Street: Chłodna City: From Warsaw

Yad Vashem Archives Testimony 033/442 Halina Raps-Aszkenaze
The testimony is divided into three parts. First one, entitled 'Tajne nauczanie w getcie warszawskim' ('Clandestine Education in the Warsaw Ghetto'), is a short story about a group of youth in the Warsaw ghetto, who organised secret classes and self-study groups for themselves. Part two comprises of two poems written in 1945, entitled 'Wiosna 1945' ('Summer of 1945') and 'List do Matki' ('A Letter to Mother'). Part three contains in fact Halina Raps-Aszkenaze's memoirs from the Warsaw ghetto. Description of the lot of Warsaw Jews from the siege of Warsaw in September 1939. Anti-Jewish repression: throwing Jews out from the queues for bread, round-ups after work, robberies of the flats, armbands. Establishment of the ghetto. Refugee centre in Ogrodowa Street. Description of indigence, hunger and typhus epidemic. Circle of smugglers. The Great Action. Work in the metal factory in Leszno Street. Looting deserted flats and trading with Poles. Work in Toebbens' shop in Swietojerska Street. Round-up action. The January Action. Demoralisation of the youth in the ghetto. Futile search for help on the 'Aryan side.' The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising; bunkers, hiding in ruins. The Germans discovering the hideout. Escape from the train to Majdanek. Hiding in the country. Return to Warsaw. Part one has different page numbering. No page 14 in part two. The whole testimony in Yad Vashem Archives has 129 pages. Halina Raps-Aszkenaze's memoirs were published in Polish, in Warsaw in 1991 entitled: 'Pragnelam Zyc' (I Wanted to Live). Typescript, pp. 1-6 and 1-55, size: 290 x 210 mm, in Polish.