Given name: Gustaw Family name: Alef

Young lawyer and economist. Before the war, he worked in Jewish economic press agency and later in Zbaszyn - in a camp for Polish Jews expelled form Nazi Germany. He worked there as a secretary of doctor Emmanuel Ringelblum. At the beginning of the war, he was in the East with a wave of refugees. In 1941, after the outbreak of German-Soviet war, he returned to the Warsaw ghetto and started to work in the Centos (Central Organisation for Orphan Care). He was skilled organiser and, in the Centos, he was in charge of the department taking care of the children of the street. In his youth, he was a member of Haszomer Hacair and before the war, he was engaged in the communist movement. In the ghetto, he was one of the chief activists of the underground units of the Polish Workers' Party (PPR). After establishing the Anti-fascist block in the ghetto, he participated actively in fighting organisations connected with the block. Right after the First Action, he was ordered to leave the ghetto and to cross to the People's Army (Armia Ludowa) guerilla movement. In the course of time, he became one of the leaders of the People's Army (pseudonyms: Bolkowiak, Bolek). He edited clandestine, underground publications and organised anti-Nazi actions in different parts of Poland. After the war, he was a colonel of Polish Army in active service for many years. He was an attaché in Polish embassy in the USA and held different, responsible military duties. After the war, he was for some time, a member of the Central Committee of Polish Jews and representative of the Jewish Partisan Union (ZZP). For many years, he was also deputy of the Secretary General of the International Federation of Resistance Fighters (FIR). He died in Poland, at the end of 1979.