Join us on Sunday, April 29, 2018 at the Siegel Jewish Community Center at 101 Garden of Eden Road, Wilmington, DE 19803. The annual meeting will begin at 1 o’clock PM and the program will follow. Light refreshments will be served at the conclusion of the program. The event is free and open to the public.
Take an inside look at the “Dear Mollye” collection with the Jewish Historical Society of Delaware’s archivist, Gail Pietrzyk. We’ll tell the story of Mollye Sklut, who wrote to hundreds of men and women serving during WWII and go beyond to pay tribute to the many other heroic Delawareans who served and sacrificed for the war effort. Learn about the Gold Star Mothers, who lost their sons in battle. Honor those who earned Silver Stars, Purple Hearts, Distinguished Flying Crosses, and many other citations for bravery and courage.
Discover how letters and photographs stored for 75 years can come to life and the stories of long ago can inspire and enrich us today.
Post card from Leonard Cooper to Mollye Sklut, Under the K.P. tree
“These letters have everything,” says archivist Pietrzyk, “romance, humor, courage, and if you count KP duty, even the kitchen sink! “
This introduction will launch the JHSD’s web-exhibit for the “Dear Mollye” collection. We hope visitors will share their memories, stories, and photographs to help us all preserve and remember the Greatest Generation.
In 1973, the thirtieth anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising inspired Rabbi David Geffen, then the Rabbi of Congregation Beth Shalom, to write this article for the Jewish Voice. Now, forty-five years later and seventy-five years after the events in the spring of 1943, we should again remember their heroic resistance.
BY RABBI DAVID B. GEFFEN, President, Rabbinical Assembly of Delaware
A hush falls upon the Seder table richly laden with the symbols of an ancient quest for freedom. The head of the household begins anew the story of the heroic and tragic fight for freedom in our time.
“On this night of the Seder we remember with reverence and love the six millions of our people of the European exile who perished at the hands of a tyrant more wicked than the Pharoah who enslaved our fathers in Egypt.
Come, said he to his minions, let us cut them off from being a people that the name of Israel may be remembered no more. And they slew the blameless and pure, men and women and little ones, with vapors of poison and with fire. But we abstain from dwelling on the deeds of the evil ones lest we defame the image of God in which man was created.
Now the remnants of our people who were left in the ghettos and camps of annihilation rose up against the wicked ones for the sanctification of the Name. On the first day of Passover the remnants in the Ghetto of Warsaw rose up against the adversary, even as in the days of Judah the Maccabee. They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided, and they brought redemption to the name of Israel through all the world.
And from the depths of their affliction the martyrs lifted their voices in a song of faith in the coming of the Messiah, when justice and brotherhood will reign among men.”
***
WARSAW WAS HOME for 330,000 Jews in 1939. They studied, worked and lived peacefully until October of the following year when the great madness, Hitler’s “New Order,” began in Poland. Jews were herded into a ghetto separated from the Christians with walls and barbed wire. This was a harbinger of the human holocaust which followed.
Until July of 1942, slow starvation and the denial of medical help were the means employed by the Germans to exterminate the Jews. These methods, however, were apparently too slow, for the Germans now began mass deportations to concentration camps and gas chambers under the guise of using Jews in labor camps.
Jews from various parts of Europe were collected and sent to the Warsaw Ghetto. From this central location they were transported to Auschwitz, Treblinka, Belzec, Majdenek, and the like. At the end of October, 1942 only 50,000 Jews were left in Warsaw.
Up to this point it was difficult for most people to believe that the Germans were using Jews for any purpose other than for forced labor. Gradually rumors of atrocities committed and gas chambers began to fly through the ghetto. The news became a clarion call to the young Jews to organize for survival. Young Jewish leaders arose and formed the Organization of Jewish Fighters. Young leaders they were, indeed, for the Germans had already slaughtered the top leadership of the Jewish Communal Council, thinking by doing this, that the Jews would easily be crushed.
***
THEY HAD NOT reckoned however, with the caliber of people like Mordechai Anielewicz, Mira Fuchrer, Michał Klepfisz, Aron Liebeskind, Yitzhak Goldstein, Tosia Altman, Eliezer Geller, Shlomo Alterman, Rubin Rosenberg, Rifkah Glanz, Lejb Rotblat, and others who led the active heroic resistance in many places.
Following the mass deportations of October, 1942 during which Michał Klepfisz, an engineer, had managed to escape from a train bound for the gas chamber in Treblinka, a period of relative quiet ensued lasting three months. In January, 1943 when the Germans again began to deport and exterminate, they were met with organized armed resistance under the leadership of Mordechai Anielewicz.
Mordechai Anielewicz
Mordechai Anielewicz, born in Warsaw of a poor family of workers was then only 24 years old. By 1943 he had already undertaken various missions in behalf of Jewish youth and the Jewish Underground Movement.
During this January revolt the Jews suffered very heavy losses, but they were now determined that if they were to die they would die in dignity, fighting, believing that the great madness let loose’ in the world, could not triumph.
Another period of foreboding quiet followed. It was broken in the middle of the first Seder night, April 19, 1943. SS Troops, Ukrainians, Polish Blue Police, Lithuanian uniformed auxiliaries invaded the ghetto in order to perform complete murder, a ritual of extermination.
***
UNDER MORDECHAI’S leadership the Jews were prepared with limited weapons for the barbarians. They fought with a fierceness and perseverance which made even Germans and Poles wonder. The losses to the Jews, however, were tremendous.
On the second day of the uprising Michał Klepfisz, the engineer, 30 years old, son of a Hassidic rabbi, having escaped certain death in Treblinka, fell in action as commander of a sector, one of the bravest fighters in the Warsaw revolt.
Yitzchak Goldstein, 27 years old, who had acquired his military training in the Polish army now used it skillfully for Jewish resistance. He too was killed in action defending a bunker in the ghetto.
Tosia Altman, then 25 years of age, had been born into a wealthy family of Wloclawek. During the uprising she was one of 14, who after being wounded in a severe fight, were carried through underground tunnels and sewers to the Aryan part of Warsaw. Polish police turned her over to the German Gestapo. In the hospital she was denied any help, even water, and died of exhaustion due to her wounds.
Rubin Rosenberg, 22, was born in Suchwole, near Bialystok of a very rich Hassidic family. Editor of a bulletin which circulated among the entire Jewish Underground Movement in Poland during the war, he fell armed with two revolvers during an attack -upon the Germans while trying to break through the ghetto wall.
Mordechai Anielewicz courageously together with four of his comrades among them the girl, Mira Fuchrer, fell in action in May, 1943, defending the office of general staff. The Germans had blocked all the exits from the bunker and started throwing hand grenades into the headquarters. Eighty fighters died with them, some committing suicide in order not to fall into the hands of the enemy.
***
Lejb Rotblat
THE ONLY SON of an assimilationist family, Lejb Rotblat, 24, born in Warsaw, had attended a Christian school, but later joined the Zionist group Akiba. During the uprising he had brought his mother, whom he adored, to the bunker he was defending. When it was seized by the Germans after a hard fight, he shot his mother to prevent her torture by the Germans and then shot himself.
Some heroes survived the uprising only to be subsequently killed performing dangerous missions resisting the German butchery.
Eliezer Geller
Eliezer Geller, born in Opoczno in 1919 was one of the dreamers of Zion. In January, 1943 he wrote in one of his letters: “I am continuing my love-game with death and I think I shall marry it.” He undertook extremely dangerous missions under the Aryan name of Eugenjusz Kowalski. His last was a special mission to Bergen Belsen, the death factory from which he never returned.
Aharon Liebeskind
Aharon Liebeskind, born in Cracow in 1912, was a master saboteur. He executed nearly 30 sabotage actions against the Germans including a daring attack upon German officers in the center of Cracow.
Shlomo Alterman
Shlomo Alterman fought courageously during the whole revolt and managed to escape through the sewers to the Aryan part of Warsaw. He died during the summer fighting together with a partisan group in the woods near the city of Lozma.
Rifkah Glanz was preparing:” herself for Navy service in Eretz Yisrael when she was seized by the Germans in the Polish port of Gdynia. She escaped afterwards to Lodz and let the armed Jewish Underground resistance in Czestochowa. At the end of the Warsaw revolt, Rifkah courageously smuggled herself into the ruins of the Ghetto in order to get arms for resistance in to her places. On June 26, 1943, 28 year old Rifkah and the 40 fighters whom she led were killed trying to force their way out of the Warsaw ghetto through the German blockade.
The pharoah in our time destroyed six million lives, but the spirit with which they clung to life cannot die. Indeed in our own community there should be a public memorial to them which would testify eternally to what they did against the greatest tyrant in history. Let their actions and the song they sang be an inspiration to us on Passover 5733.
“Tell me not the light of hope has passed you by
Tell me not the sun has vanished from the sky
I can hear the footsteps beating like a drum.
And the day we all are striving for will come.
When the enemy has been destroyed at last,
Then tomorrow’s sun will light our bitter past;
Though this day of blood may seem to us so long;
Future years will hear the echo of our song.”
Chag sameach vepesach Kasher – May each of you be blessed with a meaningful Passover. ”
About the Author:
Rabbi David Geffen served as the rabbi of the Beth Shalom Congregation in Wilmington Delaware from 1970 to 1977, during which time he also established the Jewish Historical Society of Delaware in 1974 and authored six books under its auspices.
Geffen emigrated to Israel in 1977 with his family. He writes for The Jerusalem Post, having published more than 350 articles and book reviews and another 75 in the World Zionist Press Service.
He also authored the American Heritage Haggadah in 1992 which in the context of the Passover Seder service described the history of Jews in the United States of America.
Geffen returned to the US in 1993 to serve as rabbi of the Temple Israel congregation in Scranton, Pennsylvania, a position he held until 2003.
For more information, please visit these resources:
Ronen, Avihu. “Poland: Women Leaders in the Jewish Underground During the Holocaust.” Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. 1 March 2009. Jewish Women’s Archive. (Viewed on February 26, 2018) .
Webb, Chris “Mordechai Anielewicz” Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team. 2008 HolocaustResearchProject.org (Viewed on February 26, 2018).
Kutzik, Jordan. “Remembering Archivist and Warsaw Ghetto Survivor Rose Klepfisz.” April 15, 2016 Yivo Institute for Jewish Research Yiddish Forverts (Viewed on February 26, 2018).
Bill Frank, journalist.Jack Jurden cartoon of Bill Frank
The article, “AKSE Cornerstone Dedication Kicks off Centennial Celebration”, highlighted in the February 2018 issue of the Jewish Voice is over the byline of Zev Amiti. Who was Zev Amiti? None other than, “Bill Frank, legendary journalist,” as he was described by John Sweeney of the News Journal in an April 2012 article in Delaware Today.
William P. Frank was Delaware’s best-known journalist of the 20th century. His career spanned 65 years, during which he became the state’s foremost newspaper columnist and radio commentator. He was a Delaware historian, a Judaic scholar, a Shakespearean actor, and a social activist. Although he was listened to by powerful people, he made the concerns of ordinary people his concerns. Mr. Frank was born in New York City in 1905, but he grew up in Wilmington. He died in Wilmington on August 21, 1989. Most people knew him as simply “Bill Frank” or as Zev Amiti, his Hebrew name.
Bill Frank’s Delaware: Six Decades Through the Eyes of a Working Newspaperman, by Bill Frank. Published to commemorate the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution in cooperation with The News-Journal Co., (Middle Atlantic Press, Wilmington, Delaware, 1987).
Reporter is honored
Dick Codor’s cartoon of Bill Frank included in Zev Amiti Author Laureate of the Jewish Federation of Delaware, a commemorative scrapbook containing tributes to and articles by William Penn Frank.
William P. Frank, a Morning News reporter and columnist, received a special award at the annual meeting of the Jewish Federation of Delaware last night [June 17, 1979] at the Jewish Community Center. Frank has been a regular contributor to the federation’s newspaper, The Jewish Voice, under his Hebrew name, Zev Amiti, for the past five years. Simon Steinberg, chairman of the Voice newspaper committee, presented the award for Frank’s “significant contribution to the successful cultural growth of The Jewish Voice.” “Zev Amiti’s input has inspired The Voices‘ dynamic and varied coverage of local and national Jewish events,” Steinberg said. The award included a bound volume of Frank’s columns and stories that have appeared in the Voice during the last five years. There was also a compilation of letters of congratulations from friends and colleagues.
The Morning News, June 18, 1979, Wilmington, Delaware, page 10
Jewish Historical Society
to Honor Bill Frank
On May 22, [1986] at 7:30 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center, the Jewish Historical Society of Delaware will honor someone who is not only well recognized by the State of Delaware but well known by the Jewish community as a leader in the need to preserve the history of the Jewish community.
Bill Frank is now in his 80th year, and has spent 62 of those years working as a reporter for the local newspapers. He still carries on a radio program as a commentator on Station WILM.
During all those years he has championed many issues, but the one issue that he never gives up is how to make the Delaware Jewish community become more aware of its history and its contributions both in manpower and actual deeds to the Jews and the general citizenry of Delaware.
The existence of the Jewish Historical Society of Delaware is due in great part to Frank’s efforts to preserve that history for generations to come. He is a charter member and past president of the Society.
The Jewish Voice, May 16, 1986, Wilmington, Delaware, page 1
The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the largest battle fought on the Western Front in Europe during World War II; it is also the largest battle ever fought by theUnited States Army.
The Battle of the Bulge was almost entirely an American battle. Over one million German and Allied combatants were engaged—600,000 of them Americans and about 50,000 British. Nineteen thousand Americans were killed, 47,000 wounded, and 15,000 captured.
The battle’s impact on the Delaware Jewish community was also considerable.
KIA
Five Jewish Delawareans were among those killed in action during the battle.
May their souls be bound up in the bond of life eternal.Corporal Max Victor Schwitzgold, US Army
MAX VICTOR SCHWITZGOLD, Corporal, U. S. Army, son of Jacob and Becky (Achnebaum) Schwitzgold, husband of Ethel (Rosevich) Schwitzgold. Killed in action December 17, 1944, in Belgium while serving with a Field Artillery unit. He served one year, five months.
PFC Morton Topkis Wolson, US Army
MORTON TOPKIS WOLSON, Private First Class, U. S. Army, son of Julius and Zipporah (Topkis) Wolson. Killed in action December 17, 1944, near Obergailbach, Germany while serving as a medical corpsman with Company A, 346th Infantry Regiment, 87th Division. He served one year, one month and was decorated with the Purple Heart with one Oak Leaf Cluster. He is interred in the Lorraine American Cemetery in France.
Pvt. Herbert Rubenstein, US Army
HERBERT RUBENSTEIN, Private, U. S. Army, son of Morris and Mary (Astrin) Rubenstein. Killed in action December 19, 1944, in Belgium while serving as a medical corpsman with the 106th (Lion) Division. He served two years and was decorated with the Purple Heart.
Technical Sergeant,Charles Kenneth Goldstein, U. S. Army Air Corps
CHARLES KENNETH GOLDSTEIN, Technical Sergeant, U. S. Army Air Corps, son of Nathan and Lillian (Abramson) Goldstein. Killed in action January 4, 1944, in a raid over Flensburg, Germany while serving as a radio operator in a bomber. He served about nine months.
BERNARD GOODLEVAGE, Private First Class, U. S. Army, son of Morris and Sophie (Wasserman) Goodlevage. Killed in action January 20, 1945, in Germany while serving in Company E of the 301st Infantry of the 94th Division of the Third Army. He served one year, six months and was decorated with the Purple Heart. No photograph is currently available.
Prisoner of War
Dr. Ralph Tomases, a Captain in the U.S. Army Dental Corps, he was captured at the Battle of the Bulge with the 106th Infantry Division and spent the remainder of WWII as a German prisoner of war, until being liberated by the Russian Army in April, 1945. A 2001 interview Dr. Tomases is part of the Veterans History Project, a project of the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress.
Ralph Tomases Collection (AFC/2001/001/67859), Veterans History Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress
Did you know that the first Japanese plane shot down at Pearl Harbor was brought down by a Jewish Delawarean? In a 1974 article in the Sarasota Journal, Stephen ‘Salty’ Ginns Saltzman describes the morning of December 7, 1941.
“I ran outside with a rifle and emptied five rounds at the front of a plane straffing toward us. If he hadn’t had to pull up to miss a high wire he would probably have hit us.”
Saltzman, 22, had time to reload and fire again at the plane which was only 100 feet away. The pilot was hit and the plane crashed.
“Our regional commander claimed it was the first plane brought down in World War II,” said Saltzman, who received the Silver Star for gallantry in action. Second Lieutenant Saltzman voluntarily and on his own initiative without regard for his own safety, left the shelter of the Command Post in the face of heavy fire from enemy planes. He coolly waited in an exposed position until one of the enemy planes approached within 100 yards, and then delivered armed automatic rifle fire at one of the two enemy planes. His fire, combined with that of Sergeant Klatz, caused the plane to crash, resulting in the destruction of the ship and crew. The cool determination and disregard for his personal safety displayed was an inspiration to members of his regiment.
He later joined the Air Force to become a fighter pilot. He flew twenty-two missions before being injured over the French and Belgian border. He managed to fly back to the south of England with one hand and earned a Distinguished Flying Cross.
Saltzman died December 20, 2000, and is buried in Arlington National Cemetary.
If you know some of the names from Delaware’s Jewish history, you’ll recognize the Ginns surname. It turns out that Stephen was the son of Ralph and Rebecca Ginns Saltzman and the grandson of James N. and Sallie Topkis Ginns.
The story of ‘Salty’ Saltzman is just one of the fascinating tales about the ‘Greatest Generation’ of Delaware’s Jewish Community.
Jewish Historical Society
Did you know that the first Japanese plane shot down at Pearl Harbor was brought down by a Jewish Delawarean? In a 1974 article in the Sarasota Journal, Stephen ‘Salty’ Ginns Saltzman describes the morning of December 7, 1941.