Tag #157036 - Interview #79438 (Hillel Kempler)

At the time of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, that was 1944, we head news about the events in Europe. One day, information came from the Warsaw Ghetto from the Jewish historian Emanuel Ringelblum. He was known around the world. He was with his wife and son in the Warsaw Ghetto and managed to smuggle information about the Ghetto – he has set up an archive in the underground – to London. The news came to Israel from London. The Jewish politicians, the officers of Va’ad Leumi [the Jewish National Council (JNC), or council of Jewish people, was the national authority of the Jewish community during the time of the British Mandate] and the Sochnut [Jewish Agency (Zionist Organization with government function in Jewish Palestine before 1948)] didn’t want too much fuss in Palestine, and so they didn’t want these crimes to become known. Those were political reasons. The leader of our left-leaning organization had been good friends with Ringelblum in Poland, who was hunted out of his hiding place with his wife, son, and others in hiding, and shot. He said: We need to “stir things up” a bit in Tel Aviv, it can’t be that no one here knows what’s happening in Europe. He sent off all the young people from our organization. We took to the streets, went to all the cinemas and theaters, gatecrashed the theater performances. We interrupted the films and performances, went up to the front and talked about what was happening in Warsaw. That was the first time that we understood what had happened to the Jews. That all happened in one evening. The reaction was very strong, it created a great stir. And then, bit by bit, slowly, slowly, we learned more.