Before World War II, Niuta Teitelbaum studied philosophy and history at the University of Warsaw, where she was an active member of left-wing youth organizations. While at the university, she was part of student efforts to oppose antisemitism, including the segregation of Jewish students into "ghetto benches". In this action, my mother, Lunia Rozental*, was also active.
Niuta's time at the Warsaw University was cut short by the outbreak of the war in September 1939, when she was forced to flee to Lviv. After the Germans occupied Lviv in 1941, Niuta returned to Warsaw.
When in Warsaw, Niuta Tajtelbaum (Teitelbaum) exhibited astonishing bravery and sangfroid. She was a young Communist who wore her long blond hair in thick braids to give the impression that she was “an innocent, naïve sixteen-year-old” when she was in fact “an assassin.” With her blue eyes and blonde hair that allowed her to “pass” as a non-Jew, Teitelbaum walked into the office of a Gestapo officer and “shot him in cold blood.” When an attempted assassination left a Gestapo agent in the hospital, “Niuta, disguising herself as a doctor, entered his room, and mowed down both him and his guard.” Teitelbaum went on to organize a women’s unit in the Warsaw ghetto and take a leading role in the 1943 uprising. She was captured, tortured, and killed at the age of 25.
I found that Niuta Tajtelbaum's Korczak connection during Ghetto time was through former pupils from the Krochmalna St. Orphanage and also through my father (Pan Misza) and my mother, Lunia Rozental. Through my mother and former Korczak pupils, she was looking for opportunities to easily enter the ghetto and smuggle light arms. She got information that my father leaves the Ghetto together with German Jews from Sliska Street every day and that returns to the ghetto at approximately the same time as returning after working outside.
So Niuta just went into my father´s group and stayed in the middle when they marched through the ghetto gate. This was actually how the first arms entered the Warsaw Ghetto and the PPR organization. The PPR (Polska Partia Robotnicza - Polish Workers' Party) was a communist organization established in 1942 in the Warsaw Ghetto. It built groups of 5-6 persons, women, and provided limited support and arms to Jewish resistance groups. My mother, Lunia Rozental, was a member of PPR and was trained to use a pistol.
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| My father, Pan Misha (Wasserman Wroblewski), described it in 1992 for Tomasz Jastrun: I lived in the ghetto with former pupils of Korczak; they belonged to a secret organization. They asked me if I could help them deliver weapons from the Aryan side. Niuta Tajtelbaum (Wanda Wytwicka) contacted me; she lived on the Aryan side, had golden hair, blue eyes, so she didn't arouse suspicion on the Aryan side. She came with us into the ghetto, bringing weapons. This is how one of the routes by which the Polish underground transferred weapons was blazed. In the end, I decided to leave the ghetto. |
My father, Pan Misha (Wasserman Wroblewski), described it in 1992 for Tomasz Jastrun:
I lived in the ghetto with former pupils of Korczak; they belonged to a secret organization.They asked me if I could help them deliver weapons from the Aryan side. Niuta Tajtelbaum (Wanda Wytwicka) contacted me; she lived on the Aryan side, had golden hair, blue eyes, so she didn't arouse suspicion on the Aryan side. She came with us into the ghetto, bringing weapons.This is how one of the routes by which the Polish underground transferred weapons was blazed.In the end, I decided to leave the ghetto.
Through Niutas´s contacts with my mother and Korczak's former pupils, she sought opportunities to easily enter the ghetto to smuggle light weapons. She learned that my father, along with German Jews who were living on Sliska Street, left the ghetto every day to go to work in the cancern barracks in Praga and returned to the ghetto at about the same time. In the evening, Niuta simply joined the group of workers my father was returning with and remained in the middle of the group as they passed through the ghetto gate. This is how the first weapons found their way into the Warsaw ghetto and to the PPR (Polish Workers' Party) organization. I believe that my father and Niuta had multiple contacts several months before and after the Great Action in the summer of 1942.
After the deportation of Korczak's Orphanage on August 5, 1942, to Treblinka, Pan Misha (my father), along with three former pupils from the orphanage, Jankiel, Monius, and Dawid, crossed the bridge over Chłodna Street late in the evening and found “quarters” with other older pupils from the Orphanage. It was probably an apartment on Świętojerska Street – the first stop for Korczak's suitcase with manuscripts and spectacles. Pan Misza remembered that flat windows overlooked the Krasiński Garden. The next stop for Korczak's suitcase (after a few days) was Ostrowska Street, where Felek Grzyb lived. From there, the suitcase was smuggled to “Mr. Jerzy” (Igor Newerly and Our Home in Bielany. It is possible that Mr. Misha's contact with Niuta Tajtelbaum was through these former pupils from Świętojerska Street.
