May 8, 1943 – Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Part 4

Continuing his description of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, on Saturday, May 8, 1943, Julian Kulski wrote in his diary:

“The Germans today surrounded the bunker at Miła 18 in the Ghetto. Among the leaders who were trapped in the headquarters bunker was Mordechaj Anielewicz. Rather than fall into enemy hands, he committed suicide.”

Excerpt from The Color of Courage (p. 197).

This was not the last entry in Kulski’s diary about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, although it is the last I’ll post in this series. I chose four excerpts from his many entries to provide a small sample of this monumentally heroic and tragically doomed fight in the Ghetto, that lasted almost three weeks in the spring of 1943. In some ways, it foreshadows the larger, also doomed, Warsaw Uprising of 1944 that engulfed the entire city for two months beginning August 1, 1944.