Did the fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto have a monopoly on heroism during the Holocaust? Or were the heroes those that with no gun and no ammunition sanctified G-d’s name and refused to lose their Jewish soul?
My father’s brother was a commander in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. He fell in the final battle that took place during Pesach 5704 (1944) meeting his end in the bunker that was under his command. His wife and little daughter died along with him. That is my personal link to the torture and suffering of the ghetto’s famous last stand.
My uncle’s name was Yisrael Grylak Hy”d. For years his name went unmentioned among the fighters who before they died claimed the lives of the SS men who oppressed them. He wasn’t mentioned because the Leftists took credit for the uprising that became a symbol of Jewish heroism. When the State of Israel was declared those who took power in Eretz Yisrael granted honor and prestige only to people from left-wing Zionist movements such as the Shomer HaTzair. Yisrael Grylak belonged to the Bund a Yiddishist anti-Zionist and anti-chareidi movement. And so he was forgotten just as the Revisionist fighters and even the young Religious-Zionist fighters were deliberately forgotten. After all we Jews are experts at holding on to machlokes even at the gates of Gehinnom.
Of course forty or fifty years ago it was upsetting to see my uncle relegated to oblivion. Since then however the wrong has been partly righted. Today books and articles are not afraid to mention those fighters who weren’t from the politically-correct Leftist groups when they discuss that lost battle.
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