Koza - Yitzhak Suknik
Yitzhak (Icchak) Suknik (Sukenik, Sukiennik),(1920 - 8 May 1943) was a fighter in the Jewish Fighting Organization (Polish: Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa, ŻOB). He was a member of Hashomer Hatzair and took part in the first action of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising on January 18. During the Uprising in April he was a member of the fighting unit led by Mordechai Growas in the Central Ghetto, [1] and was known as an excellent marksman. He died on 8 May 1943 whilst trying to escape to the Aryan side via the sewers.
1: Early Life
Yitzhak was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1920. He was the son of Meier Suknik and Cesia (née Lament). Both his maternal and paternal families originated from the town of Chmielnik, near Kielce in central Poland.
Yitzhak was the middle of three sons. His brothers were Moshek Suknik (born 1918) and Srul Suknik (born 1927).[2]
Yitzhak was studying metalwork at the Vocational School on Stawki Street in Warsaw. He also completed his military service in the Polish army, where he ended up as a sergeant and was regarded as an excellent shot. Around this time, Yitzhak acquired the nickname, Koza – Polish for goat, intended to reflect his happy-go-lucky character. He was described as a young man always having a smile on his face.[3]
2:1939-1942
Poland was invaded and occupied by Germany in September 1939. Yitzhak Suknik, a Socialist Zionist, was a member of Hashomer Hatzair and, for a while in 1939 and in the early stages of the war, he lived on a Hashomer Hatzair farm near Pniewy where the aim was to prepare its members for emigration to Palestine and life on a kibbutz.[4]
Yitzhak's mother and his younger brother Srul were killed during the German attack on Warsaw in September 1939, most probably in the air raids on the city. Yitzhak returned to Warsaw, where the city's Jewish population – now numbering in excess of 400,000 – was forced to live in the Ghetto, which was created in November 1940. During 1941 Yitzhak suffered the loss of the remaining members of his immediate family, most probably the victims of typhus: his grandfather died in June, his older brother Moszek in August and finally his father in November.
In September 1941, Yitzhak escaped Warsaw to join another Hashomer Hatzair training farm, this one near Częstochowa. At some point in the middle of 1942, they disbanded and Yitzhak returned to Warsaw to take an active part in Hashomer Hatzair.[5]
During the summer of 1942 – from July to September – the Germans deported more than 270,000 Jews from the Umschlagplatz in the northern part of the Ghetto to the Treblinka death camp sixty miles northeast of the city. Virtually all of the deportees were murdered within hours of their arrival. This was known as Grossaktion Warsaw. By the time it ended, around 50,000 Jews remained in the ghetto. They knew the Germans planned to eliminate all the Jews from the Ghetto. The seeds of resistance were sown.
On Yitzhak's return to Warsaw, he soon became an invaluable member of the Jewish Combat Organisation. He put his metalworking expertise and knowledge of weapons, learned from his military training, to good use, running two underground workshops to manufacture grenades and repair small arms. He also trained other recruits in the Ghetto in the use of guns. Twice a week he would go to the house of Lotek Rotblat on 44 Muranovska Street to give weapons training.[6]
3: 1943 – Resistance and Uprising
There were two Jewish resistance groupings in the Warsaw Ghetto: the right-wing ZZW – the Jewish Military Union – and the left-wing ZOB – Jewish Combat Organisation.
The ZZW centred around Revisionist Zionists and had been established in late 1939, with its nucleus being Jewish officers from the Polish Army.
Yitzhak Suknik was a member of the ZOB. The ZOB comprised a number of left-wing Zionist groups, most notably Hashomer Hatzair and the secular socialist Bund.
The Holocaust Encyclopaedia estimates that by the start of the Uprising the ZOB had around 500 fighters, with the ZZW having some 250. Marek Edelman – one of the leaders of the Uprising who survived the war – claimed the Organisation had fifty combat units with an average of twenty-five members in each. Most of those who fought in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising were in their 20s. Their youth is attested to by the fact that some of them were known by their childhood nicknames rather than by their real names. Thus, for example, Yitzhak Sukenik was known as "Koza," or "Goat.[7]
4: 18th January 1943
At seven thirty on the morning of 18 January, Nazi forces under the command of SS Brigadier General Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg moved into the ghetto. The plan was to round up 8,000 Jews and send them to the Treblinka death camp, with a further 16,000 to be sent to the labour camps around Lublin.
The Jewish Combat Organisation was able to mobilise five units to the Umschlagplatz, where the Jews were being deported from. Yitzhak Suknik was in a Hashomer Hatzair unit located in the Central Ghetto commanded by their leader, Mordechai Anielewicz (one of the founders and commander of ZOB the Jewish Fighting Organization). They were armed with five revolvers, five grenades, Molotov cocktails, crowbars and clubs.[8]
The fighters joined the line of hundreds of prisoners concentrated on Mila Street and as they reached the corner of Zamenhof and Niska, they attacked them, each member of the unit targeting a German soldier. Anielewicz killed several Nazis with grenades and disarmed a gendarme, capturing his rifle and Luger. In the end he was surrounded by several gendarmes and was saved by Suknik, who threw two grenades at the SS officers pursuing him. One grenade exploded, killing two Germans, while the others ran away, and the column of Jews scattered in search of shelter. [9][10]
Another version of this important battle is recounted by Tuvia Borzykowski [11]. He witnessed how from 58 Zamenhofa Street the column of Jews being marched to the Umschlagplatz. When the convoy reached the corner of Zamenhofa and Niska the Hashomer Hatzair people hurled grenades at the German guards and the members of the S.S special task force. Several of them fell, the others ran for shelter, and the entire convoy fell apart. The fighters set up a barricade in a house on Niska Street and held it against the German reinforcements which soon arrived. The Germans set it on fire. The fighters inside continued firing until the last bullet.
The 18th January was of enormous significance, and Koza's role in it is not to be underestimated. Had Mordechai Anielewicz not survived that day, then his leadership would have been lost to the Uprising when it began in April.
5: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising – April 1943
The Jewish resistance used the time after 18 January to regroup and to plan, modelling themselves as partisans rather than street-fighters. The Germans returned three months later, on 19 April. Sammern-Frankenegg had been replaced by SS-Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop, and he chose the date carefully: it was the eve of the Jewish festival of Passover and the day before Hitler's birthday.
Stroop had a force of more than two thousand men under his command, comprising two Waffen SS battalions of more than 800 men, a hundred Wehrmacht, 1,300 non-German troops and around 100 security police. And although this time they were prepared for some resistance, he had good reason to assume he'd be able to present the clearance of the Ghetto as a birthday present for Hitler.
The Jewish Combat Organisation (ZOB) was now under the overall command of Mordechai Anielewicz and had around 750–1000 fighters, a handful of weapons and homemade explosives. The twenty-two battle groups were organised in three distinct areas: the Central Ghetto, the Brushmakers Workshop area and the Toebbens-Schultz Workshop area.
Koza fought in a combat unit commanded by Mordechai Growas in the Central Ghetto area: his unit was positioned between 29 and 30 Zamenhofa Street. At 6 a.m. on 19 April two German columns entered the Central Ghetto, one of which moved towards Nalewki Street where a battle ensued for over two hours before the Germans retreated.
On 21 April the ZOB's HQ at Mila 29 caught fire and had to be evacuated. Anielewicz led a group of around twenty fighters towards Nalewki street but decided to spend the night at Mila 17 where they were joined by other fighters. Koza was part of this ZOB group at Mila 17. On the 22nd April the Germans were positioned in Kupiecka Street, parallel to Mila, while the fighters positioned themselves in a large yard and prepared to ambush the Nazis. Koza's post was just in front of the gate to the yard and he shot two Germans dead with one bullet.[12]
6: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising – May 1943
The next verified account we have of Yitzhak Suknik's involvement in the Uprising is on 1 May – May Day. The fighting that day centred on the large bunker at 30 Franciszkanska Street and on Nalewki, Leszno and Nowolipie Streets.
According to Tuvia Borzykowski in Between Tumbling Walls ‘we thought of ways to mark (international workers holiday) in a manner befitting the circumstances and we finally decided to do it by a vigorous attack on the enemy.’
Borzykowski describes an ambush of the Nazis, which unusually took place during the day rather than at night. ‘When the right moment came we attacked. Yitzhak Suknik (Koza), a member of Hashomer Hatzair, sent a burst of fire at the Germans, felling three of them.’
This is corroborated in a more detailed account in Out of the Flames by Chaim Primer. ‘Koza, the best shooter in the Organization, came with us and so did four more fighters, one of them a girl from Hashomer Hatzair. So we were seven people, each carrying a pistol. Koza was the only one with a rifle… we reached 43 Nalewki Street, which seemed suitable for an ambush… we positioned ourselves on the top floor of the building, looking over the yard, just across the entrance gate.’
A group of Nazis entered the building and according to Primer: ‘As the Germans turned to leave the yard, Koza said: "Just look, now they're mine!" He took the rifle, and once they reached the gate, Koza pulled the trigger. One soldier fell, as the other staggered away. We left our position immediately and looked for another hiding spot.’
7: Escape And Death: 7th-8th May 1943
By 7 May the situation in the Ghetto was desperate. The few hundred remaining fighters were hiding in bunkers in an ever-decreasing area, most of the ghetto now destroyed. They’d taken heavy casualties and were low on ammunition. Conditions in the bunkers were appalling, unbearably hot and with little food and water. Koza was now at the new ZOB’s HQ located at Mila 18 where Mordechai Anielewicz had begun preparation for fighters to try and escape through the sewers to the so-called Aryan side.
Koza was part of a group of eleven trying to reach a house on the Aryan side [13]. One of the group was Hela Rufeisen-Schüpper, who survived the war. This account of their journey that night is based on her book (translated from Hebrew) Farewell Mila 18.
Their guide was supposed to take them to Bielanska Street but the sewer system was a hazardous maze, difficult to navigate, and they ended up at Dluga Street across from Krasinski Park. As this was still on the Aryan side, they decided to leave the sewers there.
It was dark and just before dawn on 8 May when the first of the group climbed out of the sewer. At that point, they were spotted by Polish police. There was an attempt to bribe the policemen, but German troops who were nearby heard the commotion and came over.
This is Hela Schupper’s account. ‘I heard gunshots. Koza, that's Yitzhak Suknik, who was probably one of the best shooters in the ZOB, ran towards the German to shoot him with his gun. As he was shooting, the others dispersed. I ran as well. Pavel and I tried to stay together, despite the shootings continuing down the empty streets.'
Hela Schupper and at least one other person managed to evade capture. Yitzhak Suknik was shot dead – either by Germans or Polish policemen – on Dluga Street.
The Uprising had been, in the words of Marek Edelman, a chance for the fighters ‘to pick the time and place of our deaths.’
References
- ↑ “Odczytanie listy” (“Reading the List”) by Anka Grupinska
- ↑ http://www.jskutcher.name/Kutscher_Szklarek_Littman_Zmidek/Zmidek/Meir_and_Cesia_Suknik.html
- ↑ "Devastation and mutiny of Warsaw Jews" by Melech Neustadt Print Achdot Inc. Tel-Aviv 1947
- ↑ "The Jews of Warsaw, 1939-1943: Ghetto, Underground, Revolt " by Yisrael Gutman
- ↑ Book of Jewish Partisans, by Chaike Grossman & Aba Kovner, 1958
- ↑ Out of the Flames by Chaim Primer
- ↑ HAARETZ REVIEW of "Obczytanie Listy" ("A Reading of the Scroll") by Anka Grupinska August 1 2003
- ↑ The Warsaw Ghetto Revolt, published June 1 1979 Author Reuben Ainsztein
- ↑ The Warsaw Ghetto Revolt, published June 1 1979 Author Reuben Ainsztein
- ↑ Devastation and Mutiny of Warsaw Jews Author Melech Neustadt Print Achdot Inc. Tel-Aviv 1947
- ↑ 'Between Tumbling Walls' by Tuvia Borzykowski. Published 1972 by Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House
- ↑ "Out of the flames: Authors: Aharon Carmi and Chaim Primer, edited by Aharon Meirovitz 1973
- ↑ KAZIK Memoirs of a Warsaw Ghetto Fighter by Simha Rotem. Yale University Press
Further Reading
Brave and Desperate: Beit Lohamei Haghetaot ISBN 965-7240-02-6
The Ghetto Men. French L. MacLean. Schiffer Publishing. ISBN 0-7643-1285-5
Flags over the Warsaw Ghetto. Moshe Arens. Gefen Publishing House. ISBN 9789652295279
Resistance, The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Israel Gutman. Houghton Miffin Company. ISBN 0-395-90130-8
The Bravest Battle. Dan Kurzman. DA CAPO Press. ISBN 0-306-80533-2
Resistance. Jews and Christians who defied the Nazi Terror. Nechama Tec. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-973541-9
External Links
Warsaw Ghetto Museum Koza 1: Koza, part 1: The story of Yitzhak Suknik - Muzeum Getta Warszawskiego
Warsaw Ghetto Museum Koza 2: Koza, part 2: no longer sheep, but fighters - Muzeum Getta Warszawskiego
Warsaw Ghetto Museum Koza 3: Koza, part 3: To pick the time and place of our deaths - Muzeum Getta Warszawskiego
Yad Vashem - List of Jewish Resistance fighters who died in battle during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943
Polish Centre for Holocaust Research - Entry on Izaak Sukiennik
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