Yitzhak Katzenelson, the poet, broke the silence with a short speech: “Our armed struggle will be an inspiration to future generations. . . . Our deeds will be remembered forever. . . .”
And then: sharp boots beating against the stairs. The front door flung open. A gang of German soldiers burst in.
One comrade pretended to be reading a book by Sholem Aleichem. The Germans rushed right past him and entered the room where Zivia was sitting with others. Miserable Jews, they appeared to be, awaiting their executions. Just then, the young man who was feigning reading sprang up and shot two of the Germans in the back. The other Nazis retreated to the stairwell. All the fighters sprang out from of closets and hiding places and began to brawl using whatever arms they had. A few focused on stripping the dead soldiers of rifles, pistols, and grenades.
The Germans who survived beat a hasty retreat.
Barely equipped Jews had slayed Nazis!
And now they were also rich in weapons.
After a few moments of elation, there was shock. They were confused, truly bewildered. Zivia couldn’t believe that they’d felled Germans and survived. Overwhelmed with emotion, the fighters knew they had to stay focused. The Nazis would be back. What next? “We were totally unprepared,” Zivia later wrote. “We hadn’t expected to remain alive.”
They needed to flee. They helped their one injured comrade, hid him, and then withdrew out of the building’s skylights and crept single file along the sloped roofs covered in snow and ice, five storeys high, to finally make it inside the attic of an unknown building, shaken, hoping for time to rest, to redeploy.
But Germans entered this building as well, boots stomping up the stairs. The Freedom comrades began to open fire. Two members tossed a German down a stairwell shaft. Another threw a hand grenade at the entrance, blocking the Nazis’ escape. The Germans dragged off their dead and wounded; they did not return that night.
The next day, the Nazis attacked the empty apartments and this new “base.” Again, the comrades came out alive. Only one injury. No losses.
As soon as it was dark, Zivia’s troop headed to the Freedom post at Mila 34 to meet comrades who’d arrived from the farm, only to find that “the silence of death permeated the air.” Furniture was broken. Pillow feathers covered the floor. Zivia found out later that they’d been taken to Treblinka. A few, including several brave women, had jumped from the train.
The group settled into the most strategic apartments in the building. Each unit was briefed and assumed position. Lookouts were posted to warn of any surprise attacks. For the first time, they outlined a plan of retreat and an alternate meeting spot. Finally, sleep.
At dawn, the ghetto was still. Zivia figured that the Nazis were now sneaking into buildings quietly. They sent the Jewish police to assess the safety of an area first. The house searches became less thorough. The Nazis were scared “of a Jewish bullet.”
Zivia felt reinvigorated, a new reason to live.
“At the same time as thousands of Jews were cowering in their hiding places, shaking at the sound of a falling leaf,” Zivia wrote, “we who had been baptized in the fire and blood of battle, sat back confidently with almost all traces of our former fear having disappeared.” One comrade went out to the courtyard to find a match and sticks to light the stove. He even came back with vodka. They sat by the fire and drank. They reminisced about their battles, joked, and teased one fighter who had been so depressed, he was about to kill them all with a grenade until their commander stopped him.
They were still joking when the lookout entered. “There’s a large company of SS men in the courtyard,” he warned.
Zivia glanced out the window and saw them yelling for Jews to leave the building. No one budged.
Once again, the Germans entered, and were momentarily tricked by a fighter who pretended to surrender. The others then fired, and “a shower of bullets greeted them on all sides.” The Nazis retreated, only to be ambushed by comrades waiting outside. Zivia saw several wounded and dead Germans strewn on the steps.