His death occurs during the final days of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, shortly after he'd received news that the Resistance is being crushed and that his own wife and son had perished in the ghetto.

Zygielbojm, a leader of the Jewish socialist Bund and a member of the National Council of the Polish Government-in-Exile, had spent years tirelessly providing intelligence to the West about the Holocaust. He chose to take his own life by gas to "jolt the indifference" of leaders who he believed could still save the remaining Jews.

He left a poignant suicide note addressed to Polish President Władysław Raczkiewicz and Prime Minister Władysław Sikorski.

>"I cannot live while the remnants of the Jewish people in Poland... are being exterminated... I belong with them, and with their mass graves".

He stated that while the perpetrators were directly responsible, the Allied governments shared a "burden" for their "passive observation" and lack of concrete rescue efforts. He hoped his death would serve as an "energetic cry of protest" to force diplomatic and propaganda initiatives to save the "living remnant" of Polish Jewry.

While Zygielbojm's death was reported in the British press and later in the *The New York Times*, it failed to trigger the immediate, massive Allied intervention he sought. Today, he is remembered as a symbol of Jewish solidarity and moral courage, with monuments dedicated to him in Warsaw, Chelm, and London.

**Today's Stroop Report:** 

>"Progress of large-scale operation on 12 May 1943, start 0930 hours.

>When the raiding parties combed out the area for remaining dug-outs in which Jews were hiding, they succeeded in discovering 30 dug-outs. 663 Jews were pulled out of them and 133 Jews were shot. The sum total of Jews caught has arisen to 54,463.

>Furthermore today the units cordoning off the miniature Ghetto were reinforced and destroyed by fire. Probably a considerable number of Jews perished in the flames, no accurate information in this regard could be obtained since the fire was still burning when darkness set in. One concrete building in the Prosta, from which Jews had been removed, was heavily damaged by blowing-up operations in order to make it impossible for the bandits to use it as a base later. 

>It is noteworthy that the Poles, without having been warned, took appropriate measures for protecting their window-panes, etc., before the blowing-up started. 

>The transports of Jews leaving here will be directed to T.II beginning today. Termination of today's operation: 2160 hours, will be continued on 13 May 1943, 1000 hours."

[https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-stroop-report-may-1943](https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-stroop-report-may-1943)

**NOTE: Certain historical documents, testimony, quotes & images are presented for the record, as evidence and background pertaining to criminal activities, horrific acts, and other notable evils. The words of murderers, criminals & their lawyers should never be mistaken for fact, as they are often bold-faced lies, nor should they be misconstrued as providing a viable justification for their crimes. Don't believe any of it, beyond the fact they did write & speak this nasty stuff and did purport to believe it. As always, read with an abundant degree of cautious skepticism. -W**

**PRESS REPORTS**: 

"Not until May 12, 1943 do we see any significant reaction to the uprising. On that day, Szmul Zygielbojm, a Polish Jewish socialist politician, Bundist trade union activist, and a member of the National Council of the Polish government-in-exile, committed suicide “to jolt the indifference of those who save the Jews who are still alive in Poland.”

For an entire year, the *Ghetto Speaks*, the monthly magazine of the General Workers Union of Poland, recalled: “Day in and day out, from the time that he became member of the Polish National Council in London, until his tragic death, Zygielbojm had received appeal upon appeal, cry upon cry, from the tortured Jews of Poland.”

The first information came from the Bund as early as June 1942 according to historian Yehuda Bauer. Dated May 1942, the report concluded the Germans have “embarked on the physical extermination of the Jewish population on Polish soil… It is estimated that the Germans have already killed 700,000 Polish Jews.” [https://jewishlinknj.com/features/31612-the-warsaw-ghetto-uprising-in-the-american-jewish-press](https://jewishlinknj.com/features/31612-the-warsaw-ghetto-uprising-in-the-american-jewish-press)

**OVERVIEW:** The uprising began on April 19, 1943, on the eve of Passover, when German troops entered the ghetto for the final "liquidation". Approximately 750 poorly armed Jewish fighters, primarily from the Jewish Fighting Organization (ŻOB) and the Jewish Military Union (ŻZW), resisted thousands of heavily armed Nazi troops for nearly a month. It was the first urban uprising against Nazi occupation in Europe. The uprising officially ended on May 16, 1943, when Stroop ordered the symbolic destruction of the Great Synagogue of Warsaw.

NOT MY LINKS 

ABOUT Szmul Zygielbojm: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Szmul\_Zygielbojm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Szmul_Zygielbojm)

1: Jews pulled from a bunker 

2: **Remember Szmul Zygielbojm!** "He used every means, including his own life, to persuade the Allied powers to take extraordinary action to save the remaining Jews in Poland, but they had other priorities.

>"I cannot remain silent. I cannot live while the remnants of the Jewish people, whose representative I am, are being exterminated. My comrades in the Warsaw Ghetto perished with their weapons in their hands in their last heroic battle. It was not my destiny to die as they did, together with them. But I belong to them and in their mass graves.

>By my death I wish to make the strongest possible protest against the passivity with which the world is looking on and permitting the extermination of the Jewish people …

>My life belongs to the Jewish people in Poland and, therefore, I give it to them. I wish that the surviving remnants of the several millions of Polish Jews could live to see, with the Polish population, the liberation that it could know in Poland, in a world of freedom and in the justice of socialism." 

These are extracts from letters left in his Paddington flat by Polish Jewish anti-fascist and trade unionist, Szmul “Artur” Zygielbojm, who committed suicide as an act of protest on the night of 11th – 12th May 1943." MORE: [https://www.jewishsocialist.org.uk/news/item/remember-szmul-zygielbojm](https://www.jewishsocialist.org.uk/news/item/remember-szmul-zygielbojm)



May 12, 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Day-24: Polish Government-in-Exile Member Szmul Zygielbojm Commits Suicide in London as a Final, Desperate Act of Protest “to jolt the Indifference of Those who Save the Jews who are Still Alive in Poland”: