Szmul Zygielbojm
Szmul Mordko Zygielbojm (Polish: [ˈʂmul zɨˈɡʲɛlbɔjm]; Yiddish: שמואל זיגלבוים; 21 February 1895 – 12 May 1943) was a Polish socialist politician, Bund trade-union activist, and member of the National Council of the Polish government-in-exile.
Szmul Zygielbojm | |
|---|---|
| שמואל זיגלבוים | |
| National Councillor | |
| In office March 1942 – 12 May 1943 | |
| President | Władysław Raczkiewicz |
| Prime Minister | Władysław Sikorski |
| Central Committee of the Bund | |
| In office 1924 – 12 May 1943 | |
| Judenrat of the Warsaw Ghetto | |
| In office September – November 1939 | |
| President | Adam Czerniaków |
| Łódź city council | |
| In office 1938 – September 1939 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 21 February 1895 Borowica, Russian Empire |
| Died | 12 May 1943 (aged 48) St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, England |
| Cause of death | Suicide |
| Resting place | New Mt. Carmel Cemetery, Ridgewood, New York |
| Nationality | Polish |
| Political party | General Jewish Bund |
| Occupation | Trade union activist, politician, journalist |
| Known for | Publicizing the Holocaust in Poland |
Zygielbojm was born in 1895 into a working-class family and had to leave school at age ten. In his early twenties he became involved in Bund trade-union activism, and in 1924 was elected to the Bund Central Committee. He edited a Bund newspaper and in 1938 was elected to the Łódź city council. Upon Germany's invasion of Poland, he fled to Warsaw and was briefly a member of the Judenrat.
He fled to the Netherlands, then to England, where he was appointed to the National Council of the Polish government-in-exile. He interviewed Jan Karski and tried to publicize the mass murder of Jews in German-occupied Poland. After the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was brutally crushed, and Warsaw's remaining Jews murdered by units under SS-Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop, Zygielbojm committed suicide to protest the inaction of the western Allies.