the memory of the tragic history of European Jews must not be turned into a cudgel to silence criticism of the state’s actions.
The philosopher Andrzej Leder protested against such a misappropriation of memory on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. In his moving text, he warned that memory as a tool in the hands of Israeli propaganda would inevitably lead to the collapse of the culture of remembrance, perhaps even its inversion. Leder’s article was addressed to all those who hold the memory of Jewish history dear today. And although the author revealed himself as an opponent of Hamas and devoted an entire paragraph to defending Zionism, he did not avoid accusations of “Jew-bashing.” In a polemic against him published by Onet, Poland’s largest news website, Beata Lewkowicz, Anne Goldshmid, and Jan Hartman used the word “antisemitism” in every possible way.
At the same time, in the ongoing debate about Israel, it is difficult to ignore references to the infamous tradition of Polish antisemitism. Furthermore, fewer and fewer people care about the distinction between Jews, Israelis, and Israel and its government. “The Jewish nation has gone mad, just like the Germans once did,” left-wing politician Piotr Ikonowicz announced during an interview for Channel Zero. Do we really want comparing Jews to Nazis to be the default way of discussing Jewishness on the Polish left?
“I wrote a book about the antisemitic campaign of 1967-1968, and I often experience déjà vu because I know the language, its twisted grammar and vocabulary,” says Stola. “I’m not saying that every critic of Israel is a descendant of the propagandists of the 1960s, but some cross the line, smuggling antisemitic messages under the guise of anti-Zionism.”
Writer and scholar Piotr Forecki drew attention to the similarities between the current discourse and Communist government’s anti-Jewish rhetoric of the March 1968 “anti-Zionist” campaign, during a lecture delivered at the POLIN Museum. In it, he argues that the accusation of “Zionism” has a strong racist potential and is sometimes, even on the left, couched in language strikingly reminiscent of antisemitic journalism from the Communist era. Piotr Forecki’s famous speech, “Yes to Europe, but together with our Zionists”, was published in the yearbook Zagłada Żydów. Studia i Materiałach (The Holocaust: Studies and Materials).
It is worth recalling the discussion surrounding an article by journalist and Palestine solidarity activist Kacper Max Lubiewski, which recently appeared in OKO.press. In it, the author expressed a longing for a time when admitting to being Jewish in Poland did not immediately lead to collective ostracism. He also dared to include a few platitudes about the role of Israel and Zionism in the lives of Polish Jews, without imposing his own interpretation as the only correct one.
It doesn’t matter that Lubiewski devotes the lion’s share of his attention to Palestine. Even though almost every one of his articles is an indictment of the fundamental principles of the Israeli political system, and he himself gives voice to those who openly call the Palestinian situation apartheid, Lubiewski was dragged through the mud in the comments and branded a Zionist, and the discussion under the post on a popular social media platform had to be blocked.
The memory of the uprising allows us to see each other
The Jews who fought in the Warsaw Ghetto held diametrically opposed views. Faced with imminent extermination, they nevertheless decided to join forces. Even today, memory must encompass many voices. The memory of the ghetto will either be polyphonic, convoluted, and politically entangled—or it will be non-existent. Just around the corner lurks a broad fire-extinguishing front, hostile to all things Jewish, which could seize power in Poland. Therefore, if only for this one day, we should unite around the motto of remembrance.
“The motto ‘Memory Unites Us’ is precisely such a bridge,” says Miriam Synger, author of books educating about Judaism. “A bridge across Gaza, across the IDF, across Zionism and anti-Zionism, and even across contemporary disputes between Jews and antisemites, across the personal views of those wearing daffodils on their lapels.” It refers to the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. It would be good to be able to pay tribute to the fighters in peace – not only Jewish heroes, but also Polish ones.
Originally published in Polish by Krytyka Polityczna. Read the original here. This is a machine translation, edited for Left Renewal by Ben Gidley, and republished with permission of Krytyka Polityczna.
Aleksander Kamkow is a graduate of Hebrew Studies at the University of Warsaw and Semitic Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin. A native of Częstochowa and a socialist, he is interested in the Middle East and Arabic dialectology. A columnist, he has written for OKO.press, “Kontakt” magazine, and “Magazyn Muzułmański Al-Islam.”
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