Underground activist and heroine of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, deputy commander of the combat department of the People's Guard.
A slender girl, disguised as a peasant, knocks on the door of an apartment on Chmielna Street in Warsaw. Her blue eyes and blonde braids don't arouse suspicion. She says she's selling milk. When the housekeeper opens the door, several militants hidden behind her suddenly enter. Shots are fired. Two Gestapo agents are killed instantly. The third, wounded, is taken to the hospital. Soon, the same blonde volunteers to "finish" the job. At the hospital on Aleje Jerozolimskie, she poses as the wounded man's fiancée. She enters the room, feigns tears, and speaks to the unconscious agent in German. The nurse assisting her suspects nothing. When she leaves, the girl shoots a Gestapo officer and escapes unrecognized.
Although this is one of the versions of the course of the attack, in the memories of Niuta (Rywa) Tajtelbaum's friends she was already remembered as "an extremely brave and heroic girl".
She was born on October 31, 1917 , in Łódź , into a family of religious Jews. Her mother was Rajzlia , née Hamburger, and her father was Icchak (Icek) Mendel (Majer) Tajtelbaum, a wealthy factory owner descended from the Hasidic Jews of Sochaczew. The large family (Niuta had ten sisters) lived in an exclusive tenement house on Piotrkowska Street. She began her education at the Beit Yaakov school for religious Jewish women, and then attended the Josef Aba High School for Humanities for Girls.
Even as a young girl, she sympathized with the striking workers at her father's factory. She was drawn to leftist ideas, which was a source of unrest within her family. She felt a strong bond with her loved ones, but she also couldn't ignore poverty and injustice. As her friend Jerzy Duracz, alias Felek, recalled:
"When she encountered hungry workers, she felt a burning shame that she could live in abundance alone. From then on, she took bread from home, gave away everything she had (...). Moreover, she found a silent accomplice in her mother."
She became involved in the Socialist Union of School Youth, and later the Communist Union of Polish Youth. She was particularly active in the illegal "Spartacus" organization , which operated among high school students. She served as an instructor for children in the "Pionier" organization. Despite being expelled from school for her clandestine activities, she passed her final exams in 1936.
She began studying philosophy and history at the University of Warsaw. Along with Kazia Kagan, Hanka Bela Krakowska, and Lunia Rozental , she actively opposed the ghetto benches at the university and manifestations of anti-Semitism among National Democratic students. The outbreak of war in September 1939 brutally interrupted her education. Together with Kagan, Krakowska, and Rozental, she traveled to Lviv , where she continued her leftist activities. After the German occupation of the city and the pogrom against the Jewish population, in the autumn of 1941, the friends returned to Warsaw.
In the Warsaw Ghetto, she lived with her sister Ina , her husband, and their children on Dzielna Street. During this time, the Union of Liberation Struggle (ZWW) was founded – a communist organization that Niuta joined with her friends. Initially, they were involved in educational activities and helping the poor. Over time, they moved on to planning sabotage and diversion, as the communist underground leadership recognized, as Kazia Kagan put it, "in the current period (of occupation), individual terror is permissible and necessary."
In January 1942, Niuta became a member of the newly established Polish Workers' Party , which formed combat groups of several people; Niuta trained her colleagues from her 7-person group, among other things, how to plant mines and produce explosives.
In March 1942, the Polish Workers' Party (PPR) committee in the ghetto proposed the establishment of a unified bloc of left-wing organizations, later called the Anti-Fascist Bloc . The bloc included communists and left-wing Zionist groups (such as Hashomer Hatzair) . Niuta then became the bloc's liaison and began to cross the wall to establish contact with resistance centers in other ghettos across the country.
In August 1942, during the great liquidation of the ghetto, she joined the partisan movement with the first group of the Polish Workers' Party (PPR). However, after a few weeks, she returned to Warsaw to continue her activities as a liaison between the Anti-Fascist Bloc and the Polish Workers' Party (PPR), under the pseudonym Wanda Witwicka . She carried weapons, press, and information into the ghetto. She also participated in organizing housing for refugees on the "Aryan side."
Kazia Kagan recalled: "Niuta was extremely active in solving difficult cases. She was everywhere, pulling out properties and money from the ground."
In November 1942, she was accepted into the "Specgrupa" (Spec Group) of the People's Guard – a combat unit of the Polish Workers' Party (PPR) responsible for the most demanding military operations. She participated in all of this "Specgrupa's" major combat operations in Warsaw. She spoke fluent German, which, combined with her talent for camouflage, allowed her to infiltrate German locations.
The group's first major operation was an attack on the Municipal Savings Bank. They seized one million złoty, previously confiscated from Warsaw residents by the Germans as punishment for attacks on German establishments ( "Cafe Club," "Mitropa" ) carried out by the People's Guard. Niuta's mission was to block the phones and distract the cashier, a mission she successfully completed.
The apartment she rented at 19 Poznańska Street became a meeting point for the "Specgrupa", which was ready to take further armed actions at the end of December, equipped with pistols and grenades.
Together with Jerzy Duracz, she formed a harmonious combat duo. They embarked on many operations alone: "I asked to be with her on missions. We formed such a fighting pair. You could rely on Niuta 100 percent. It was known that she would never chicken out, never let you down, never forget a comrade, and never abandon you in need (...) She had a gift for uniting people, always surrounded by a group of the most valuable (...) She was very righteous, pure in her intentions, never tainted by lies," he recalled after the war.
One such operation was the bombing of the Kammerlichtspiele cinema on Marszałkowska Street (January 1943), carried out as retaliation for the mass roundup of Warsaw residents. Other operations in which Niuta and Jerzy participated included attacks on German premises, and the elimination of Gestapo agents, informers, and blackmailers. Most were successful, such as the aforementioned attack on three Gestapo officers in an apartment on Chmielna Street.
Shortly before the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Jerzy became involved in helping Niuta's family. Thanks to his support, her sister Ina and her two children were rescued from the ghetto.
When the uprising broke out on April 19, 1943 , Niuta participated in a meeting led by the Chief of Staff of the General Staff, Franciszek Jóźwiak, codename "Witold ." The need to organize a relief operation for the struggling ghetto was discussed. The "Specgrupa" received a request from the Jewish Combat Organization to eliminate a firing position from which the Germans were firing at the insurgents gathered in the brush shop, above the ghetto walls.
A five-man "Specgruppa" GL unit, including Niuta, armed with pistols and grenades, managed to approach a firing position manned by German soldiers (the Guardsmen took advantage of the fact that a crowd of Warsaw residents was gathering near the ghetto walls, watching the fighting as if it were a spectacle). They then opened fire on the Germans. Accounts of this action vary in detail, but it is certain that the group managed to damage (or destroy) an anti-aircraft gun, kill two Germans, and wound the Blue Police officers supporting them. Panic broke out among the gathered people – the crowd began to flee and knock each other over, allowing the fighters to withdraw from the scene without any casualties. The second planned action was to set fire to the SS warehouses in Bródno. As Niuta put it, "let the glow of the fires over Bródno be associated with the glow of the fires over the ghetto," as Jerzy Duracz quoted her after the war. Although the action failed, other actions were carried out: blowing up railway tracks and helping Jews escape from transports.
"This petite, slender girl with blue eyes and beautiful blond hair attracted attention through all these actions and earned the Gestapo nickname 'Die Kleine Blonde,'" recalled Anna Duracz. When the Gestapo began searching for her, she changed her appearance, dyed her hair, and wore various disguises. In May 1943, she was ordered to leave Warsaw for her own safety. She traveled only a short distance, only to Zielonka (about 50 km from Warsaw), but returned frequently to the capital. When visiting friends, she tried to adhere to the restraining order against her apartment.
Niuta is described in the memoirs of her friends as a person with a sense of humor, "loving music, flowers, theater and poetry," but over time she became increasingly affected by the tragedy of the ghetto:
“She sang less and less, smiled less and less, and her eyes, which had recently sparkled with laughter, became deep and tragic,” wrote Jerzy.
On July 19, 1943, she was arrested in the gateway to the tenement building where her apartment was located – at 19 Poznańska Street. She was reportedly staying in Warsaw, despite the risk, to find a place for her sister, who was in hiding. Gestapo officers overpowered her before she could reach for a weapon. She was taken to Gestapo headquarters on Aleja Szucha , where she was tortured for weeks. Her friends were ordered to leave the apartment. Niuta did not reveal her identity, aliases, or addresses, and did not betray anyone. She was shot by the Gestapo in September 1943.
Hania Mączkowska (Anna Duracz) recalled: "She was one of the noblest and strongest figures, the most steadfast, the most consciously fighting 'for our freedom and yours'."
Posthumously, on April 19, 1945, she was awarded the Order of the Cross of Grunwald, 3rd class.
Bibliography:
Dołowy P., Niuta Tajtelbaum. Wanda with pigtails [in:] A Question of Character. Fighters from the Warsaw Ghetto, ed. S. Chutnik, M. Sznajderman.
Mark B., The Struggle and Destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto, Warsaw 1959.
Mark B., The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Warsaw 1963.
Strzembosz T., Military actions of the underground Warsaw 1939–1944, Warsaw 1978.
Account by Anna Duracz, Yad Vashem archives, 1971, file reference O.3/3586.
Report by Jerzy Duracz, AŻIH, reference number 301/5017.
Account by Jerzy Duracz, Yad Vashem, 1972, file reference O.3/3587.
Account by Kazimiera Kagan, AŻIH, reference number 301/2295.
