Simcha Rotem

Simcha Rotem (1924-present) also known as Kazik, the name he used as a member of the Jewish Underground in Warsaw, he served as the head courier of the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB), which planned and executed the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising against the Nazis.

Before World War II

He was born Szymon Ratajzer in 1924 in Warsaw, Poland and was 15 years old when Germany invaded Poland in 1939.

The Second World War

In 1942 he joined the Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa (ZOB). Because of his non-Jewish aryan looks and unaccented Polish, Rotem became particularly useful as a courier for the fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto and often conducted missions to rescue Jews dressed as a member of elite Polish units associated with the German Waffen S.S.. The name "Kazik" is a name diminution from "Kazimierz" = Casimir. He received this name during a mission for the ZOB because of his aryan looks. He took part in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. When it became apparent that all was lost, he was sent via a secret passageway to the aryan side of Warsaw to meet with ZOB commander Yitzhak Zuckerman to try to arrange an escape for the fighters. The passageway was discovered by the Nazis, however, and unable to return via that route, he and Zuckerman were trapped on the aryan side while the fighting raged and the ghetto burned. Desperate to reach their comrades, Rotem made several attempts to enter the ghetto through the sewers of Warsaw before finally succeeding. There he met one of the last surviving leaders of the ghetto revolt Zivia Lubetkin and he led her and her team of approximately 80 fighters through the sewers to the aryan side and then to the forests outside of the city. He became the head courier for the ZOB and second in command to Zuckerman. Throughout the rest of the war he continued his underground activities with the resistance, in particular helping to care for the several thousand Jews who still remained in Warsaw in hiding. In August 1944, he took part in the Polish Warsaw Uprising.

Post-war life

Immediately following the end of World War II, Rotem became a member of the "Avengers", a special squad made up of members of the Jewish Resistance during the war who tracked down and executed known Nazi war criminals in Europe. He took part in the organization of the Beriha, an organization that helped European Jews illegally immigrate to what was then called Mandate Palestine. Although his twelve-year old sister was murdered in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, his parents and another sister survived in hiding and, in 1947, he and the surviving members of his family immigrated to Israel. He now lives in Jerusalem.

Bibliography

Rotem, Simhah. Memoirs of a Warsaw Ghetto Fighter: The Past within Me. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.

[article in Polish] "Mściciel z Czerniakowa" ["An Avenger from Czerniakow area"] , "Gazeta Wyborcza", July 14-15 2007. Available athttp://www.znak.org.pl/index.php?t=ludzie&id=160