Activist of Poale Zion-Left and the resistance movement during World War II, member of ŻOB, participant of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the Warsaw Uprising.
He was born into a working-class family in the Bałuty district of Łódź in 1908. His father owned a weaving mill at 24 Pieprzowa Street. Hersz attended cheder and then state primary school. In 1923, he joined the Tsukunft, the youth wing of the Bund party . A year later, he joined Poale Zion–Left, where he initially was active in the youth organization and trade unions, and then became commander of the party militia in the Łódź branch of the party. In the 30s, he worked in a textile factory , was a member of the workers' committee, and participated in strikes by Łódź textile workers.
Hersz Berlinski | Ghetto Fighters' House
After the outbreak of World War II, he tried to get to Warsaw, but was arrested by the Germans and imprisoned first in Rawa Mazowiecka, then in Częstochowa, from where he managed to escape. He reached the Soviet occupation zone and then reached Warsaw, where he was imprisoned from 1940. He became secretary of the party committee and director of the underground press Poale Zion–Left . Together with four other party activists—Eliahu Erlich, Pola Elster, Hersz, and Bluma Wasser—they were known as the "quintuplets." He co-founded the Anti-Fascist Bloc and the clandestine organization Borochov Youth. After the so-called Great Action, he became one of the most active members of the Jewish Combat Organization, being appointed as his party's representative at the Main Headquarters, where he headed the planning department. He worked at the Landau factory.
During the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, he commanded the Polaej Syjon–Lewica combat group, which fought on Świętojerska Street, in the so-called brushmakers' shop, and later in the central ghetto. On May 10, 1943, he emerged onto the so-called Aryan side through the sewers on Prosta Street, along with approximately 30 fighters. From there, he found his way to the Wyszków forests, where he fought in the partisan unit known as the Defenders of the Ghetto. He returned to Warsaw and went into hiding with comrades; it was then that he wrote his memoirs in Yiddish, titled "Three: Pola Elster, Hersz Berliński, Eliahu Erlich." During the Warsaw Uprising, he fought in a unit of the Jewish Combat Organization (ŻOB). The bunker on Suwalska Street, where the "quintuplets" were hiding, was discovered by the Germans on September 26. Hersz Berliński was killed the next day during fighting in Żoliborz, gun in hand. On April 19, 1945, he was posthumously awarded the Order of Virtuti Militari, Class V, and 10 days later, he was exhumed and solemnly buried in the main alley of the Jewish Cemetery on Okopowa Street (plot no. 38) next to Pola Elster and Eliachu Erlich.
