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 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 Teitelbaums' 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.