Boken "With Korczak Through Life" av Michał Wróblewski – även känd som "Pan Misza" – beskrivs som ett unikt, magiskt och utomordentligt värdefullt tidsdokument.

"With Korczak Through Life" by Michał Wróblewski (1911–1993), edited by his son Roman Wróblewski.

"With Korczak Through Life" by Michał Wróblewski (1911–1993), edited by his son Roman Wróblewski.

Boken With Korczak Through Life av Michał Wróblewski (1911–1993) – även känd som "Pan Misza" – beskrivs som ett unikt, magiskt och utomordentligt värdefullt tidsdokument.

Den engelska utgåvan, som redigerats och kommenterats av dig (Roman Wróblewski), lyfts fram som en sällsynthet på den internationella bokmarknaden som kombinerar personliga memoarer med historiska arkivfynd. 

Detta är vad som är känt och uppmärksammat kring boken With Korczak Through Life av Michał Wróblewski :

Bokens struktur och innehåll

• En parallell berättelse: Boken är uppbyggd i två spår. Först följer Michał Wróblewskis ursprungliga manuskript som skildrar livet på Korczaks barnhem på Krochmalna-gatan i Warszawa. Detta varvas med sonens (redaktörens) egna kommentarer baserade på nyupptäckta Korczak-dokument från tre kontinenter.
• Historiska avslöjanden: Boken belyser de svåra kriserna inom den polska Korczak-kommittén, som Michał Wróblewski ledde under 1960-talet. Den dokumenterar bland annat stalinistiska utrensningsförsök under 1950-talet (då Korczaks böcker skulle förstöras) samt den fysiska stängningen av kommitténs högkvarter på Jasna-gatan i slutet av 1960-talet.
• Vittnesmålet: Berättelsen sträcker sig från Michał Wróblewskis ankomst till barnhemmet i september 1931 fram till andra världskrigets mörkaste stunder, deportationen av barnhemmet till förintelselägret Treblinka. Recensioner betonar att boken på ett levande sätt lyckas transportera läsaren till mellankrigstidens Warszawa och förmedla tidsandan mitt i den historiska tragedin.

Michał Wróblewskis historiska betydelse

• Den sista länken: Michał Wróblewski erkänns internationellt som en av de sista levande personerna (och den sista läraren/pedagogen) som arbetade sida vid sida med Janusz Korczak och Stefania Wilczyńska i gettot.
• Överlevnaden: Det är väl dokumenterat hur Michał Wróblewski arbetade med en grupp äldre pojkar utanför gettots murar den 5 augusti 1942 – precis den dag då tyskarna tömde barnhemmet och deporterade Korczak och barnen till Treblinka. Några månader senare lyckades Michał Wróblewski fly under en marsch genom att ta av sig sitt band med judestjärna.
• Bevarare av arvet: Efter kriget stred han för att bevara Korczaks progressiva pedagogik. Han intervjuades bland annat i svensk press (Kvällsposten) redan på 1970-talet och hans röst finns bevarad i internationella historiska arkiv, såsom en omfattande oral history-intervju hos U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
• Minneslunden: Till hans ära har vänner, familj och överlevande barnhemsbarn planterat en minnessten och 1000 träd i "Korczak-skogen" i utkanten av Jerusalem.

The book "With Korczak Through Life" by Michał Wróblewski (1911–1993), edited by his son Roman Wróblewski, is a rarity on the English publishing market.

"With Korczak Through Life" by Michał Wróblewski (1911–1993), edited by his son Roman Wróblewski.

"With Korczak Through Life" by Michał Wróblewski (1911–1993), edited by his son Roman Wróblewski.

Review of the English Edition

The book With Korczak Through Life by Michał Wróblewski (1911–1993), edited by his son Roman Wróblewski, is a rarity on the English publishing market. It belongs to the autoethnographic, autobiographical, and memoirist tradition. Although it is not a scholarly publication, it contains an extraordinarily valuable testimony to a bygone era. The book is, in every respect, magical; it transports readers to pre-war Warsaw, conveying the spirit of the times and the socio-historical atmosphere.

Professor Anna Odrowąż-Coates,

President of the International Korczak Association

Nowe wydanie książki Pana Miszy (Wassermana Wróblewskiego) - "Z Korczakiem przez życie".

Nowe wydanie książki Z Korczakiem przez życie autorstwa Pana Miszy (Wassermana Wróblewskiego). Po prawej stronie fotografii lotniczej wykonanej przez Luftwaffe widoczna jest nowa część publikacji – Postscriptum – zredagowana przez syna autora, Romana. 

Pan Misza pracował w Domu Sierot przy ulicy Krochmalnej 92, początkowo jako bursista, a następnie jako wychowawca w latach 1931–1942.

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The new edition of With Korczak Through Life by Pan Misza (Wasserman Wróblewski). Displayed to the right of the aerial photograph taken by the Luftwaffe is the new Postscriptum section, edited by his son, Roman. 

Pan Misza served at the Orphans’ Home on Krochmalna Street, initially as a bursary student and subsequently as an educator between 1931 and 1942.

Grupińska & Edelman - The Fishing Season Never Ends: The "Fishy Business" of Exploded Legacies

The video itself captures a tragic loss of dignity, showing an incapacitated Edelman shouting at the reporters: "Why don't you agree with me? Just nod your head."

There is a brutal, dark joke about two fisherman's sons whose father drowned during a storm. After a few days of mourning, they set out to fish again to sustain themselves. When they pulled in their net, they found their father's body inside, filled with dozens of fat eels. The sons looked at each other with a knowing glance, and one said to the other: "You know what? Let's take the eels out and cast the old man back in one more time."

This macabre metaphor perfectly illustrates Anka Grupińska’s relationship with the legacy of Marek Edelman. During his life, he was utilized as a moral authority. Now, even though he has been dead for nearly twenty years, his body is still being "re-cast" into the public arena because the fishing season for his legacy never ends.

Grupińska—(along with Joanna Żuchowska and Joanna Szczęsna) spent decades building her career on her proximity to Edelman, but her actions expose a profoundly warped, pathologically corrupt set of journalistic ethics. Grupińska (along with Żuchowska and Szczęsna) was engaged in a literal "fishy business," refusing to stop exploiting him even when severe old age and failing health deprived him of his cognitive control. This is explicitly evident in the video materials they recorded and unethically published on Vimeo and YouTube, where Grupińska specifically pressed an ailing Edelman for stories about other historical figures, including ŻOB commander Mordechaj Anielewicz.

The attached Vimeo transcript of Edelman speaking about Janusz Korczak and Anielewicz shows how these reporters highlighted what can only be described as absolute absurdities and historical inaccuracies, treating the ramblings of a very sick man as credible material. For instance, they captured and preserved Edelman’s famous yet completely fake story that Anielewicz's mother was a poor fishmonger and that Mordechaj used to paint the gills of rotting fish red to make them look fresh. While Hanna Krall first recorded this myth in Shielding the Flame, the historical reality is well-documented: the Anielewicz family actually owned a regular vegetable shop. By pressing a deteriorating Edelman on these exact "fishy" narratives for their Vimeo recordings, the journalists were actively painting the gills of a dying man's memory to sell their own media products.

The video itself captures a tragic loss of dignity, showing an incapacitated Edelman shouting at the reporters: "Why don't you agree with me? Just nod your head." By publishing raw transcripts of these sessions, Grupińska has committed a double betrayal. First, she humiliated a historical hero by putting his decline on display. Second, she manufactured a false historical record. Future researchers who only read the printed text without seeing the physical and mental state of the dying man will dangerously mistake these confused utterances for the rational, deliberate stance of a healthy mind.

Yet, death has not stopped the harvest. One must ask: How much longer will Grupińska continue to use Edelman’s corpse to fuel her own career and bolster her personal status?

Recently, at a turbulent meeting at the Marek Edelman Center for Dialogue in Łódź—which bore a chilling resemblance to Stalinist-era ZMP rallies where no dissenting opinions were tolerated—Edelman’s past words on Palestinians were instrumentally weaponized by Grupińska to silence others and elevate herself. Just like the sons in the joke, she refuses to let him rest in the depths of history as long as there are still "eels" left to catch.

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Zarzucimy Starego jeszcze raz? - Sezon na połowy nigdy się nie kończy - Grupińska i Eksploatacja Edelmana.

Krótka transkrypcja wypowiedzi Marka Edelmana o Januszu Korczaku, pochodząca z filmiku w internecie. Kolorem zaznaczone zostały wyłącznie największe bzdury i nieścisłości. Te materiały wideo – opublikowane na platformie Vimeo – zostały nagrane przez Joannę Żuchowską, Ankę Grupińską i Joannę Szczęsną. W rzeczywistości pokazują one bezduszną eksploatację Edelmana w bardzo podeszłym wieku i przy zachwianym zdrowiu. Transkrypcja ta stawia dwa druzgocące pytania o etykę dziennikarską.

Istnieje brutalny, czarny dowcip o synach rybaka, których ojciec utonął podczas sztormu. Po kilku dniach żałoby wypłynęli w morze, by móc dalej żyć z połowu. Gdy wyciągnęli sieć, zobaczyli w niej ciało ojca, z którego wyślizgiwały się dziesiątki tłustych węgorzy. Synowie spojrzeli na siebie porozumiewawczo, po czym jeden powiedział do drugiego: „Wiesz co? Wybierzemy węgorze i zarzucimy starego jeszcze raz.

Ta makabryczna metafora idealnie ilustruje relację Anki Grupińskiej z dziedzictwem Marka Edelmana. Za życia był on powszechnie wykorzystywany jako autorytet moralny. Dziś, choć od jego śmierci minęło już prawie dwadzieścia lat, jego postać wciąż jest „zarzucana” do przestrzeni publicznej – sezon na połowy na jego nazwisku nigdy się nie kończy.

Grupińska – przez dekady budowała swoją karierę na bliskości z Edelmanem, jednak jej działania obnażają głęboko zachwianą, patologicznie chorą etykę dziennikarską. Trzy reporterki, (oprócz Grupinskiej, Zuchowska i Szczęsna), nie przestały go eksploatować nawet wtedy, gdy zaawansowany wiek i utrata zdrowia odebrały Edelmanowi kontrolę poznawczą nad własnymi wypowiedziami. Ewidentnym dowodem na to są materiały wideo, które nagrały i nieetycznie opublikowały na platformie Vimeo. Załączona powyżej transkrypcyjna wypowiedź Edelmana na temat Janusza Korczaka pokazuje, że utrwalono tam – mówiąc wprost – największe bzdury i nieścisłości historyczne, traktując majaczenia ciężko chorego człowieka jako wiarygodny materiał.

Samo nagranie dokumentuje tragiczną utratę godności, ukazując schorowanego Edelmana krzyczącego na dziennikarki: „Co ze mną się nie zgadzasz? Kiwnij głową”. Publikując suche transkrypcje z tych sesji, Grupińska dopuściła się podwójnej zdrady. Po pierwsze, upokorzyła historycznego Edelmana, wystawiając jego niedołężność na widok publiczny. Po drugie, sfałszowała zapis historyczny. Przyszli badacze, którzy po latach będą czytać wyłącznie tekst pisany, nie widząc fizycznego i psychicznego stanu Edelmana, zostaną wprowadzeni w błąd – wezmą splątane słowa demencji za świadome, racjonalne stanowisko trzeźwo myślącego lidera.

Śmierć Edelmana nie przerwała jednak tych żniw. Należy zadać fundamentalne pytanie: Jak długo jeszcze Grupińska będzie używać zwłok Edelmana do budowania własnej kariery i napędzania swojej pozycji zawodowej? Ostatnio, podczas burzliwego spotkania w Centrum Dialogu im. Marka Edelmana w Łodzi – które przypominało stalinowskie wiece ZMP, gdzie nikt nie miał prawa do odmiennego zdania – dawne słowa Edelmana na temat Palestyńczyków zostały przez Grupińską instrumentalnie użyte do uciszenia oponentów i wykreowania własnej osoby. Dokładnie tak jak synowie rybaka z dowcipu, nie pozwala ona Edelmanowi spocząć w głębinach historii, dopóki można wyciągnąć z niego kolejne „węgorze”."

Dziś, niemal 20 lat po jego śmierci, 'stary zostaje zarzucony raz jeszcze'. Grupińska instrumentalnie wykorzystuje dawne słowa Edelmana na temat Palestyńczyków, by legitymować własne poglądy i uciszać oponentów. To smutny finał procesu, w którym żywy człowiek stał się narzędziem, a jego śmierć nie zakończyła okresu połowu.

Polemika z tezami Edelmana w powyższym wywiadzie.

E-1. Jego metoda wychowawcza nam nie odpowiadała.

Komu "nam" bundowcom czy pedagogom?

E-2. to karanie było okropne

Jakie kary. Korczak był przeciwny wszelakim karom, szczególnie cielesnej!

E-3. już nie umiem powiedzieć, jakie to były kary, bo ja z nim... myśmy mało... nie mieli nic wspólnego

Jedna z niewielu prawd w całym wywiadzie! Korczak i Edelman nie mieli nic wspólnego!

E-4, w czasie wojny, naprzeciwko szpitala Bersohnów i Baumanów, gdzie ja pracowałem, oni mieli swój dom dziecka tam przeniesiony

Dom Sierot był przeniesiony na ul. Sienna 16. Natomiast szpital w którym Edelman pracował jako goniec to ul. Sienna ale nr. 60. Daleko i nie naprzeciwko!

E-5. szpital kradnie jedzenie jego dzieciom

Tu chodzi o spór między dr Anną Braude-Hellerową (zginęła w kwietniu 1943 roku) i Korczakiem, który domagał się, by komisja zdrowia przy Judenracie dawała więcej pieniędzy dla Głównego Domu Schronienia przy ul. Dzielnej 39. Korczak pisze w Pamiętniku (1942), że umiera w Głównym Domu Schronienia przy Dzielnej 39 kilka dziesiątek dzieci dziennie. Uważa, że powinno się im pomóc. Korczak robił wszystko, aby ta placówka przestała być "umieralnią", "rzeźnią dzieci"

Takich E-.. z numerem jest setki ale chyba te kilka, dają pełny obraz Edelmana.

Dzieci muszą mieć kartę praw, reguły postępowania...

 „Dzieci muszą mieć kartę praw, reguły postępowania... Kiedy miałem jedenaście lat, byłem przewodniczącym zarządu i prowadziłem organizację, taką organizację dziecięcą. Czytałem konstytucję... i wszyscy mieliśmy obowiązki... sprzątanie pokoi, w których spaliśmy, sprzątanie łazienek, zmywanie naczyń, przygotowywanie śniadań, wydawanie obiadów... Każde dziecko miało jakieś zadanie do wykonania... Co roku odbywały się wybory... W sierocińcu mieliśmy od siedemdziesięciu pięciu do osiemdziesięciu dzieci... więc zachodziły zmiany, ale każdy miał swój obowiązek. [Mieliśmy także] teatry... Zostałem nagrodzony, gdy miałem osiem lat, za grę w teatrze, w przedstawieniu, w komedii... Mam bardzo dobre poczucie humoru... i w bardzo krótkim czasie zyskałem sympatię ludzi. I takie jest życie — tak to powinno wyglądać. Tak mnie nauczono”.

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Fighting Nazis by the Moral Shield, the Smile, Disgust and the Absence of Fear - Women during Warsaw Ghetto Uprise - Pstscriptum: "Their last battle is finally being witnessed".

By displaying contempt, women who were caught during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and forced to take off all their clothes in the middle of the street signaled: "You may hold the gun, but you are unworthy of my fear."*

For the German SS, the female fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto represented a profound violation of the 'natural order.' In an army where combat was exclusively male, these women were viewed as biological anomalies. Forced nudity, therefore, served as a ritual of 'unmasking'—an attempt by the Germans to strip away the fighter's military identity and reduce her to a vulnerable, gendered body. However, when we analyze the archival photos through a lens of bravery rather than victimhood, we see that the fighters' defiant expressions acted as a final refusal to return to that submissive gender role. They remained combatants, even when stripped of their uniforms.

Women fighters caught during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: they stared down their killers with a biological superiority that no bullet could erase.

Women fighters caught during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: they stared down their killers with a biological superiority that no bullet could erase.

There are seven basic emotions and facial expressions according to Paul Ekman’s theory. The intensity of the expression varies. Paul Ekman identified seven universal emotions—anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise, and contempt—where expressions are recognized across cultures. Ekman also described a kind of micro-expressions that last for a part of a second.

Joy: The corners of the mouth turn up into a smile, and "crow's feet" appear at the corners of the eyes.
Anger: The eyebrows lower and the lower eyelids rise. The facial muscles become tense. Both the eyes and the mouth narrow. The mouth may also open slightly to reveal the teeth.
Disgust: The nose wrinkles and the upper lip rises while the eyebrows are lowered.
Contempt: The only expression displayed on just one side of the face; one corner of the mouth turns upward.
Sadness: The inner parts of the eyebrows are raised. The corners of the mouth turn down. Drooping eyelids.
Surprise: The eyebrows rise. The jaw drops.
Fear: The eyebrows rise and pull together. The lips form a straight line. Here, too, the mouth may open slightly. Often, the whites of the eyes are visible.

Here is the analysis of how these specific emotions, as defined by Paul Ekman, were used by the women of the Warsaw Ghetto as a form of psychological weaponry:

The Final Weapon used by female fighters caught by Nazis during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Contempt (Contempt) – The Moral Shield
According to Ekman, contempt is the only asymmetrical facial expression (appearing on only one side of the face). It signals a sense of superiority—that the other person is beneath respect or consideration. 

 By displaying contempt, these women drew an invisible line in the sand. It signaled: "You may hold the gun, but you are unworthy of my fear." To show contempt to an SS officer attempting to dehumanize you is a radical act of subversion. It transforms the perpetrator's attempt at dominance into something pathetic. It is the ultimate refusal to acknowledge the executioner’s authority.

Joy/The Smile – Visual Sabotage
While Ekman describes a "true" smile as involving the eyes (Duchenne smile), the smiles seen in these ghetto photographs are often controlled and defiant. The Weapon: When a woman smiles at a camera intended to document her defeat, she performs an act of visual sabotage. Nazi propaganda required images of terror to "prove" their theories of racial superiority. A smile—even a cold or mocking one—makes the photograph useless for their propaganda. It shows a human being who remains unbroken, forcing the viewer to see a hero rather than a victim.

The Absence of Fear – Denying the Perpetrator's Reward
The most provocative thing for a perpetrator is the absence of the biological signs of fear: raised, pulled-together eyebrows and wide eyes showing the whites. The Weapon: By suppressing the biology of "paralyzing helplessness" and choosing a mask of indifference or stoicism, these women robbed the Germans of their "reward." A sadistic perpetrator feeds on the victim's terror. When the women refused to provide that feedback, the soldiers were left powerless in their own aggression. Their fearlessness was a shield that protected their inner self.

Disgust – Defining the Barbarian
Ekman describes disgust as a wrinkled nose and a raised upper lip. The Weapon: In their gaze toward the guards, one often sees a flicker of disgust. This flipped the Nazi narrative entirely: it wasn't the captive who was "unclean" or "subhuman," but the uniformed man committing the atrocity. Their disgust labeled the Nazis as the true barbarians, placing the moral judgment back on the perpetrators.

For the German SS, the female fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto represented a profound violation of the 'natural order.' In an army where combat was exclusively male, these women were viewed as biological anomalies. Forced nudity, therefore, served as a ritual of 'unmasking'—an attempt by the Germans to strip away the fighter's military identity and reduce her to a vulnerable, gendered body. However, when we analyze the archival photos through a lens of bravery rather than victimhood, we see that the fighters' defiant expressions acted as a final refusal to return to that submissive gender role. They remained combatants, even when stripped of their uniforms.

Gender
Several female historians nowadays say "protect" the female fighters, calling them victims and hiding these photos instead of showing their full strength. By treating the nudity not as a loss of honor, but as the final "combat zone," I want to give these women their agency back in a way that traditional or "protective" research often fails to do.

Women fighters caught during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: they stared down their killers with a biological superiority that no bullet could erase.

Mit Waffen gefangene Weiber der Haluzzenbewegung. Captured female fighters of the He-Chaluc movement during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (May 1943). While the "male" paramilitary clothing in this Stroop Report photograph frames them as soldiers, their facial expressions communicate a deeper, irreducible "Agency through Combat." This defiant gaze remains a consistent weapon of resistance, even in archived images where such fighters were forced into nudity.

Mit Waffen gefangene Weiber der Haluzzenbewegung. Captured female fighters of the He-Chaluc movement during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (May 1943). While the "male" paramilitary clothing in this Stroop Report photograph frames them as soldiers, their facial expressions communicate a deeper, irreducible "Agency through Combat." This defiant gaze remains a consistent weapon of resistance, even in archived images where such fighters were forced into nudity.

Conclusion:
While every woman was an individual who reacted in her own way, those who belonged to the resistance movements often shared a common "combatant's face." They used Paul Ekman’s basic emotions to rewrite history in real-time, right in front of their captors' eyes. They didn't just die; they stared down their killers with a biological superiority that no bullet could erase.

The German fascination with photographing female fighters—both clothed and naked—stems from a deep ideological shock. In the strictly patriarchal world of the Nazi military, a female combatant was viewed as a 'perversion' of nature. Forced nudity was therefore used as a weapon of 'unmasking,' intended to reduce the militant 'haluca' to a vulnerable biological object. However, by focusing on the defiant expressions of these women during these moments of exposure, we see a final, irreducible act of war. The 'face' they made was a refusal to be 'corrected' by the German gaze. While modern protective scholarship may hide these images to spare the victim's dignity, doing so inadvertently validates the Nazi attempt to erase their status as soldiers. To see their bravery in the nude is to acknowledge a resistance that transcended the physical uniform.

Scholar Zoë Waxman and other female researchers have argued that we must be careful not to 're-victimize' women by making their naked bodies public property. This academic stance has directly influenced archival policy, leading to what some describe as 'censorship' and others term 'curatorial ethics.' The objective of these scholars was not necessarily to physically destroy the photographs, but to remove them from the public eye. Their argument is that by viewing the naked fighter, we are forced to adopt the gaze of the SS man who stripped her. By withdrawing the photo, they believe they are 'giving her back her clothes' and her dignity. Consequently, while the physical photos still exist in deep archives, they have vanished from exhibitions and textbooks, becoming increasingly inaccessible even to historians. This change, driven largely by the feminist shift in Holocaust studies, is counterproductive; by sanitizing the brutal reality of Nazi crimes, it inadvertently serves the interests of Holocaust deniers.

Contrast in Defiance: The Liepaja Massacres vs. The Warsaw Ghetto
"To understand the unique 'bravery' of the Warsaw fighters, one must contrast their images with the harrowing photographs from the Liepaja massacres at Šķēde beach (December 1941). In the Liepaja photos, we see Jewish women forced to undress in the biting Baltic cold, moments before their execution. Their posture is defined by shivering vulnerability; they attempt to cover their nudity with their hands, their faces etched with the raw terror of those who have seen their families murdered seconds before. In Liepaja, the nudity is the final stage of a total, crushing dehumanization.
In contrast, the 'faces' made by the women of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising—captured nearly two years later—tell a different story of the body. Unlike the women in Liepaja, the Warsaw fighters had experienced a period of military agency. They had held weapons; they had chosen to fight. This brief experience of freedom and power seems to have altered their relationship with their own bodies.
When the Warsaw women are forced to undress, they not only show terror; they show contempt. While the women in Liepaja were victims of a surprise genocidal sweep, the Warsaw women were prisoners of war who refused to surrender their 'militant spirit' even as they were stripped of their clothes. By comparing these two sets of images, it becomes clear that the 'minerna' (the faces) in Warsaw were a direct continuation of their armed resistance—a refusal to be reduced to the shivering, terrified state that the Nazi executioners in Liepaja had successfully imposed on their victims.

In the Liepaja photos, we see Jewish women forced to undress in the biting Baltic cold, moments before their execution. Their posture is defined by shivering vulnerability; they attempt to cover their nudity with their hands, their faces etched with the raw terror of those who have seen their families murdered seconds before. In Liepaja, the nudity is the final stage of a total, crushing dehumanization.

What I meant with:

"Agency through Combat": Having fought gives the female fighters a mental armor that does not disappear when their clothes are taken off.

"The Decisive Gaze": The difference between looking into the camera as an adversary (Warsaw) and looking away from it in despair (Liepaja).

"Spatial Freedom": The fact that the girls in Warsaw had been "free" and in control of their neighborhoods for several days gave them a sense of sovereignty, evident in their facial expressions.

* Why is this photo placed at the top of my blog? Two reasons! If it appeared as photos below, it could be stopped by Facebook or other media as one can see the breast nipples. Probably for the same reason, the curatorial decision was taken at GFH to restrict public access to images of forced nudity. It reflects a shift in archival ethics aimed at protecting the dignity of photographed persons, though it simultaneously risks obscuring the militant agency of the subjects.
By removing these photos, curators are effectively disarming the fighter a second time. If the woman chose to meet the Nazi camera with a smirk or a defiant "face" while naked, that was her final weapon. By censoring the photo to "protect her," we are ignoring her chosen method of resistance in that specific moment.

Postscriptum: The Resonating Gaze

When I published these forgotten archival images, I was deeply concerned about how they would be received. The feedback from readers—particularly from Jewish women in Poland, Israel, and Sweden—has been overwhelmingly consistent. They do not see the nudity as a state of defeated victimization; they see it as the terrain of an ultimate struggle.

As one reader from Poland/Israel wrote:

"I have never before seen these photographs of the naked female ghetto fighters with the emotions and body language that serve as their final act of combat. The other, equally shocking photographs have been used repeatedly in documentary films, publications, or exhibitions on the theme of the Holocaust. Thanks for enriching my modest knowledge. And the memory of the smile of that girl—the heroine—will now stay with me forever."

This sentiment was mirrored by a Swedish reader, who captured the exact subversion of the Nazi power dynamic that I argued for:

"These women are heroines. So brave and strong. It must have been hell for them. Those disgusting swine [the SS] must have felt even more swinish when the women walked naked and 'invulnerable'. Well fought by these women!"

These responses provide the ultimate counter-argument to the "protective censorship" practiced by modern archives. When we hide these photos under the guise of "curatorial ethics," we are not protecting these women; we are completing the Nazi erasure of their final stand. When the public is finally allowed to see them, they do not look at the exposed body with a voyeuristic gaze. Instead, they look at the face, they see the smile, and they recognize that even when stripped bare, these fighters remained completely invulnerable to the shame their executioners tried to impose on them. Their last battle is finally being witnessed.

This specific feedback is a crucial piece of qualitative evidence for my paper. It completely validates my argument against the "protective sanitization" practiced by scholars like Zoë Waxman.

Proof of Archival Erasure: The fact that an engaged reader from Poland, Sweden, or Israel states they have “never before seen these photographs”—while seeing the clothed ones repeatedly—proves that a systematic gatekeeping or "curatorial ethics" has successfully hidden these images from the public.

Validation of "The Decisive Gaze": The reader did not look at the nude photograph and see a passive, sexualized victim. Instead, they immediately recognized the “emotions and body language” as a “final act of combat.” This proves that my interpretation is not just an idiosyncratic theory; it is a legible reality to other viewers when they are actually allowed to see the evidence.

The Impact of the "Smile": The reader’s emotional takeaway is not shock at the nudity, but a permanent memory of the “smile of that girl—the heroine.” The smile—the "face" she made—successfully transcended the Nazi attempt to degrade her body. By showing the photograph, I did not re-victimize her; I simply allowed her to win her last battle in the mind of a modern viewer.

The necessity of bypassing this archival sanitization is underscored by the reception of these unearthed images among contemporary viewers. When presented with the photographs of the forced undressing, a Jewish female researcher noted: 'I have never before seen these photographs of the naked female ghetto fighters with the emotions and body language that serve as their final act of combat... the memory of the smile of that girl—the heroine—will now stay with me forever.' This reaction clearly demonstrates that the 'protective' withholding of these images by museum and archives curators does not shield the victim’s dignity; rather, it suppresses the memory of her resistance. When the public is permitted to look past the nudity, they do not see a defeated object—they see the enduring sovereignty of a female fighter´s smile.

** Stroop, Jürgen. The Stroop Report: "The Jewish Quarter of Warsaw is No More!" Translated and edited by Sybil Milton. New York: Pantheon Books, 1979. (Original work published 1943). 
Stroop, Jürgen. Raport Stroopa: „Żydowska dzielnica mieszkaniowa w Warszawie już nie istnieje!”. Opracowanie: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej (IPN), Warszawa: 2009.

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