Calel Perechodnik
Encyclopedia
Calel Perechodnik (Ts; born Warsaw, 8 September 1916, died between August and September 1944) was a Polish Jew who joined the Jewish Ghetto Police
in the Otwock
Ghetto during the Nazi German occupation of Poland. His wartime diaries were published posthumously as Am I a Murderer? (Polish
: Czy ja jestem mordercą?) in 1995 by the Karta Centre of Warsaw
.
, south east of Warsaw
. He earned a degree in agronomy
at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences. Perechodnik's wife Chana (née Nusfeld) was also from Otwock; she ran a movie theater
named Oasis with her two brothers. Calek and Chana's only daughter Alinka (Athalie), was born on 19 August 1940, a year after the German invasion of Poland. To provide for his family, Perechodnik joined the Jewish Ghetto Police
in February 1941. In the summer of 1942 he personally put his wife and daughter on a Holocaust train to Treblinka
.
referred to it as the direct instrument of extermination. One of the first clandestine operations of the Jewish Combat Organization (ZOB) in Warsaw, was to assassinate its commanders. Perehodnik's account therefore, needs to be seen in its proper perspective. His memoir describes such events as his and his father’s compliance with the Polish radio broadcast command to go eastward to fight in 1939, the formation of the Judenrat in Otwock, Himmler’s visit to Warsaw, the death of Czerniakow
, the rounding up of Jews in the ghettos; life in, and escape from, a work camp; the experience of being hidden in Warsaw, the beginning of understanding of what was happening in the death camps, the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
, and the 1944 Warsaw Uprising
. His information is now considered by various researchers and experts on the Holocaust to be remarkably accurate, and according to these researchers, the notes show proof that the Jews at that time knew what was happening.
The Memoir
was written between 7 May and 19 August 1943 in Warsaw, during Perechodnik's stay at the home of his Polish rescuer. When describing the German occupation of Poland he attempts to explain his own actions which were inspired by fear, but also, blames the Jews for claiming to have been a chosen people
, thus encouraging anti-Semitism
among the gentile population. He expresses his outrage at the refusal by some Orthodox Jews to sent their children to Polish orphanages which would have saved them from the Holocaust
. Perechodnik expressed his anguish and astonishment at the savagery of war. It was, he wrote, "the greatest disillusionment that I have endured in my life." The Perechodniks lost their house and most of their belongings and Calel had to deposit all of his savings in a "blocked account" in a German bank, which was immediately appropriated by the Germans.
. In February 1941, fearful of being sent to a labor camp and hoping that the job would provide a shield for himself, his wife, and their daughter, he joined the Jewish Ghetto Police, organized by the local Judenrat
councils under German Nazi orders to maintain order in the ghetto.
In early 1942, the German authorities began rounding up Jews to be put into trains which were destined to go to Treblinka. The Jewish police were ordered to assist in this effort and they complied with the orders. Assured by the commandant of the Ghetto Polizei that his family would be protected, on 19 September 1942, Perechodnik brought his own wife and daughter to the ghetto's main square. But he was betrayed: Anka and Athalie were among 8,000 Otwock Jews sent to their deaths in Treblinka. Subsequently, he was sent to a labor camp. Perechodnik constantly blamed himself for the death of his wife and daughter. Prior to their shipping to Treblinka, Chana asked Calek on several occasions to obtain a false Kennkarte
for her, identifying her as an ethnic Pole (Chana did not have the typical Jewish looks and Calel wrote that she could easily pass for a Pole if she dyed her hair). Perechodnik failed to obtain the kennkarte for Chana in time, partly due to his laziness and partly do to his "lack of trust in such things".
On 20 August 1942, Calel Perechodnik escaped to Warsaw, where he spent 105 days in hiding with his mother and other Jews in the apartment of a Polish woman whom he thanks in his memoir. His father, Aryan
in appearance, remained at large to support the family until he was captured by the Gestapo
and executed. While in hiding, he spent the time writing. The last entry in his memoir concerns his last will and is dated 23 October 1943. He then joined the Polish Underground; it was during this time that he contracted typhus
.
On 1 August 1944, the Warsaw Uprising
began as part of a nationwide rebellion, Operation Tempest
. Perechodnik participated in the uprising as part of the Chrobry II Battalion
. There are several theories as to how he died. One states that he committed suicide by swallowing cyanide after the Uprising failed. Another claims that he was killed by pillagers after the uprising. Another (the one stated in the letter of Henryk Romanowski, following the memoirs in the book) claims he was burned alive in the bunker, unable to get out because of the typhus. He died at the age of 27.
. The original copy of the memoir was presented to the Yad Vashem
Archives, and a copy was given to the Central Jewish Historical Commission in Poland, which today is the Jewish Historical Institute
. This document was first published as a complete book in 1995 by the Karta Centre of Warsaw. It remained virtually unknown in English-speaking countries until Frank Fox's translation in 1996. It was released in Polish and Hebrew prior to its translation into English in 1996. Since then, it has been translated into many languages.
Its original title was A History of a Jewish Family During German Occupation, but its title was later changed to Am I a Murderer?: Testament of a Jewish Ghetto Policeman. It was recently republished in Poland in an unabridged version, with comprehensive sidenotes and references, under the title Spowiedź (Confession).
In his final years, Perechodnik completely changed his attitude towards the Jews and the Jewish faith and traditions. In his memoir, he rejected belief in God and the religious traditions of his Orthodox Jewish family. He became very bitter toward the Jews
and frequently criticized them, even blaming them for bringing these events on themselves because of their insistence on cultural and religious isolation. He was sarcastic about others, as well as self-deprecating about his own Jewishness.
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...
in the Otwock
Otwock
Otwock is a town in central Poland, some southeast of Warsaw, with 42,765 inhabitants . It is situated on the right bank of Vistula River below the mouth of Swider River. Otwock is home to a unique architectural style called Swidermajer....
Ghetto during the Nazi German occupation of Poland. His wartime diaries were published posthumously as Am I a Murderer? (Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
: Czy ja jestem mordercą?) in 1995 by the Karta Centre of 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...
.
Life
A secular Jew, Perechodnik was born in 1916 to an Orthodox Jewish family in OtwockOtwock
Otwock is a town in central Poland, some southeast of Warsaw, with 42,765 inhabitants . It is situated on the right bank of Vistula River below the mouth of Swider River. Otwock is home to a unique architectural style called Swidermajer....
, south east of 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...
. He earned a degree in agronomy
Agronomy
Agronomy is the science and technology of producing and using plants for food, fuel, feed, fiber, and reclamation. Agronomy encompasses work in the areas of plant genetics, plant physiology, meteorology, and soil science. Agronomy is the application of a combination of sciences like biology,...
at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences. Perechodnik's wife Chana (née Nusfeld) was also from Otwock; she ran a movie theater
Movie theater
A movie theater, cinema, movie house, picture theater, film theater is a venue, usually a building, for viewing motion pictures ....
named Oasis with her two brothers. Calek and Chana's only daughter Alinka (Athalie), was born on 19 August 1940, a year after the German invasion of Poland. To provide for his family, Perechodnik joined 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...
in February 1941. In the summer of 1942 he personally put his wife and daughter on a Holocaust train to Treblinka
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...
.
Am I a Murderer?
The Jewish Ghetto Police which Perechodnik joined, was not a benevolent force by any means. Emanuel RingelblumEmanuel Ringelblum
Emanuel Ringelblum was a Polish-Jewish historian, politician and social worker, known for his Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto, Notes on the Refugees in Zbąszyn chronicling the deportation of Jews from the town of Zbąszyń, and the so-called Ringelblum's Archives of the Warsaw Ghetto.-Before the war:He...
referred to it as the direct instrument of extermination. One of the first clandestine operations of the Jewish Combat Organization (ZOB) in Warsaw, was to assassinate its commanders. Perehodnik's account therefore, needs to be seen in its proper perspective. His memoir describes such events as his and his father’s compliance with the Polish radio broadcast command to go eastward to fight in 1939, the formation of the Judenrat in Otwock, Himmler’s visit to Warsaw, the death of Czerniakow
Adam Czerniaków
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...
, the rounding up of Jews in the ghettos; life in, and escape from, a work camp; the experience of being hidden in Warsaw, the beginning of understanding of what was happening in the death camps, the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the Jewish resistance that arose within the Warsaw Ghetto in German occupied Poland during World War II, and which opposed Nazi Germany's effort to transport the remaining ghetto population to Treblinka extermination camp....
, and the 1944 Warsaw Uprising
Warsaw Uprising
The Warsaw Uprising was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance Home Army , to liberate Warsaw from Nazi Germany. The rebellion was timed to coincide with the Soviet Union's Red Army approaching the eastern suburbs of the city and the retreat of German forces...
. His information is now considered by various researchers and experts on the Holocaust to be remarkably accurate, and according to these researchers, the notes show proof that the Jews at that time knew what was happening.
The Memoir
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
was written between 7 May and 19 August 1943 in Warsaw, during Perechodnik's stay at the home of his Polish rescuer. When describing the German occupation of Poland he attempts to explain his own actions which were inspired by fear, but also, blames the Jews for claiming to have been a chosen people
Jews as a chosen people
In Judaism, "chosenness" is the belief that the Jews are the Chosen People, chosen to be in a covenant with God. This idea is first found in the Torah and is elaborated on in later books of the Hebrew Bible...
, thus encouraging anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
among the gentile population. He expresses his outrage at the refusal by some Orthodox Jews to sent their children to Polish orphanages which would have saved them from the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
. Perechodnik expressed his anguish and astonishment at the savagery of war. It was, he wrote, "the greatest disillusionment that I have endured in my life." The Perechodniks lost their house and most of their belongings and Calel had to deposit all of his savings in a "blocked account" in a German bank, which was immediately appropriated by the Germans.
Content and historical background
In 1940, Perechodnik and his family, along with the 8,000 other Jews of Otwock, were transported to the Otwock ghettoGhetto
A ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...
. In February 1941, fearful of being sent to a labor camp and hoping that the job would provide a shield for himself, his wife, and their daughter, he joined the Jewish Ghetto Police, organized by the local 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...
councils under German Nazi orders to maintain order in the ghetto.
In early 1942, the German authorities began rounding up Jews to be put into trains which were destined to go to Treblinka. The Jewish police were ordered to assist in this effort and they complied with the orders. Assured by the commandant of the Ghetto Polizei that his family would be protected, on 19 September 1942, Perechodnik brought his own wife and daughter to the ghetto's main square. But he was betrayed: Anka and Athalie were among 8,000 Otwock Jews sent to their deaths in Treblinka. Subsequently, he was sent to a labor camp. Perechodnik constantly blamed himself for the death of his wife and daughter. Prior to their shipping to Treblinka, Chana asked Calek on several occasions to obtain a false Kennkarte
Kennkarte
Kennkarte was the basic identity document in use during the Third Reich era, first introduced in July 1938. They were normally obtained through a police precinct and had the corresponding issuing office and official’s stamps on them...
for her, identifying her as an ethnic Pole (Chana did not have the typical Jewish looks and Calel wrote that she could easily pass for a Pole if she dyed her hair). Perechodnik failed to obtain the kennkarte for Chana in time, partly due to his laziness and partly do to his "lack of trust in such things".
On 20 August 1942, Calel Perechodnik escaped to Warsaw, where he spent 105 days in hiding with his mother and other Jews in the apartment of a Polish woman whom he thanks in his memoir. His father, Aryan
Aryan
Aryan is an English language loanword derived from Sanskrit ārya and denoting variously*In scholarly usage:**Indo-Iranian languages *in dated usage:**the Indo-European languages more generally and their speakers...
in appearance, remained at large to support the family until he was captured by the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
and executed. While in hiding, he spent the time writing. The last entry in his memoir concerns his last will and is dated 23 October 1943. He then joined the Polish Underground; it was during this time that he contracted typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
.
On 1 August 1944, the Warsaw Uprising
Warsaw Uprising
The Warsaw Uprising was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance Home Army , to liberate Warsaw from Nazi Germany. The rebellion was timed to coincide with the Soviet Union's Red Army approaching the eastern suburbs of the city and the retreat of German forces...
began as part of a nationwide rebellion, Operation Tempest
Operation Tempest
Operation Tempest was a series of uprisings conducted during World War II by the Polish Home Army , the dominant force in the Polish resistance....
. Perechodnik participated in the uprising as part of the Chrobry II Battalion
Chrobry II Battalion
The Chrobry II Battalion was a unit, formally subordinate to the Polish Home Army , which took part in the Warsaw Uprising. It was named after the Polish king Bolesław I Chrobry .-Formation and name:...
. There are several theories as to how he died. One states that he committed suicide by swallowing cyanide after the Uprising failed. Another claims that he was killed by pillagers after the uprising. Another (the one stated in the letter of Henryk Romanowski, following the memoirs in the book) claims he was burned alive in the bunker, unable to get out because of the typhus. He died at the age of 27.
Publication history
Shortly before Perechodnik died in 1944, he entrusted his manuscript to a Polish friend. After the war ended, the memoir was given to Perechodnik’s brother, Pesach Perechodnik, who had survived the war in the Soviet UnionSoviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. The original copy of the memoir was presented to the Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....
Archives, and a copy was given to the Central Jewish Historical Commission in Poland, which today is the Jewish Historical Institute
Jewish Historical Institute
The Jewish Historical Institute is a research institute in Warsaw, Poland, primarily dealing with the history of Jews in Poland.The Jewish Historical Institute was created in 1947 as a continuation of the Central Jewish Historical Commission, founded in 1944. The Jewish Historical Institute...
. This document was first published as a complete book in 1995 by the Karta Centre of Warsaw. It remained virtually unknown in English-speaking countries until Frank Fox's translation in 1996. It was released in Polish and Hebrew prior to its translation into English in 1996. Since then, it has been translated into many languages.
Its original title was A History of a Jewish Family During German Occupation, but its title was later changed to Am I a Murderer?: Testament of a Jewish Ghetto Policeman. It was recently republished in Poland in an unabridged version, with comprehensive sidenotes and references, under the title Spowiedź (Confession).
In his final years, Perechodnik completely changed his attitude towards the Jews and the Jewish faith and traditions. In his memoir, he rejected belief in God and the religious traditions of his Orthodox Jewish family. He became very bitter toward the Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
and frequently criticized them, even blaming them for bringing these events on themselves because of their insistence on cultural and religious isolation. He was sarcastic about others, as well as self-deprecating about his own Jewishness.