Adam Czerniaków
Encyclopedia
Adam Czerniaków born in Warsaw
, Poland
, was a Polish-Jewish engineer and senator to the prewar Polish
Sejm
for Nonpartisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government. He committed suicide in the Warsaw Ghetto
on 23 July 1942 by swallowing a cyanide pill, a day after the commencement of mass extermination of Jews known as the Grossaktion Warsaw
.
Czerniaków studied engineering and taught in the Jewish community's vocational school in Warsaw. From 1927 to 1934 he served as member of the Warsaw Municipal Council, and in 1931 was elected to the Polish Senate. On 4 October 1939, a few days after the city's surrender to the Nazi
s, Czerniaków was made head of the 24 member Judenrat
(Jewish Council), responsible for implementing Nazi
orders in the new Jewish Ghetto.
As the German authorities began preparing for mass deportations of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto
to the newly built Treblinka extermination camp
in July 1942, the Jewish Council was ordered to provide lists of Jews and maps of their residences. On 22 July 1942, the Judenrat received instructions from the SS that all Warsaw Jews were to be "resettled" to the East. Exceptions were made for Jews working in Nazi German factories, Jewish hospital staff, members of the Judenrat with their families, members of the Jewish Ghetto Police
with their families. Over the course of the day, Czerniaków was able to obtain exemptions for a handful of individuals, including sanitation workers, husbands of women working in factories, and some vocational students. He was not, however, despite all his pleading, able to obtain an exemption for orphans from the Janusz Korczak
's orphanage. The orders further stated that the deportations would begin immediately at the rate of 6,000 people per day, to be supplied by the Judenrat and rounded up by the Jewish Ghetto Police. Failure to comply would result in immediate execution of some one hundred hostages, including employees of the Judenrat and Czerniaków's own wife.
Realizing that deportation meant death, Czerniaków went to plead for the orphans. When he failed, he returned to his office and took one of the cyanide
capsules he had been keeping for just such an occasion. He left a suicide note to his wife, reading “They demand me to kill children of my nation with my own hands. I have nothing to do but to die,” and one to his fellow members of the Judenrat, explaining: "I can no longer bear all this. My act will prove to everyone what is the right thing to do."
Czerniaków kept a diary from 6 September 1939, until the day of his death. It was published in 1979 and has been translated into English. His wife, Niunia, survived the war and preserved his diaries; their only son, Jas, fled to Soviet territory, but did not survive the war. Adam Czerniaków is interred in the Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery
in Warsaw
.
In the 2001 Warner Bros.
motion picture, Uprising
, actor Donald Sutherland
portrayed Adam Czerniaków. Excerpts of his diary are featured in most recent historical documentary film called A Film Unfinished
.
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, was a Polish-Jewish engineer and senator to the prewar Polish
Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...
Sejm
Sejm
The Sejm is the lower house of the Polish parliament. The Sejm is made up of 460 deputies, or Poseł in Polish . It is elected by universal ballot and is presided over by a speaker called the Marshal of the Sejm ....
for Nonpartisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government. He committed suicide in the Warsaw Ghetto
Warsaw Ghetto
The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of all Jewish Ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II. It was established in the Polish capital between October and November 15, 1940, in the territory of General Government of the German-occupied Poland, with over 400,000 Jews from the vicinity...
on 23 July 1942 by swallowing a cyanide pill, a day after the commencement of mass extermination of Jews known as the Grossaktion Warsaw
Grossaktion Warsaw (1942)
The Grossaktion or Gross-Aktion in Warsaw was a Nazi German operation of mass extermination of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto beginning July 22, 1942. It was a key part of the countrywide Operation Reinhard headed by the SS- und Polizeiführer Odilo Globocnik...
.
Czerniaków studied engineering and taught in the Jewish community's vocational school in Warsaw. From 1927 to 1934 he served as member of the Warsaw Municipal Council, and in 1931 was elected to the Polish Senate. On 4 October 1939, a few days after the city's surrender to the Nazi
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
s, Czerniaków was made head of the 24 member Judenrat
Judenrat
Judenräte were administrative bodies during the Second World War that the Germans required Jews to form in the German occupied territory of Poland, and later in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union It is the overall term for the enforcement bodies established by the Nazi occupiers to...
(Jewish Council), responsible for implementing Nazi
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
orders in the new Jewish Ghetto.
As the German authorities began preparing for mass deportations of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto
Warsaw Ghetto
The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of all Jewish Ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II. It was established in the Polish capital between October and November 15, 1940, in the territory of General Government of the German-occupied Poland, with over 400,000 Jews from the vicinity...
to the newly built Treblinka extermination camp
Treblinka extermination camp
Treblinka was a Nazi extermination camp in occupied Poland during World War II near the village of Treblinka in the modern-day Masovian Voivodeship of Poland. The camp, which was constructed as part of Operation Reinhard, operated between and ,. During this time, approximately 850,000 men, women...
in July 1942, the Jewish Council was ordered to provide lists of Jews and maps of their residences. On 22 July 1942, the Judenrat received instructions from the SS that all Warsaw Jews were to be "resettled" to the East. Exceptions were made for Jews working in Nazi German factories, Jewish hospital staff, members of the Judenrat with their families, members of the Jewish Ghetto Police
Jewish Ghetto Police
Jewish Ghetto Police , also known as the Jewish Police Service and referred to by the Jews as the Jewish Police, were the auxiliary police units organized in the Jewish ghettos of Europe by local Judenrat councils under orders of occupying German Nazis.Members of the did not have official...
with their families. Over the course of the day, Czerniaków was able to obtain exemptions for a handful of individuals, including sanitation workers, husbands of women working in factories, and some vocational students. He was not, however, despite all his pleading, able to obtain an exemption for orphans from the Janusz Korczak
Janusz Korczak
Janusz Korczak, the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit was a Polish-Jewish children's author, and pediatrician known as Pan Doktor or Stary Doktor...
's orphanage. The orders further stated that the deportations would begin immediately at the rate of 6,000 people per day, to be supplied by the Judenrat and rounded up by the Jewish Ghetto Police. Failure to comply would result in immediate execution of some one hundred hostages, including employees of the Judenrat and Czerniaków's own wife.
Realizing that deportation meant death, Czerniaków went to plead for the orphans. When he failed, he returned to his office and took one of the cyanide
Cyanide
A cyanide is a chemical compound that contains the cyano group, -C≡N, which consists of a carbon atom triple-bonded to a nitrogen atom. Cyanides most commonly refer to salts of the anion CN−. Most cyanides are highly toxic....
capsules he had been keeping for just such an occasion. He left a suicide note to his wife, reading “They demand me to kill children of my nation with my own hands. I have nothing to do but to die,” and one to his fellow members of the Judenrat, explaining: "I can no longer bear all this. My act will prove to everyone what is the right thing to do."
Czerniaków kept a diary from 6 September 1939, until the day of his death. It was published in 1979 and has been translated into English. His wife, Niunia, survived the war and preserved his diaries; their only son, Jas, fled to Soviet territory, but did not survive the war. Adam Czerniaków is interred in the Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery
Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery
The Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery is one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Europe. Located on Warsaw's Okopowa street and abutting the Powązki Cemetery at , the Jewish Cemetery was established in 1806 and occupies 33 hectares of land. The cemetery contains over 200,000 marked graves, as well...
in Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
.
In the 2001 Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
motion picture, Uprising
Uprising (film)
Uprising is a 2001 war/drama television movie about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The film was directed by Jon Avnet and written by Avnet and Paul Brickman...
, actor Donald Sutherland
Donald Sutherland
Donald McNichol Sutherland, OC is a Canadian actor with a film career spanning nearly 50 years. Some of Sutherland's more notable movie roles included offbeat warriors in such war movies as The Dirty Dozen, , MASH , and Kelly's Heroes , as well as in such popular films as Klute, Invasion of the...
portrayed Adam Czerniaków. Excerpts of his diary are featured in most recent historical documentary film called A Film Unfinished
A Film Unfinished
A Film Unfinished is a 2010 documentary film by Yael Hersonski, which re-examines the making of an unfinished 1942 Nazi propaganda film of the Warsaw Ghetto two months before its liquidation in a Nazi operation known as the Grossaktion Warsaw...
.
See also
- Mordechai Chaim RumkowskiMordechai Chaim RumkowskiMordechai Chaim Rumkowski was a Polish Jew and functioned as the German Nazi-nominated head of the Ältestenrat , or Jewish authorities in the Łódź Ghetto....
, head of JudenratJudenratJudenräte were administrative bodies during the Second World War that the Germans required Jews to form in the German occupied territory of Poland, and later in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union It is the overall term for the enforcement bodies established by the Nazi occupiers to...
in the Łódź Ghetto - Julian TuwimJulian TuwimJulian Tuwim , sometimes used pseudonym "Oldlen" when writing song lyrics. He was a Polish poet, born in Łódź, Congress Poland, Russian Empire, of Jewish parents, and educated in Łódź and Warsaw where he studied law and philosophy at Warsaw University...
, a nephew of Adam Czerniaków - A Film UnfinishedA Film UnfinishedA Film Unfinished is a 2010 documentary film by Yael Hersonski, which re-examines the making of an unfinished 1942 Nazi propaganda film of the Warsaw Ghetto two months before its liquidation in a Nazi operation known as the Grossaktion Warsaw...
, documentary featuring his Ghetto diary