A. Perhaps you will allow me merely to add a few words. The news the Polish scout Heniek Grabowski brought - he lived in Poland - was hard on us, on all those who heard it. I heard it from him the same night he arrived. I was then about to travel to Opatoshow (Apte) to the Jewish community there and to Ostrowiec Kielecki. And I heard this report - I am from Vilna. I was born in Vilna. I left my parents and my family in Vilna. And here he brought such news from Vilna. As a child, I played nut games in Ponary. And here, this was Ponary! They were putting to death Jews of Vilna in Ponary which had been a scene of my childhood.

I merely wanted to begin with this in order to explain the terrible shock that overtook me. That night I did not know what to do. I decided to travel to Ostrowiec. I wanted to be alone. But I returned from this trip a changed man. Here was a total indiscriminate death to the Jews, with the German occupation coming in the wake, or preceding it by a few days, the total liquidation of the Jews. We had got used to it in some way. We had experienced it by stages, for them it overtook them suddenly - the occupation, the murdering, and then the plunder of their property. Apparently we did not act so quickly, within hours. We could not, then regain our equilibrium, at any rate, I could not.

Before I recovered from this shock of Ponary, came Chelmno, Kulmhof, the "Spezialwagen" - hermetically sealed trucks into which they were loading Jews and taking them from an abandoned palace of a Polish nobleman, to a wood, some kilometres, I think about 15 kilometres, away. And when they brought them back, they were found to be dead. This was related by a gravedigger from Chelmno who escaped, but he, too, was murdered afterwards. If I am not mistaken, efforts were made from Warsaw to save him, when Warsaw was surrounded and they took him to Hrubieszow or to Zamosc. And there he, too, fell.

On the one side, in the East, it burned and it burned on the other side from the West. Chelmno was in the Warthegau. We were in the middle. Could we think that the fire would not come upon us? In what way were we any better, we the Jews of Warsaw, the Jews of the Generalgouvernement, that they should treat us differently. There were arguments we put forward concerning ourselves and concerning others, concerning the Jewish community. Ours was a good, naive and honest people.

It was impossible to believe that such a thing could occur - that they would arise in their masses on the multitude of the House of Israel and would massacre them. Already prior to this, after the outbreak of the War, with the invasion of the Soviet Union, we believed that it was necessary to begin the establishment of a Jewish military organization.

In general, I would like to say, if I may be permitted, that it is impossible to evaluate the Jewish underground in its isolation from the general underground, without seeing what was happening in the world. I am not referring to wider aspects. But if we were to view ourselves, despite the fact that we were isolated in the ghetto and not to view the influences, the mutual interaction between the factors in action, we would miss the point. Until the Jews of Warsaw were murdered there was no sign of light in the world. El Alamein and Stalingrad happened when there were no longer Jews in Warsaw, when the Jews of Warsaw had gone to their deaths - they did not even know that there would be a first victory. They were isolated. It seemed to me that the whole world had collapsed. The underground movements of the world had not begun to fight during those days. In Paris they did so on the eve of the approach of the Allies. In Warsaw it happened in August 1944.

Attorney General: Mr. Zuckerman, allow me to guide you by my questions now. You remember the deportations; do you remember anything special in regard to elderly people at the time of those deportations?

Witness Zuckerman: Yes.

Q. What do you remember?

A. During the days of the deportation, commencing on 22 July 1942 the Germans would, especially during the early period, remove weak and elderly people from the line when they were sorting them out, in order to kill them, by explaining that such people were not suitable for work. The impression was created amongst the younger people that those who were, in fact, suitable for work would really be taken to work.

Q. And then you established the Jewish fighting force?

A. The Jewish fighting force was established six days after that, on 28 July 1942.

Q. At its head stood Mordechai Anilewicz?

A. Not yet.

Q. Who headed it at that time?

A. At that time there was a headquarters of four people. Shmuel Breslaw, Josef Kaplan, Zivia Lubetkin and I.

Q. When did Anilewicz take over the command?

A. Mordechai Anilewicz received the command in September, after the "Rounding up."

Q. All of you were without any military experience?

A. Generally speaking most of us were people lacking military training.

Q. Meanwhile you also got to know about the extermination camps, about Treblinka, about Chelmno - did you know about these earlier?

A. We heard about Treblinka for the first time during the week of Passover 1942, without really knowing what it was.

Q. Afterwards you knew?

A. Yes, already in the first days, possibly on the first day we already knew what Treblinka meant.

Q. Did you make the information public?

A. We published leaflets: "Aussiedlung (resettlement) means Treblinka, and Treblinka means death"; we called upon the Jews to hide.

Q. In December 1942, in persuance of your role in the Jewish fighting force, you were in Cracow. There some underground activity was taking place. Cracow was the place of residence of Frank. The Jewish fighting force attacked the Ziganera Cafe which the German officers used to patronize?

A. Yes, this and other operations.

Q. Were you there at the time?

A. Yes.

Q. What happened to you there?

A. In the course of my duty I set out to visit a number of towns, Cracow, Czestochowa. I never reached Czestochowa. I was held up in Cracow. I set out actually for one purpose: after the Jews of Cracow had been done to death, there remained a small, reduced ghetto. The Jewish underground was known there; as in the case of every group, there was a collaborator, an informer or traitor, who informed on the heads of the underground movement and these members had no alternative but to leave the ghetto and set up bases on the Aryan side of Cracow. They carried out some very important tasks there. There were valuable groups there and an outstanding leadership.

Q. Do you want to mention some names?

A. Yes. There was Dolek Liebeskind, there was Shimon Draenger.

Q. Who wrote the book known as Memoirs of Justina03?

A. This was written by Draenger's girlfriend, when she was in goal in Cracow, afterwards, at a later date. There was a debate. We did not agree that the Jewish fighting force in Cracow should be located outside the ghetto and we decided to send the members of the Jewish fighting force, through certain operations, back in the ghetto. They were to leave their base on the Aryan side and go back to their stand. For this purpose it was necessary to prepare a plan and it was for this reason that I was sent - fortunately for me and to their misfortune, although I do not regret the action that was taken, but only its consequences. But in those operations - it was Christmas eve 1942, when the German population was getting ready for the holiday - on the same day that I came I learned that they had prepared three or four operations for that very evening. They had decided to attack, with hand-grenades and revolvers, a cafe which was frequented by SS and Gestapo men.

Q. Did they do it?

A. Yes. They decided to attack individual Gestapo men in the streets of the city and to disarm them. They decided to burn down a garage of military vehicles, and a fourth group was to distribute leaflets amongst the populace.

Q. Was the operation carried out?

A. The operation was carried out with exceptional success; but we, that is to say I and the members of the headquarters, who were meeting later that night and decided to meet the members of that base, did not know that they had been caught by the Gestapo that very night.

Q. Were Tennenbaum and Leibowicz amongst them?

A. Yes. I was together with Leibowicz. Both of us were seized by the Germans. I was wounded then and escaped.

Attorney General: Perhaps at this stage I shall submit a document to the Court. This is our No. 1246 - a notice that was sent by SS Gruppenfuehrer Mueller, the Accused's superior, to the "Fuehrer-Hauptquartier" (Fuehrer's Headquarters) - the matter seemed to have been of some importance - giving information about the capture of three Jewish bandits: Abraham Leibowicz, Adolf Liebeskind and Yuda Tennenbaum, who organized the Jewish underground operations in Cracow. Liebeskind's widow will give evidence this afternoon.

Presiding Judge: This will be T/254.

Attorney General: The Court should kindly take note that there is also reference to arms that were confiscated.

[To witness] In Cracow did the command also consist of members of all the youth movements?

A. That is difficult for me to say, but they came from many movements, not only one. The organization was many-sided.

Q. As in Warsaw?

A. Somewhat less. This was a smaller city. Warsaw was a city of half a million Jews.

Q. We shall shortly come to the problem why it was so in Warsaw and not in other places. You went back, after that December, to Warsaw?

A. Yes.

Q. Were you physically fit?

A. No, I was badly hurt.

Q. Where?

A. This was on one of the days of the German attacks...

Q. Where?

A. In Cracow, when, accompanied by Laban Leibowicz, I came into the base. It was an abandoned Jewish hospital, not far from the windows of the Gestapo. When we entered, they let us come in, but would no longer let us leave. It turned out that on the previous evening members of the Jewish fighting force were captured by the Germans. When we entered, we were ordered to raise our hands. Both of us raised our hands. Since Leibowicz was the first, he remained there, unable to move. I still managed to throw myself in the direction of the door and to open the door, but I fell, with injuries to my leg. It was my luck that I was walking with boots, and the blood streamed into the boots.

Q. And then you recovered?

A. A weeks later, I reached Warsaw unaided.

Q. Meanwhile economic enterprises were established in Warsaw where Jews were employed?

A. Yes.

Q. Do you remember which enterprises these were?

A. There were many. The region was divided into four zones. There was the area of the brushmakers, who made brushes for the army. After that there was the area which they called "Toebbens-Schultz" where there were German industrialists - the elder Schultz, K.G. Schultz who was apparently less rich than the other, Walther Zaesar Toebbens, Hallmann and others.

Q. Did the Jews work there for wages?

A. They were happy that their wages consisted of their working and remaining alive. In the Toebbens complex there was also a ghetto further away. This was in Prosta. Apart from that there was a ghetto which was called the "central ghetto" or the "wild ghetto" or the "Mexican Ghetto." It contained those who were not working.

Q. Were you in charge of the area of the Toebbens-Schultz workshops?

A. Yes. I was the commander of Toebbens-Schultz from January 1943 until I left for the Aryan side in April 1943.

Q. Were 22 groups of the Jewish fighting forces set up there?

A. In all the zones of the ghetto there were 22 groups, nine in the central ghetto, eight in Toebben-Schultz and five...

Q. Did you also have links with the underground in other towns? In Vilna?

A. At that period the links were rather weak. We actually had strong links until the end of 1942 or the beginning of 1943. After that we renewed the links later on.

Q. Was Abba Kovner in Vilna?

A. In Vilna, before him it was Itzik Wittenberg - and afterwards Abba Kovner.

Q. The commander of the underground?

A. The commander of the Jewish fighting force.

Q. Did you have any connection with the Polish underground?

A. Yes.

Q. With the Armia Ludova and the Armia Krajowa?

A. Yes.

Q. Who gave you help?

A. We received help; after the operations we carried out on 20 August 1942 in setting buildings on fire, before we had arms - after these operations we received help. In those operations we obtained petrol and set Jewish houses on fire, firstly in order that Jewish property should not fall into the hands of the Germans and also in order that the fires should alert the world to the fact that we were being exterminated. It was a great night for us, for on that night the fires attracted the Soviet pilots who were passing over Warsaw. On the same night we also attacked a Jewish police officer. After this, some of our comrades, Frumka Plotnicka and Arie Wilner, secured hand grenades and revolvers on the Aryan side and brought them into the ghetto, and we got ready for the final act.

Q. There was another organization, the N.S.T.?

A. Yes.

Q. What was this?

A. This was an organization which consisted of the Fascist elements of Poland. At any rate, in regard to the Jewish question they collaborated with the Germans.

Q. That is to say, they too exterminated Jews?

A. They exterminated Jews.

Q. Please tell us about the operations of January 1943.

A. On 18 January the poet Yitzhak Katzenelson paid a visit to us and was about to return to his home. When he left in the morning, he came back after a short while with his only remaining son and said that all was lost, that the walls were surrounded, that massive detachments of Germans were besieging the ghetto and had actually penetrated into it. This was after several months of comparative quiet, which we had exploited in order to get organized. And on the same morning I was still wounded, I was standing together with my comrades. We had a base at 56-58 Zamenhof, the windows of which faced the Umschlagsplatz. This was at a crossroads and for that reason we had chosen this place.

Elsewhere, in Mila, there was Mordechai Anilewicz together with his unit. There were some other units, but they were not armed; all our attempts to communicate with the other units were in vain, and each commander had in fact, in January and afterwards also during the operations of April, to make his own decisions.

Q. And what happened in January?

A. They began to penetrate. There were men of the SS and the Waffen SS. I am sure of this. There was a transport carrying men to the front, but it was summoned to return to Warsaw, to speed up help to the German forces. But they didn't imagine that this was the beginning of an attempt at Jews organizing themselves. Everything had gone so smoothly during those months. And in the morning they surprised Mordechai Anilewicz' unit. Comrades succeeded in concealing their few arms in their clothing. Mordechai Anilewicz and his unit were taken by the Germans and went with a silent oath in their hearts that they would not reach the Umschlagplatz - in fact this was something which was common to very many young people - and they did not reach it: either they got free or they fell. They came to Zamenhof Street- and this we could see from far off.

We, from our base, saw that our comrades were walking amidst a large collection of Jews, and surrounded by Germans, in the direction of the Umschlagplatz. We were astonished, for this was a most important group that we had counted on. But, evidently, they knew what they were doing. We couldn't open fire, for we would also have hit Jews. We certainly couldn't use hand grenades. But, upon a signal given by Mordechai Anilewicz, the members of his unit who were amongst the ranks, attacked the Germans and threw a hand grenade. At first there was great panic. The Germans scattered, and so did the Jews. But, ultimately, we were dealing with an army.

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