The good woman of Leszno Street
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"A Christian woman on Leszno Street, seeing the wagons with those who have been rounded up, curses the Germans. She presents her chest and is shot". Abraham Lewin, 29th July 1942 |
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Abraham Lewin's journal, published as A Cup of Tears (Blackwell, 1988), records many incidents that are not mentioned elsewhere. This event, which occurred during the Great Deportation, must have happened outside the ghetto. Leszno Street runs some considerable distance west of the former ghetto boundary.
Relations between Polish Jews and gentiles were much discussed in the ghetto. Some believed that Nazi persecution had brought the two groups closer together, others believed that many gentile Poles were driven to extreme anti-Semitism by the Nazis. Lewin (writing on 7th June 1942) inclined to the first view:
"Let us not forget: the Poles are in second place in the table of tragic losses among the nations, just behind the Jews. They have given, after us, the greatest number of victims to the Gestapo, and this does not take into account the destruction of the country. All this will of necessity leave deep traces in the people and lead to a loathing of the hatred of other races and peoples which is the source of National Socialism and anti-Semitism. Thus I dream of the coming of a time when Jews and Poles will live together in harmony".
Emanuel Ringelblum was far more pessimistic. Many would argue that he had good reason to be.