Teens Against Hitler

Ben was 18 when, in 1939, German troops invaded Poland. With shocking swiftness and brutal efficiency, the Nazis and Polish police persecuted Warsaw’s Jews. Many Jewish-owned businesses were seized. Jews were not allowed to set foot in public parks or libraries, or go out after 5 p.m. Anyone who violated these laws could be shot on the spot.

The Kamm family often spoke about leaving Poland, but they had nowhere to go. Germany was at war with England and France, and the Nazis controlled a vast expanse of Europe. All the borders were closed.

Then, starting on October 12, 1940, all the Jewish people in Warsaw and its surrounding towns were rounded up and forced to move into one tiny area of the city. The area, which became known as the Warsaw ghetto, was surrounded by a 10-foot wall topped with barbed wire and broken glass.

Armed police herded hundreds of Jews through the streets. Ben looked with sorrow at those around him—women holding tight to their babies, men in business suits, teachers from his school, little girls wearing their fanciest shoes and dresses. A well-known musician carried only his violin. No one was permitted to bring more than a few belongings.

Ben saw a sneering policeman shove an old woman who lagged behind the crowd. The policeman’s eyes were filled with disgust. Ben gripped his youngest brother’s hand, his heart pounding with fear and resentment. The Nazis and their sympathizers, he realized, did not see them as humans. He felt like an animal—a helpless animal.

Some 400,000 Jews were crammed into the ghetto. Ben’s family moved into one small room. The gates to the ghetto closed.

Nobody was allowed to leave.

Rage at the Nazis burned inside Ben as conditions in the ghetto became increasingly deplorable. One day, a policeman drove through the streets with a smile on his face, firing his gun. He killed a pregnant woman. An epidemic of typhus swept through the crowded apartments, killing thousands. Bodies piled up in the streets.

Each resident was allotted a tiny ration of food that was barely a tenth of what a person should eat each day. Like many young people, Ben soon learned tricks for sneaking out of the ghetto to find food for his family. There were holes in the wall and tunnels that led to the other side. With his blond hair and blue eyes, Ben blended in easily with the rest of the Polish population. Plus, he had an aunt on the outside. None of her neighbors knew she was Jewish, and she managed to help Ben without attracting suspicion.

Even with his aunt’s help, though, Ben and his family were slowly starving. They could do nothing, it seemed, except wait for death.

But Ben would soon learn that he could do something after all—if he dared. Tens of thousands of people, including thousands of Jews, were fighting back against the Nazis. They were called partisans. Like characters out of Robin Hood, they operated from bases hidden deep in the thick forests of Eastern Europe. Some were hardened fighters. Others were teenagers—mostly boys but a few girls as well. They blew up factories, sabotaged railroads, stole weapons shipments, and upset the flow of supplies to German troops.

In several partisan forest camps, fighters also protected large numbers of Jewish families who had escaped the ghettos. The most famous partisan group was commanded by the Bielskis, three Jewish brothers who had fled the Nowogrodek ghetto in Belorussia (now Belarus) after the Nazis murdered their family. The brothers fought German troops and ran sabotage missions, though their focus was protecting a community of around 1,200 Jewish men, women, and children.

Stories about partisans like the Bielskis spread through the Warsaw ghetto, offering a glint of hope to boys like Ben. One day, Ben’s aunt told him about a Polish partisan group in a forest 100 miles away. With his family’s blessing, Ben snuck out and joined up.

Ben struggled to adjust to life with the partisans. He had to learn to shoot, to fall asleep on the cold forest ground, to endure days in rain-soaked clothing, and to ambush Polish policemen and steal their weapons. Danger lurked everywhere in the hostile countryside, where Poles could earn rewards for turning in Jews to the Nazis.

But Ben’s rage had toughened him. His bravery and skill soon earned him the respect of the most experienced fighters.

A few months after joining the partisans, Ben received word that his family was in trouble. He rushed back to Warsaw and was shocked by what he found in the ghetto. Orphaned children begged in the streets. The dead lay slumped in doorways. His family was living in despair, sharing their single room with three other families. Each week, the police rounded up more people to work as slave laborers. None returned. There were terrible rumors about Nazi death camps, where Jews were being murdered in gas chambers.

Ben stayed in the Warsaw ghetto for two days, sneaking in and out to steal food for his family. He considered taking his brothers back to the forest with him. But many in the ghetto believed the war would soon be over, that the Soviet army (now at war with Germany) would crush Hitler’s troops and free them from their ghetto prison. Ben’s parents believed the younger boys would be safer in the ghetto.

For the rest of his life, Ben would break down in tears when he recalled the moment he left to rejoin the partisans. He would never see his family again.

_{Copyright ©2016 Lauren Tarshis}