14 Facts About Szmul Zygielbojm

Szmul Zygielbojm fled to the Netherlands, then to England, where he was appointed to the National Council of the Polish government-in-exile.

Szmul Zygielbojm was born on February 21,1895, in the village of Borowica, Poland.

Szmul Zygielbojm so impressed the Bund leadership at the convention that he was invited to Warsaw in 1920 to serve as secretary of the Trade Union of Jewish Metal Workers and a member of the Warsaw Committee of the Bund.

On his release, Szmul Zygielbojm was made a member of the Jewish Council, or Judenrat, which the Nazis had appointed.

In London, Szmul Zygielbojm continued to speak publicly about the fate of Polish Jews, including a meeting of the British Labour Party and a speech broadcast on BBC Radio on June 2,1942.

One of his guides in the ghetto was Leon Feiner who, like Szmul Zygielbojm, was a Bundist.

Two weeks later, Szmul Zygielbojm spoke again on BBC Radio concerning the fate of the Jews of Poland.

Days later, Szmul Zygielbojm received word of the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and of the ghetto's final liquidation.

Szmul Zygielbojm learned that his wife Manya and 16-year-old son Tuvia had been killed there.

Szmul Zygielbojm died at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, on 12 May 1943.

Szmul Zygielbojm accused the Western Allies of "looking on passively upon this murder of defenseless millions of tortured children, women and men," and the Polish government of not doing enough.

Szmul Zygielbojm died in 1995, survived by his sons, Arthur and Paul.

Szmul Zygielbojm's body was cremated in symbolic protest and unity with the murdered millions of the Holocaust.

In May 1996, a plaque in memory of Szmul Zygielbojm was dedicated at the corner of Porchester Road and Porchester Square in London, near where he had committed suicide.