Szmul Mordechai Zygielbojm (alias "Artur") (1895–1943) – during World War II, he was a Jewish delegate to the Polish National Council based in London. In protest against the world's inaction towards the Holocaust, he committed suicide on May 12, 1943.
Szmul Zygielbojm was born on February 21, 1895, in Borowica, a small town in the Lublin region, near Krasnystaw. He was the eldest son of Józef and Henie née Pinkier . The couple had a total of eleven children. Eventually, the entire family settled in Krasnystaw. The family's financial situation forced Szmul to interrupt his education and begin working as a young boy. He first apprenticed as a carpenter, but after losing two fingers on his left hand, he became a baker's assistant. He eventually moved to Warsaw to further his craft. During World War I, he lived in Chełm, where he became involved in the local Bund structures. During this time, he married Gołda née Sperling , a seamstress. Their children were born: Józef Lejb and Rywka . In 1917, he became a delegate to the first Bund congress in Lublin.
In the 20s, Szmul, his wife, and their children moved to Warsaw. There, he became involved in party activities and gained increasing popularity. In 1924, Zygielbojm became a member of the Bund's Central Committee. From 1927 to 1933, he served as a Warsaw city councilor. He was also the editor of "Arbeter Fragn" (Yiddish, "Workers' Issues"). In 1928, he married for the second time, to Maria née Rozen (Rosen) , with whom he had a son, Artur . From 1936, the Zygielbojms lived in Łódź. Szmul served there, among other positions, as a city councilor.
In January 1940, at the urging of his Bund comrades to keep a low profile and avoid risking his activities, he left Poland for Brussels. After the German occupation of Belgium, he left for France, and in September 1940, for the United States. Szmul Zygielbojm's family remained in occupied Poland. Eventually, they found themselves in the Warsaw Ghetto.
One of Szmul Zygielbojm's missions was to inform people about what was happening in Poland. He traveled extensively to European countries and the United States, giving lectures on the subject.
In February 1942, Zygielbojm was appointed a member of the National Council of the Republic of Poland in London, an organ of the Polish government-in-exile. His efforts to inform the world about German policies, including the extermination of the Jews, gained momentum. He drew information about what was happening in the occupied country from, among other sources, reports from the Polish underground, as well as from Jewish organizations, particularly the Bund. Tragic reports intensified after May 1942, when Operation Reinhardt was gaining momentum. Zygielbojm also sought the attention of key politicians, such as US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
Over time, it dawned on him that the actions he (and others) were taking would not generate the immediate response so desperately needed by the Jews who were dying en masse. He realized that the Allied powers were waiting until the end of the war to hold the Germans accountable for their crimes. As a sign of protest, and also in a gesture of despair stemming from the knowledge of what had happened to the Jewish community in Warsaw and other towns in occupied Poland, he committed suicide on the night of May 11-12, 1943. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was essentially dying out, and only a few remnant ghettos remained in the General Government. Zygielbojm left three farewell letters: to his brother Fajwel , to his party comrades in the United States, and to the president and prime minister of the Polish Government in Exile.
11 May 1943
To the President of the Republic of Poland, Władysław Raczkiewicz To the Prime Minister, General Władysław Sikorski
Mr. President, Mr. Prime Minister,
I take the liberty of addressing my final words to you, and through you, to the Polish Government and people, to the Governments and nations of the Allied countries, and to the conscience of the world: The latest news from Poland indicates without a doubt that the Germans are now, with absolute cruelty, murdering the remnants of Jews in Poland. Behind the ghetto walls, the final act of an unprecedented tragedy is taking place.
Responsibility for the crime of murdering the entire Jewish nation rests primarily with the perpetrators, but it also indirectly burdens all of humanity, the Nations and Governments of the Allied Powers, which to this day have failed to take any concrete action to end this crime. By passively witnessing the murder of millions of defenseless and abused children, women, and men, they became complicit. I must also state that, although the Polish Government contributed greatly to stirring world opinion, it did not do enough, nor did it undertake anything extraordinary that would be proportionate to the scale of the tragedy unfolding in the country.
Of the nearly 3.5 million Polish Jews, approximately 700,000 Jews deported to Poland from other countries were still alive in April of this year, according to official reports from the underground Bund leadership, forwarded to us by the Government Delegate. And the murder continues unabated. I cannot remain silent, and I cannot live, while the remnants of the Jewish people in Poland, whose representative I am, perish. My comrades in the Warsaw Ghetto perished, weapons in hand, in their last act of heroism. I was not destined to die like them, with them. But I belong to them, to their mass graves.
Through my death, I wish to express my deepest protest against the inaction with which the world watches and allows the extermination of the Jewish people. I know how little human life means, especially today. But since I was unable to accomplish this during my lifetime, perhaps through my death I will contribute to shaking from the indifference of those who can and should act, to save now, at this very last moment, the handful of Polish Jews still alive from certain extermination.
My life belongs to the Jewish people in Poland, so I give it. I desire that this handful, the remnant of the several million-strong Polish Jewry, will live to see liberation alongside the Polish masses, to breathe in a country and in a world of freedom and socialist justice for all their suffering and inhuman suffering. And I believe that such a Poland will come into being, and that such a world will come into being.
I trust that the President and the Prime Minister will address my above words to all those for whom they are intended, and that the Polish Government will immediately begin appropriate diplomatic and propaganda action in order to save the remnant of still living Polish Jews from extermination.
I say goodbye to everyone and everything that was dear to me and that I loved."
Szmul Zygielbojm
