Arie Wilner, aka Jurek (1917-1943)

He was born in Warsaw in 1917 as Izrael Chaim Wilner . Known by the pseudonyms "Arie" and "Jurek," he came from a wealthy family – his father ran a leather goods factory. He had two sisters, Halina and Gustawa , and a brother. He attended a private, Hebrew-language primary school and then a public high school. He was a very good student, but in 1937, due to escalating anti-Semitic attacks by students against Jewish classmates, he dropped out of school and continued his studies as an extramural student. From a young age, he was interested in philosophy, wrote poetry, and loved music.

As a teenager, he joined the left-wing Zionist youth organization Hashomer Hatzair . He became actively involved in the organization's activities and served as an instructor in the "Merhavia" battalion.

After the outbreak of war in 1939, like many Jewish activists, he moved east to Vilnius. In a letter to his sister Gustawa, he informed them that he was working for the local authorities as a graphic artist. When the Germans attacked the Soviet Union and entered Lithuania in June 1941, the extermination of local Jews began. Arie and a group of friends from Hashomer found refuge in a Dominican convent near Vilnius. After several months, in the autumn of 1941, he returned to Warsaw to warn Warsaw Jews about the mass murders taking place in the Ponary Forest near Vilnius, where approximately 40 Jews perished.

Upon returning to the Warsaw Ghetto, he immediately threw himself into underground work. He lived temporarily in the Hashomer kibbutz at 23 Nalewki Street . He frequently left the ghetto as a liaison with regional Hashomer branches. In early 1942, he began organizing resistance movements in Kraków and Częstochowa. In July 1942, shortly after the Germans began the great liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto, a meeting of representatives of several youth organizations (Hashomer, Dror, and Bnei Akiva) took place, at which it was decided to establish the Jewish Combat Organization (ŻOB) . Wilner attended this meeting on behalf of Hashomer. He and Marek Folman were delegated outside the ghetto as ŻOB representatives to contact the Polish underground . Their task was to establish cooperation with the Home Army (AK) and the communist People's Guard . As a liaison, outside the ghetto, Wilner used the name Jerzy Borowski.

Despite working on the other side, Arie was present in the ghetto during the final week of the great deportation operation. Despite the strict blockade of the walls by the Germans and the Blue Police, he managed to smuggle weapons into the ghetto.

In September 1942, the massive operation ended, resulting in the murder of an estimated 250-280 Jews in the Treblinka extermination camp . ŻOB members met to discuss what to do next. The atmosphere was filled with despair, helplessness, and anger. Some fighters, overcome with grief and a sense of defeat, suggested an act of collective, honorable suicide—attacking the Germans with knives. However, Yitzhak Cukierman and Arie Wilner tried to convince the fighters that it was worth the effort, to organize themselves, gather their strength, and prepare for a real fight. Historian Israel Gutman , who attended this meeting, recalls Wilner's speech:

"Brothers, the best of us have already been uprooted. Everything is buried here, between these walls that cut us off from the world—probably forever. Our blood has seeped into this earth, along with our dreams and hopes. […] We must disappear from the face of the earth, hide, prepare and train there; emerge from beneath the earth when we become a force that can stand against the enemy. We are still destined to live. But it will not be a normal life. Normal life is gone forever." (Gutman I., "Mered hanetsurim")

Wilner managed to establish contact with the Home Army. Initially, however, this did not translate into actual support for the ŻOB. Later, thanks to his efforts, in November 1942, the ŻOB was officially recognized by the Government Delegation and began receiving some assistance from the Home Army. Arie also collaborated with the communist People's Guard, thus obtaining weapons for the ghetto. In this contact, he used the pseudonym "Jurek" to emphasize the urgent need to rearm the ŻOB.

Gustawa Wilner , his sister who survived the war, recalled in a report for Yad Vashem that Arie was constantly moving between the ghetto and the "Aryan side," undertaking numerous risky missions, including passing on information and acquiring and transporting weapons.

"I sometimes met him on the street. When he walked toward me, I was amazed by his magnificent appearance. Blond with blue eyes, slim, agile in a sports coat [...] Hands in his pockets, with a smile, he lightly whistled the tunes of a mazurka or a kujawiak. In short, he was whistling at this vile world."

"He often arrived tired, hungry, almost at the end of his rope. […] He didn't get enough sleep, he didn't have a place of his own. He spent the nights in various places in poor conditions. His nerves were constantly on edge. As he admitted to me, he even had to drink with some Poles from time to time to successfully complete certain matters; with them, you couldn't do business any other way. He was absolutely not used to this."

On January 18, 1943 , during the second deportation operation, the ŻOB initiated armed resistance. Wilner commanded one of the combat groups fighting in the central part of the ghetto. The fighting lasted four days, killing a dozen Germans and several dozen Jewish fighters. This was the first organized armed resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto, shocking the occupiers, and the ŻOB gained wider support among the ghetto's inhabitants. Thanks to these actions, the Germans withdrew from the planned deportation of 8 Jews to Treblinka (they had deported approximately 5). Psychologically, this operation marked a turning point in the consciousness of the ghetto's inhabitants, instilling the belief that armed resistance against the occupiers was possible.

"Arie described the Germans' surprise, their terror. 'Do you know what it means not to be afraid of the Germans?' he shouted. 'Not to surrender, to fight and see their cowardice.' He was full of enthusiasm. He only regretted that the ghetto was still not sufficiently armed." (Gustava, report: Yad Vashem).

Ari's friends on the Aryan side repeatedly tried to persuade him to stay with them and not return to the ghetto, but he replied:

"That's where I belong, wish me an honorable death instead."

Thanks to Wilner's efforts, the ŻOB received approximately 70 pistols, several dozen grenades, and explosives from the Home Army (between August 1942 and March 1943). A major blow came when Arie was arrested on March 6, 1943, in an apartment on Wspólna Street on the "Aryan side." He was denounced by a Polish woman who allegedly sold him weapons. Wilner's arrest curtailed cooperation between the ŻOB and the Home Army in acquiring weapons. After his arrest, Arie was brutally tortured by the Gestapo for weeks—first in their torture chamber, then at Pawiak—but he did not betray anyone. His steadfast stance earned the admiration of even his torturers, and his authority significantly strengthened among the Jews living in the ghetto. When he was sent to the labor camp in Kawęczyn near Warsaw, he was miraculously rescued from the Germans. In Lutek Rotblat's apartment in the ghetto, he underwent surgery and convalesced under the care of Lutek's mother and Hela Rufeisen . However, he never regained his full strength.

Besides working as a ŻOB liaison, Wilner also helped his family escape from the ghetto . He arranged apartments and documents on the other side, and fervently persuaded them to move. Thanks to him, Gustaw's parents and sister survived the war. Halina, the other sister, who had been led out of the ghetto with her husband, could not bear the psychological strain of hiding on the other side of the wall and returned to the ghetto. She was deported and murdered.

After the March torture, Arie remained in the ghetto until the outbreak of the uprising. On April 19, 1943, the Germans surrounded the ghetto for its final liquidation. Jewish fighters launched an armed uprising , surprising the enemy, who had to withdraw their units twice during the first days of combat. The insurgents then hid in bunkers , from where they organized ambushes and smuggling people out of the ghetto.

Arie Wilner was held in a bunker at 18 Miła Street, where the ŻOB headquarters were located and where approximately 100 fighters and 200 civilians found shelter. After the Germans began burning the ghetto , the situation for the insurgents became increasingly dire, with the shelters running out of air. When contact with people outside the ghetto was severed, Wilner advocated for continuing to send people through the tunnels – despite the lack of news from those who had already left.

"Whoever makes it, will make it. Even if only two out of ten make it, it's better than remaining in the ghetto and dying a slow death from hunger and stench." (Lubetkin C., "The Holocaust and the Uprising")

On May 8, 1943 , the Germans discovered the entrance to the bunker and released gas. Panic broke out. According to Heli Rufeisen, who spoke with Tosia Altman after she escaped from the bunker, Wilner then exclaimed:

"Fighters, shoot at each other. We deserve the last bullet. We will not fall alive into the Germans' hands!"

Arie Wilner shot himself first. Other fighters followed suit. Approximately 100 members of the Jewish Combat Organization died in the bunker, and eight likely survived. None of them lived to see the end of the war.

In 1945, by order of the Supreme Command of the Polish Army, Arie Wilner was posthumously awarded the Virtuti Militari Cross, Class V.

 

Bibliography:

• Yad Vashem Archive: Gusta Wilner, Report 03/395.
• Bernard M., "The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising", Warsaw 1963.
• Cukierman I., "Excess of Memory", Warsaw 2020.
• Gutman I., "Mered hanetsurim: Mordekhai Anilevits wemilhemet geto warsza", Jerusalem 2013.
• Gutman I., "Fight without a shadow of hope. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising", Warsaw 1998.
• Lubetkin C., "The Holocaust and the Uprising", Warsaw 1999.
• Rufeisen-Schupper H., "Farewell to Miła 18", Cracow 1996.
• https://sprawiedliwi.org.pl/pl/historie-pomocy/historia-s-cecylii-marii-roszak [dostęp: 19.05.2025].