Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
SIRENS RANG OUT and church bells tolled today as Poland marked the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising that saw young Jews take up arms against Nazi German forces.
Hundreds of people including Holocaust survivors gathered at the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes, where Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski called the revolt a “fight for dignity”.
“But it was also an accusation of passivity and ineffectiveness of the whole free world, the world that could not bring itself to help,” he said.
In attendance were the president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, Israeli Education Minister Shai Piron, plus one of the last three living survivors of the uprising.
Simcha “Kazik” Rotem, 89, recalled that by April 1943 most of the ghetto’s Jews had died and the 50,000 who remained expected the same fate.
But rather than die in the gas chambers at the Treblinka death camp, Rotem and hundreds of his comrades launched the April 19 uprising to “choose the kind of death” they wanted.
“But to this very day I keep thinking whether we had the right to make the decision to start the uprising and by the same token to shorten the lives of many people by a week, a day or two,” Rotem said.
Nobody gave us authorisation to do that and that’s the doubt I have to live with.
Around 7,000 Jews died in Europe’s first urban anti-Nazi revolt, most of them burned alive, and nearly all the rest were then sent to Treblinka.
Rotem survived by masterminding an escape through the drain system with dozens of comrades. Polish sewer workers guided them to the surface.
“We have an obligation to remember them”
Prayers are said in front of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising memorial today (AP Photo/Alik Keplicz)
Poland’s chief rabbi Michael Schudrich told AFP that the 70th anniversary is special precisely because “we still have among us those who actually fought”.
“There’s a sense that we have an obligation to make sure we really remember to pay tribute now while we still can hear from (them) and so we can thank them for what they did.”
It was also the first anniversary to begin with a few minutes of bell tolls – an important “gesture on the part of the Church”, according to Piotr Kadlcik, president of the Jewish Community of Warsaw.
Three clergymen joined Schudrich in reciting a prayer at the ceremony, where participants wore daffodil pins.
That was a hat tip to Marek Edelman, an uprising commander who every year until his death in 2009 laid a bouquet of the flowers – yellow like the star marking Jews in World War II – at the ghetto hero monument.
People lay flowers at the memorial during ceremonies to mark the 70th anniversary (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
That memorial lies on the former site of the Jewish ghetto that was razed by the Germans and where the communist regime built housing directly on the rubble.
“Below the buildings, below the asphalt of the new streets, you’ll find (the ghetto’s) roots, with thousands of buried victims,” tour guide Jacek Leociak told AFP.
The German parliament observed a minute of silence Friday in memory of the fighters.
“We recall with great humility the suffering, the self-sacrifice and the fight for freedom of the people of the Warsaw ghetto,” Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said in Berlin.
Once Europe’s Jewish heartland, Poland saw 90 per cent of its 3.3 million pre-war Jews wiped out by 1945.
Jewish people face Nazi forces during the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto after the uprising (AP Photos)
Sorry seems to be the hardest word goes the song,not in this kip though.
I find it hard to believe that there are still people in Galway Council that were active in the 70s-late 90s. Anybody in an institution that was involved with the deaths and unlawful dumping of babies can apologise away. If they were not involved with this institution then the apologies are empty. Where are those guilty of these atrocities? Those that were there and turned a blind eye? Hiding away, letting others apologise…
@Oliver Walker: I recently discovered that Politicians that are around since 1981 in Galway are still active today and include Mayors and Former TDS .
@Aine Healy: What do you mean ‘do your research’?… Have you seen the report? Have you read the article? Babies remains were dumped in septic tanks…
Big leap from that to abortion.
@Oliver Walker: please see my above reply in answer to your questions.
So, did you vote yes to legalising abortion that is responsible for the deaths of 7000 “invisible and voiceless” pre born human beings it it’s first year alone? Yes?
@Aine Healy: hold up, if they weren’t ‘dumped’ in there how do you think they got there? Crawled in themselves and died?
@Helen Downey: you should also do your research Helen. No babies were “dumped” in a “septic tank” by “the nuns” or anyone else. Notwithstanding the official report ( which I suggest that you actually read), where in the article above, does it state that babies were “dumped” in a “septic tank”?
It would appear that you are letting your ideological narrative get on the way of facts.
How about you Helen? Did your vote yes to the legalization of abortion which is responsible for the deaths of over 7000 Irish babies in its first year alone, most of whom actually did end up in the sewage system unlike the “Tuam babies” who did not?
@Aine Healy: I consider babies in a sewage system dumped. How else did they get there? You haven’t answered that I see.
@Helen Downey: you really should do your own homework rather than expecting others to do it for you. Why so lazy?
Again, your “consideration” does not facts make, although I acknowledge your considered opinion that aborted babies (those who are not incinerated) who end up in the sewage system as being “dumped”.
There is no written or oral documentation that evidences that babies or children who died in Tuam were “dumped” in a “septic tank” by “the nuns” or indeed that they were “killed” by “the nuns”.
Overwhelming evidence, with detailed references, shows that coffins and shrouds were used for babies who died in the Tuam mother and baby home. The babies were placed in a crypt. Crypts are very common in Ireland. Catherine Corless herself, interviewed two carpenters families who spoke to her about how their relatives built coffins for the babies. Nor were there any pipes going to or out the structure making the claim that the remains were in a septic tank utterly ridiculous. Old maps show a cess poll ( which is different to a septic tank) within the area and Corless put two and two together, made five, of which pro abortion advocates and Catholic bigots were only to delighted to fly the flag for.
All of the babies and children’s names, ages, places of birth and causes of death (tb, measles, flu, whooping cough amongst other illnesses) were recorded.
It was in fact county council who reduced the size of the original graveyard in order to build an access road to houses that had been built on the site and also to provide a playground. They reinterred the remains of babies and children that they had dug up in the structure (known as an ossuary). “The nuns” were well gone according to the evidence that shows the structure and re interment to have occurred after 1960’s.
Again, research on your part would have led you to the facts, but again it appears that you have little interest in the truth of the matter. How tragic is that?
@Aine Healy: the remains were found in a septic tank. Disused or not it is a septic tank. Not a grave.
Ah well, that’s ok then. No worries!
@Joecantdance: considering that the majority of the members of the council weren’t even born during the majority of the time this abuse was going on, what do you really expect them to do?
Not good enough, want to hear from the county manager at the time and to hear what his reasoning behind his lack of knowledge empathy of the women , not from the present council offering a hollow apology
They will be even more sorry when sued
No good. Not accepted. No point in this. Most of not all of this on the county council has nothing to do with it.
Are their politicians and senior civil servants getting a state funded pension for the work they did years ago. Health Boards, social workers among others.
have your say