Anielewicz Mordechaj
Anielewicz, Mordechaj
(1919 [1920?] Warszawa or Wyszków – 8 May 1943, Warszawa)
He came from a poor family that lived in the Warszawa Powiśle. During his studies in the “La-Or” [Hebrew “Towards the Light”] Boy’s Junior Secondary School he joined the Hashomer Hazair left-wing Zionist movement. In 1937, he was appointed as the commander of the Warszawa branch of the organization, and in 1939, he became a member of the board of executives – the Supreme Headquarters.
At this time, Anielewicz participated in organizing self-defense groups which resisted the ONR (Polish: Obóz Narodowo Radykalny - National Radical Camp) fighting squads.
Following the breakout of the World War II, along with a group of friends, he tried to get to Palestine through Romania, yet he was detained at the Soviet Union border.
He returned to Wilno where he tried to rebuild the structures of the Hashomer Hazair, and then he got to the Warszawa ghetto and joined the underground movement. He edited the Neged ha-Zerem [Hebrew: Against the Current] periodical, and from the fall of 1942, he participated in forming the Antifascist Bloc. The moment the Jewish Combat Organization was established in October 1942, Anielewicz became one of its executive members. In December 1942, he was appointed to the post of the JCO Commandant.
As the Commandant, he was at the head of two armed uprisings organized in the ghetto – both the three-day long uprising from 18-21 January 1943 and the ghetto uprising which broke out on 19 April.
On 8 May 1943, after nearly three weeks of fighting, Anielewicz and the headquarters’ members committed suicide in a bunker besieged by the Nazis at 18 Miła Street.
Katarzyna Wieczorek
