Baruch Spigel (04.10.1919–09.05.2013)

He was born as Bronek Szpigel in 1919. After the outbreak of World War II he found himself in the Warsaw Ghetto where he became involved in the resistance movement. He fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, during which he detonated one of the fighters’ two mines in Nowolipie. Together with his future wife Chaja Bełchatowska, he was part of a group of about 60 insurgents who managed to get to the so-called Aryan side. After leaving Warsaw, he joined the partisans. On August 1, 1944, he emerged from hiding and took part in the Warsaw Uprising. After the war, the couple emigrated to Canada. Spigel’s son Julius explained this decision by saying, “My father could not live in the country where his ancestors had died, and he did not see his future as a Jew in Poland.”

In 2000, he gave an interview to Ance Grupińska for the book “Ciągle po kole. Rozmowy z żołnierzami getta warszawskiego,” (“All that time. Conversations with the Warsaw Ghetto soldiers”) and in 2006 he appeared in the Israeli documentary “The Last Jewish Insurgents.”