Michał Klepfisz

Michał Klepfisz
Born	April 17, 1913 Warsaw, Congress Poland
Died	April 20, 1943(1943-04-20) (aged 30) Warsaw, Nazi occupied Poland
Place of burial	Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery
Allegiance	Polish resistance
Service / branch	ŻOB
Battles / wars	World War II Warsaw Ghetto Uprising  †
Awards	Virtuti Militari

Klepfisz's cenotaph

Michał Klepfisz (Warsaw, 17 April 1913^[1] – 20 April 1943, Warsaw)^[2] was a chemical engineer, activist for the Bund, and member of the Jewish Morgenstern sports organization.^[3] During World War II he belonged to the Jewish Combat Organization, fighting the Nazi German forces in Poland. He was killed in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and was posthumously decorated by the Polish government in exile with a Silver Cross of the Virtuti Militari.

Life

Klepfisz graduated from the Warsaw Polytechnic with a degree in engineering.^[4] In the interwar period he was a member of the Bund-affiliated Morgnshtern organization.^[5] In 1937 he married Róża Perczykof ("Lodzia"; later known as Rose Klepfisz, 1914–2016).^[6][7]

In 1942 he was put on a train to the Treblinka extermination camp by the Nazis, but escaped by taking out the metal screen behind the train window^[8] and made his way back to Warsaw.^[9] Soon afterward he managed to get his wife, sister Regina and daughter Irena smuggled out of the ghetto (they survived the Holocaust).^[9] They hid with a Polish woman, Maria Sawicka, a member of Żegota, who before the war had run track with Regina,^[10] and who had previously hidden Klepfisz when he had left the ghetto.^[11]

During the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Klepfisz directed the underground production of explosives for the Jewish resistance. After receiving instruction from the Polish Home Army (AK) in making Molotov cocktails,^[2] Klepfisz set up an underground bomb factory in the ghetto, while other members of the Jewish resistance smuggled in the necessary ingredients from the "Aryan side" (they had to be purchased from many unrelated suppliers so as not to raise suspicions).^[12] A major problem was how to test the explosives that he produced. Eventually Klepfisz bribed his landlord to let him test the home-made bombs in a deserted limekiln in a factory building owned by the man.^[12] Though the extent of Klepfisz's operation is unknown, in 1964, Polish workmen carrying out work on the site of the former factory unearthed 100,000 explosive-filled glass detonators for Molotov cocktails.^[13]

Together with Arie Wilner, Klepfisz also served as an intermediary between the Jewish Combat Organization and the Polish resistance movement organisation - Home Army.^[2] He was trained in explosives production by a Home Army soldier, Zbigniew Lewandowski (nom de guerre "Szyna"—"Rail").^[1] Klepfisz, Wilner and Icchak Cukierman,^[14] through the AK, and through the AK-subordinated Polish Socialist Party,WRN (Polish Socialists not associated with Moscow) sent arms into the ghetto.^[2]

Klepfisz was called a "pillar of the uprising" by London radio.^[15] He was killed on the second day of the Uprising on Bonifraterska Street, in the brush-factory district,^[10] protecting the retreat of his fellow soldiers (including Marek Edelman) by covering a German machine gun with his own body.^[16] Gen. Wladyslaw Sikorski (Polish Commander-in-Chief and Premier of the Polish Government in Exile) decorated him posthumously with a Silver Virtuti Militari V class^[17][18] which is now on display at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.^[9]

Michał Klepfisz was described by those who knew him as tall and thin, with a calm, quiet disposition.^[19] He has a cenotaph in the Warsaw Jewish Cemetery on Okopowa Street (grave #39609),^[20] with the inscription:

Engineer Michał Klepfisz. 17 IV 1913 – 20 IV 1943. Activist of the Bund youth organization. Jewish Combat Organization representative in the Polish resistance movement. Died a heroic death in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Glory to his memory!^[10]

Klepfisz's sister, Regina Klepfisz, was also a Bund activist.^[6] His daughter, Irena Klepfisz (who, along with his wife, was smuggled out of the ghetto on the eve of the Uprising in 1943) survived the Holocaust and emigrated to the United States. She is a noted essayist and poet.^[21] The poems "The Widow and the Daughter" and "Searching for My Father's Body" are about Michał Klepfisz.^[22]

See also

• List of Poles
• Bernard Goldstein
• Maurycy Orzech

Notes

1. in Polish - Bartosz Charachajczuk (2009). "Michał Klepfisz. Zdazyc przed panem Bogiem" (Michal Klepfisz. To make it before God)". Freshmind Sp z. o.o. Retrieved October 3, 2009.
2. Rotem, Harshav 2001, p. 36.
3. Eisenberg 1981, p. 366.
4. Kunert, Przewoźnik 2002, p. 264.
5. Jack Jacobs, The Yivo Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, "Sport: An Overview", 2005, "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-06-15. Retrieved 2009-10-13.
6. Paulsson 2002, p. 106.
7. Kutzik, Jordan (April 15, 2016). "Remembering Archivist and Warsaw Ghetto Survivor Rose Klepfisz". The Forward. Retrieved 2016-07-05.
8. Miedzyrzecki 1979, p. 129.
9. Peterson 2001, p. 208.
10. Krall 1992, p. 205.
11. Klepfisz 1990, pp. 29-34.
12. Goldstein 1998, p. 187.
13. Ainsztein, Reuben (1979). The Warsaw Ghetto Revolt. New York: Waldon Press. pp. 66–67. ISBN 089604-007-0.
14. Kurzman 1993, p. 77.
15. Shrayer 2007, p. 478.
16. Gutman 1998, p. 214.
17. Krall, Kosicka 1996, p. 11.
18. in Polish - Eve Petniak (2009). "Heroes reportage "In time the Lord God"". ostatnidzwonek. Retrieved October 3, 2009.
19. in Polish - Hanna Krall (2009). "Heroes drugoplanowi". Baccalaureate and studies of klp.pl. Retrieved October 3, 2009.
20. "Michał Klepfisz". cemetery.jewish.org.pl. 2009. Retrieved October 3, 2009.
21. Ellis 1999, p. 73.
22. "Guilt/Anger". Dartmouth College. 2009. Archived from the original on February 27, 2009. Retrieved October 3, 2009.

References

• Azriel Louis Eisenberg (1981). Witness to the Holocaust, Part 810 (1981 ed.). Pilgrim Press. ISBN 0-8298-0432-3. - Total pages: 649
• Marc H. Ellis (1999). O, Jerusalem!: the contested future of the Jewish covenant (1999 ed.). Fortress Press. ISBN 0-8006-3159-5. - Total pages: 186
• Phyllis Goldstein (1998). The Jews of Poland (January 1998 ed.). Facing History and Ourselves National Foundation, Inc. ISBN 0-9615841-8-1. - Total pages: 276
• Israel Gutman (1994). Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1998 ed.). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 0-395-90130-8. - Total pages: 277
• Irena Klepfisz (1990). A few words in the mother tongue: poems selected and new (1971-1990) (1990 ed.). Eighth Mountain Press. ISBN 0-933377-07-X. Archived from the original on 2009-02-27. Retrieved 2009-10-01. - Total pages: 251
• Hanna Krall (1992). The subtenant ; To outwit God (1992 ed.). Northwestern University Press. ISBN 0-8101-1075-X. - Total pages: 247
• Hanna Krall, Jadwiga Kosicka (1996). To steal a march on God (1996 ed.). Routledge. ISBN 3-7186-5776-7. - Total pages: 40
• Andrzej Krzysztof Kunert, Andrzej Przewoźnik. Żydzi polscy w służbie Rzeczypospolitej 1939-1945: wybór źródeł (Jews in the service of the Republic 1939-1945: sources) (2002 ed.). Rada Ochrony Pamięci Walk i Męczeństwa. ISBN 83-916663-4-4. - Total pages: 264
• Dan Kurzman (22 August 1993). The bravest battle: the twenty-eight days of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, Part 765 (1993 ed.). Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80533-2. - Total pages: 386
• Feigele Peltel Miedzyrzecki. On both sides of the wall: memoirs from the Warsaw ghetto (1979 ed.). Holocaust Library : [distributed by Schocken Books]. ISBN 0-89604-013-5. - Total pages: 276
• Gunnar S. Paulsson (2002). Secret city: the hidden Jews of Warsaw, 1940-1945 (2002 ed.). Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-09546-5. - Total pages: 298
• Nancy J. Peterson (23 April 2001). Against amnesia: contemporary women writers and the crises of historical memory (2001 ed.). University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0-8122-3594-0. - Total pages: 242
• Śimḥah Rotem, Barbara Harshav (October 2001). Memoirs of a Warsaw Ghetto Fighter (2001 ed.). Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-09376-4. - Total pages: 180
• Maxim Shrayer. An anthology of Jewish-Russian literature: two centuries of dual identity in prose and poetry, Volume 1 (2007 ed.). M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 0-7656-0521-X. - Total pages: 633