All Topics  
Adam Czerniaków

 

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Adam Czerniaków
 
 
  Topics Adam Czerniaków Topic Home

Adam Czerniaków (1880 – July 23, 1942) was a Polish-Jewish
List of Polish Jews

From the Middle Ages until the Holocaust, Jews comprised a significant part of the Poland population. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, known as a "Jewish paradise" for its religious tolerance, attracted numerous Jews who fled persecution from other European countries, even though, at times, discrimination against Jews surfaced as it did elsewh...
 engineer and senator (for Nonpartisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government), born in Warsaw
Warsaw

Warsaw is the Capital and World's largest cities of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River roughly from both the Baltic Sea coast and the Carpathian Mountains....
, Poland
Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian Enclave and exclave, to the north....
. He committed suicide in the Warsaw Ghetto
Warsaw Ghetto

The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of the Jewish ghettos located in the territory of General Government during the Second World War.The Warsaw Ghetto was established by the German General Government Hans Frank on October 16, 1940....
 on July 23, 1942.

He studied engineering and taught in the Jewish community's vocational school in Warsaw. From 1927 to 1934 he served as a member of the Warsaw Municipal Council, and in 1931 he was elected to the Polish Senate.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Adam Czerniaków'
Start a new discussion about 'Adam Czerniaków'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


Adam Czerniaków (1880 – July 23, 1942) was a Polish-Jewish
List of Polish Jews

From the Middle Ages until the Holocaust, Jews comprised a significant part of the Poland population. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, known as a "Jewish paradise" for its religious tolerance, attracted numerous Jews who fled persecution from other European countries, even though, at times, discrimination against Jews surfaced as it did elsewh...
 engineer and senator (for Nonpartisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government), born in Warsaw
Warsaw

Warsaw is the Capital and World's largest cities of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River roughly from both the Baltic Sea coast and the Carpathian Mountains....
, Poland
Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian Enclave and exclave, to the north....
. He committed suicide in the Warsaw Ghetto
Warsaw Ghetto

The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of the Jewish ghettos located in the territory of General Government during the Second World War.The Warsaw Ghetto was established by the German General Government Hans Frank on October 16, 1940....
 on July 23, 1942.

He studied engineering and taught in the Jewish community's vocational school in Warsaw. From 1927 to 1934 he served as a member of the Warsaw Municipal Council, and in 1931 he was elected to the Polish Senate. On October 4, 1939, a few days after the city's surrender to the Nazi
Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany and the Third Reich are the colloquial English names for Germany under the regime of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party , which established a Totalitarianism dictatorship that existed from 1933 to 1945....
s, Czerniakow was made head of the 24 member Judenrat
Judenrat

Judenr?te were administrative bodies that the Germany required Jews to form in the German occupied territory of Poland, and later in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union...
, (Jewish Council) responsible for implementing German
Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
 orders in the Jewish community.

German forces began preparing for mass deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto
Warsaw Ghetto

The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of the Jewish ghettos located in the territory of General Government during the Second World War.The Warsaw Ghetto was established by the German General Government Hans Frank on October 16, 1940....
 to the Treblinka extermination camp
Treblinka extermination camp

Treblinka II was a Germany extermination camp in occupied Poland during World War II. Around 850,000 people - more than 99.5 percent of them Jews, but also other victims were killed there between July 1942 and October 1943; the camp was closed after a revolt during which a few Germans were killed and a small number of prisoners escaped....
 in July 1942 and the Jewish Council was ordered to provide lists of Jews and maps of residences. On July 22, 1942, the Judenrat received instructions that all Warsaw Jews were to be deported to the East. Exceptions were made for Jews working in German factories, Jewish hospital staff, members of the Judenrat with their families, members of the Jewish Ghetto Police
Jewish Ghetto Police

File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101III-Wisniewski-025-17, Polen, Ghetto Litzmannstadt, Ghettopolizei Appell.jpgJewish Ghetto Police , also known as the Jewish Order Service and referred by the Jews as the Jewish Police, were the auxiliary police units organized in the Ghettos in occupied Europe 1939-1944 by the local Judenrat councils u...
 with their families. Over the course of the day, Czerniakow was able to obtain exemptions for a handful of individuals, including sanitation workers, husbands of women working factories, and some vocational students. He was not, however, despite all his pleading, able to obtain an exemption for orphans from the Janusz Korczak
Janusz Korczak

Janusz Korczak, the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit was a Polish-Jewish children's literature, pediatrics, and child pedagogy, known as Pan Doktor ....
's orphanage. The orders further stated that the deportations would begin immediately at the rate of 6,000 people per day, to be supplied by the Judenrat and rounded up by the Jewish Ghetto Police. Failure to comply would result in immediate execution of some one hundred hostages, including employees of the Judenrat and Czerniakow's own wife.

Realizing that deportation meant death, Czerniakow went to plead for the orphans. When he failed, he returned to his office and took one of the cyanide
Cyanide

A cyanide is any chemical compound that contains the nitrile , which consists of a carbon atom chemical bond to a nitrogen atom. Inorganic cyanides are hydrogen cyanide salts in which cyanide is generally the anion CN-....
 capsules he had been keeping for just such an occasion. He left a suicide note to his wife, reading “They demand me to kill children of my nation with my own hands. I have nothing to do but to die.” and one to his fellow members of the Judenrat, explaining: "I can no longer bear all this. My act will prove to everyone what is the right thing to do."

Czerniakow kept a diary from September 6, 1939, until the day of his death. It was published in 1979 and has been translated into English. Adam Czerniakow is interred in the in Warsaw
Warsaw

Warsaw is the Capital and World's largest cities of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River roughly from both the Baltic Sea coast and the Carpathian Mountains....
.

In the 2001 Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc. is one of the world's largest film producer of film and television.It is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank, California and New York City....
 motion picture, Uprising, actor Donald Sutherland
Donald Sutherland

'Donald McNicol Sutherland',? Order of Canada is a Canada character actor with a film career spanning over 50 years. He is currently working in the American television series, Dirty Sexy Money. Sutherland's most notable movie roles included offbeat warriors in such war movies as The Dirty Dozen, in 1967, and M*A*S*H and Kelly's...
 portrayed Adam Czerniakow.

See also Chaim Rumkowski.

External links