Click here to learn about the Bialystok Ghetto Uprising Click here to see partial list of martyrs of the Bialystok Ghetto Uprising Mordechai Tenenbaum - Tamaroff, member of the Dror youth movement and the Jewish Fighting Organization in the Warsaw and Bialystok ghettos.
Tenenbaum was born in Warsaw in 1916. Upon the outbreak of WWII, he and his friends went from the Dror movement center in Warsaw to Kovel and then to Vilnius (Vilna). His movement activities there included work at the center for pioneering youth, organizing a special seminar for movement activists, field visits to branches in outlying cities and towns, and transmitting funds and materials to them. He crossed borders and, under threat of danger, kept contact between the Dror branches throughout the occupied areas. With the German occupation in 1941 he increased his activities, seeking hideouts for his comrades and bringing groups of pioneers from all the movements to Bialystok, accompanying them on their way. His contingent of activists brought the news to Warsaw about the mass killings of Jews and called for organized armed resistance.In Warsaw he posed as a Tatar, using a forged passport issued with the name Yussuf Tamaroff. While working in Vilnius, he established contact with the anti - Nazi Austrian sergeant Anton Schmid in the German army, who later paid with his life for his aid to Jews.
After the Great Aktion (mass deportations) in the Warsaw ghetto of the summer of 1942, there was a decision of the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB) on Sept. 12, 1942 to organize armed resistance in the other key ghettos, and Mordechai Tenenbaum was put in charge of organizing the fighters of the Bialystok ghetto. He succeeded in uniting two underground factions in the Bialystok ghetto and to prepare for an uprising on a day when the Germans would try to liquidate the ghetto. The Judenrat chairman Efraim Barasz and other Bialystock Jews were reluctant to accept this , as they believed this productive ghetto would remain untouched by the Germans. In August 1943, the Germans did come to liquidate the ghetto. They were resisted by hundreds of fighters who had prepared for this event, and they fought hard and suffered dozens of casualties.
For a long time, the circumstances of Tenenbaum's death were unknown, despite searches conducted afterwards in the Poniatowa and Trawniki camps. The historian Dr. Datner has determined that Mordechai Tenenbaum, together with his deputy Daniel Moszkowic, committed suicide rather than falling into German hands.
On April 18, 1945, he was posthumously awarded the Gruenwald Cross, Third Class, by the Polish army High Command
Berl Szacman, member of the Jewish underground in the Bialystok ghetto. He took part in the ghetto uprising in August 1943.
Rivka Madeiskar, member of the Jewish underground in the Vilnius (Vilna) and Bialystok ghettos.
Rivka Madeiskar, born in 1922, she was a member of Ha - Shomer ha - Tsa'ir and took part in the Bialystok ghetto uprising. After that she lived as a Pole, under the assumed name of Marysia Madejska, on the "Aryan" side of Bialystok, and served as a courier with the partisans. She was arrested by Ukrainian SS men after having been informed on. She was charged with providing aid for a wounded Jew in hiding. Rivka Madeiskar was tortured to death; she died on December 3, 1943.
Renia and Srulek Wiernik of the Bialystok ghetto. They both fell in the ghetto uprising.
Yitzhak Margolis, member of the Jewish underground in the Bialystok ghetto.
Yitzhak Fleischer, commander of Betar fighters in the Bialystok ghetto uprising.
Yitzhak Jung of the Bialystok ghetto, who perished in the Majdanek camp. Photographed in 1930.
Zipora Birmann, member of Dror and the Jewish underground in the Vilnius (Vilna) and Bialystok ghettos. Birman was born in Rozhishche (Rozyszcze) in 1916. At the outbreak of the war she was in a hachshara (Zionist pioneering training program) in Vilnius. She was active in smuggling comrades out of the Soviet occupied area to a movement center in Vilnius. In 1942 she moved to Bialystok. She was among the organizers of the groups which escaped from the Grodno ghetto to the forests. She fell in the Bialystok ghetto uprising in August 1943.
Zvi Mersik, member of He - Chaluts ha - Tsa'ir and Dror and the Jewish underground of the Bialystok ghetto. Zvi Mersik was born in Melnitsa near Kovel. From 1938, he was a member of the Dror central committee. In 1939 he was active in the pioneering underground in the area of Soviet - occupied Poland. During the Nazi occupation of Vilnius (Vilna), he moved to Bialystok and operated in the Jewish underground in the ghetto, along with Mordechai Tenenbaum - Tamaroff. Mersik was involved in preserving documentation and collecting testimonies for an archive. He died of typhus in 1942.
Zvi Rozental, member of the Dror youth movement and the Jewish underground in the Bialystok ghetto. Rozental was born in Yasinuvka in 1922. He belonged to the He - Chaluts ha - Tsa'ir youth movement, and afterwards joined Dror. He was part of the hachsharot (Hebrew: Zionist pioneering training programs) in Grochow and Kielce. He came to Bialystok in 1942, and was also active in Grodno and the forests in the area. He fell in the Bialystok ghetto uprising in August 1943.
Yakov Jakubowic, member of the Jewish underground in the Bialystok ghetto.
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Israel Jung of the Bialystok ghetto, who perished in the Majdanek camp. Photographed in 1927.
Arnold Goldstein, of the Polish Communist Party and the Jewish underground in the Bialystok ghetto. Arnold Goldstein was born in Lodz in 1908. He was an attorney by profession. He belonged to the K.P.P. (Polish Communist Party), and was arrested for his political activities. He fell in the Bialystok ghetto uprising on August 17, 1943.
Lola Lerman, member of the Jewish underground in the Bialystok ghetto.
Daniel Moszkowic ("Jerzy"), member of the Jewish underground in the Bialystok ghetto. Moszkowic was born in 1905 in Warsaw. He was a sergeant in the Polish Army. He was among the heads of the anti - Fascist organization in the Bialystok ghetto, an active Communist, and a proponent of resistance from within the ghetto. He was second - in - command to Mordechai Tenenbaum - Tamaroff, and was killed with him in the ghetto uprising. He was posthumously awarded a decoration for bravery after the war.
Tema Schneiderman, courier of the Dror youth movement and a member of the Jewish underground in the Bialystok ghetto. Tema Schneiderman was born in Warsaw in 1917. Upon the outbreak of WWII, she moved to Kovel, then went to the He - Chaluts movement center in Vilnius (Vilna), together with Mordechai Tenenbaum. In Vilnius she began her activities in the Jewish underground and became a courier for the Dror movement in Lithuania and Poland. With the entry of the Germans into Vilnius, she remained there with forged documents, as instructed by the movement. Her "Aryan" appearance and command of the Polish language enabled here to work as a liaison, together with Frumka Plotnicka and Lonka Kozibrodska. Schneiderman was among the first to spread the news of the mass extermination of Vilnius Jewry.
In January 1943, she was sent by Tenenbaum on a mission to Warsaw, taking with her a large sum of money entrusted to her by Efraim Barasz, head of the Judenrat in the Bialystok ghetto, who was opposed to armed resistance. Schneiderman carried out some twenty courier missions between Bialystok and Warsaw. On January 17, 1943, she entered the Warsaw ghetto where, the next day -- during the Second Aktion (mass roundup for deportation) -- she and other young women were arrested and deported to the Treblinka extermination camp. She perished there.
Chaika Grosman, member of Ha - Shomer ha - Tsa'ir and the Jewish underground in the Bialystok ghetto. Photographed in London in 1945. Chaika Grosman was born in 1919 in Bialystok. She served on the central steering committee of the Ha - Shomer Ha - Tsa'ir youth movement. In late 1939 she went to Vilnius (Vilna). With the German occupation in 1941, she was a courier with an "Aryan" assumed identity. She was among the founders of the FPO (Yiddish: United Partisans Organization) in the Vilnius ghetto. In 1941 she relocated to Bialystok, where she was active in the underground and a member of the command staff. She took part in the Bialystok ghetto uprising in August 1943. She was rescued from the ghetto, and joined the partisans. After the war, she immigrated to Israel in 1948.
The courier Bronka Winicka - Klibanski, member of the Jewish underground in the Bialystok ghetto.She was instrumental in preserving what archives remained of the Bialystok ghetto uprising after the liquidation of the ghetto. After the liquidation she was a partisan in the forests around Bialystok. From 1955 she played an essential role in the founding and organization of the Yad Vashem Museum and Archives.
Chaim Kuhn, a partisan and member of the Jewish underground in the Bialystok ghetto.
Members of Bialystok Jewish Underground Top row far right: Shlomo Goldstein, Middle row far right: Mordechai Tanenbaum, Middle row 2nd from right: Ruwke Cyrlin, Middle row 3rd from right: Natan Blizowski, Middle row 2nd from left: Dan Gelbart, Middle Row on the far left: Moske Nowoprucki, Seated on the far right: Feiwel Vgdorhaus, Seated 3rd from the right: Yitzhak Perlis, Seated 2nd from the left: Avraham Gewelber, Seated on the far left. David Kozibrodski,
Shimon Datner standing beside the well which hid the entrance to the underground's bunker at 7 Chmielna Street in Bialystok ghetto Shimon Datner ("Talek") was in charge of a group of 16 armed Jews who tried to leave the Bialystok ghetto on May 24, 1943. During their exchange of fire with the Germans, a German sentry was shot to death.
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