Every member of Maryla Finkelstein’s family in Poland was exterminated. After the war, she testified at a Nazi deportation hearing in the United States and at the trial of Majdanek guards in Germany.

Her husband, Zacharias Finkelstein, also survived the Warsaw Ghetto, Auschwitz, and the Auschwitz death march. His entire family in Poland was exterminated. She was the mother of Professor Norman Finkelstein.

In April 1990, on the 47th Anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Maryla spoke to Amy Goodman on WBAI, 99.5 FM, in New York, about what she had endured.

Her testimony of hunger, confinement, and loss describes Gaza today.

Adapted from an interview with Maryla Husyt Finkelstein by Amy Goodman

The house I landed [in] was on Niwa 19. And just across the street where I lived were the headquarters of the Jewish Party, the Fighting Party, which was on Niwa 18.

I vividly remember the young people, and I can exactly describe the house, the apartment building, which was destroyed by the young people in order [that] they could make ways to run away and attack the Germans.

I remember the faces of the young people. They were between 18 and 22. Those were faces of old people. They were just serious. They anticipated more than I.

I got lost with … running for food. I was always terribly hungry. So, I didn’t live so much with the situation, but they anticipated it, and they knew. They were well-informed of the quote-unquote “actions” by the Germans.

Their faces were really—each and every one was like the anatomy of humanity. You could see emotions on these faces, which really you don’t have… you can only get out, you know, from a cancer-stricken person during a long time. You see the changes of the face, the eyes. So I had the chance to see them.

The situation in the ghetto in the last stages, when we knew already that we are going to die, that nothing and nobody never, ever will save us. The whole ghetto population threw themselves into building those bunkers and hiding places.

We could do it freely at night, because by six o’clock, the Germans would already leave the ghetto. And anyway, when the Germans even were in the ghetto, there were a few of them. There was so much enough terror.

But the fact was that after six o’clock, they were gone. And at that time, we could move and start digging those bunkers or preparing and camouflaging some hiding places. You cannot imagine the ingenuity.

This 13 and the Judenrat, they used to give out to the Germans the places where we were building the hiding.

They were in constant touch. They were set up by the Germans. They were the instance who dealt with the Jews.

The Germans didn’t bother to talk to us. They would just enter the offices of the Judenrat, put the order there, and walk out. And then the president of the Judenrat with his cohorts did the dirty job.

Now, at some point, I don’t know. I wasn’t close to the Judenrat. I don’t want to even… there is no place now to make any suppositions.

But the Judenrat were traitors, too. They had to bring back something to the Germans. And they were giving out the places of… they were giving out the places where the hiding [places] were and where the bunkers were.

And it became so notorious and so terrible that the Jewish organization just passed a resolution to kill them. And they were killed, gunned down on the street. Who was? The members of the Judenrat, the traitors, the chief of police. The first one who was gunned down was a Jew who worked for the 13th.

And when they killed him and he dropped on the ground, the Jewish organization—the one who killed him, the three German—left a note near his body: “To a dog, a dog is dead.”

What I am talking now, I am talking about the Gestapo and the German power. They [had] administrators in the Warsaw Ghetto called Judenrat.

Then I mentioned the 13, which were a separate entity nominated by the Germans, who were spies for the German government. The Judenrat was the interior power. The 13 was working for the German spies. They were exterior [to] the ghetto.

And then what I mentioned about the one who killed the traitors, and I called them Jewish organization—this is the Jewish fighting organization, which formed in the Warsaw Ghetto at the last stage, at the third etap, at the third stage. The Jewish organization, fighting organization, became just a port with the action of the 13th.

The Jewish police and the Judenrat, and they decided that whomever they will be able to catch, and they knew that they are traitors, they will kill.

Nobody ever pitied a dead one. A dead one in the ghetto Warsaw was considered the chosen. People were religious, and they said that God finally put an end to his torture and his martyrdom.

About, specifically, about the killings of the traitors, there was no other way. And as much as I am against capital punishment, with all my body and all my emotions, I just want to tell you—there was no other way to stop them.

They were approached. The Jewish organizations pleaded with them. Well, it was obvious that it was working against us.

You cannot imagine. The price was to build a bunker. We had just bare hands. There were no shovels here.

I did not build anything. I was a woman. I was hungry, emaciated. I lost my family a year before. I couldn’t… I thought of them all the time. I was really destroyed.

My younger sister was the only thing I lived for. And I tried to survive. Many people just couldn’t take it any longer and would go by themselves to the train station to put an end to it.

There was no question of protection. There was no question of planning. Just as a roach in the middle of the room cannot foresee when the spray will be sprayed over it, or from where the electricity will be [lit] up and the roach will be discovered.

My life was literally the one of a roach. Run, run, and finding myself here or there.

They were not getting stronger. You could see them day by day… in a way, in worse form.

The final stages, when I saw them, they were already in the racks. They had no clothing. I want to mention and underline again, because while I’m talking to you, I see some of them in front of my eyes.

You cannot imagine the seriousness, the honesty, and that was kind of great in them. They were moving around, not talking to anybody. They were not talking.

They were always busy with something. There was a moment in time that whenever I would come out on the street and look across the street, I saw that they prearranged the bricks or destroyed one front of the house or installed some other staircases. They were constantly building the defense for themselves, so they would be able to attack and at the same time run into hiding.

And in this bunker, I was there when it was the first defense of the Jews. And two young men went out from the bunker early in the morning, and we knew that there is an action outside.

And at night, one came back, and he said that his friend—it was his best friend—that he died from the German gunshots.

And this is how I knew that something happened outside on the street. And then when I went out, my friend came over to me. She was hidden in the spot where the first fight broke out, and she told me that there is a defense from the Jews, that the Jews were fighting back toward the Gestapo.

Well, if they had guns, why not? The idea was that for the first time, it became known to me that at least there is some… some ammunition in the ghetto.

Let me underline to you all what is said: there was no ammunition except for seven or eight guns in the whole ghetto.

Yes, the Jews made the molotov cocktails, and sometimes they resorted to sabotage and burning down places… with where the Germans collected and [what was] valuable for them. But to talk about the things, the kinds you read in books—it was… no, it was not that.

The whole world left us alone. I remember many times—I knew again and again that the world, the power, the ruling powers on the world—agreed to our extermination. Because nothing came from nowhere. A sack of flour, a sack of wheat, would even make our walk toward the road to death a little bit easier. We were so abandoned that there are no… I can’t describe. But it’s no time now for it. We were absolutely betrayed.

It was such nonsense because you see some people in the ghetto could believe in it because after why do you think that the whole world looks like the ghetto. But no, outside the ghetto, there was a Polish government who had some ambassadors, maybe not an ambassador from England … they had the churches, the pope was thoroughly familiar with everything, the Americans were not helpless leaders at that time.

You see, I want to explain … why I am a little bit critical. By giving to this uprising so much glory, and people coming forward telling about the ammunition they had, and, you lose the …truth. The truth was we were terribly helpless, we were emaciated, brought to a horrible hunger, sickness, death around us, death in the families, everything was cut off , any heroic resistance and any heroism you want. No it was not that way.

The heroism was to follow the sister, or the mother, to the train, knowing that in an hour or two, you will be dead.

But nothing of the kind you know of the cowboy fight … you know … no … it was an extermination … it was not a fight. It was an extermination.

When you are surrounded with the powerful army like Hitler, it was not cowboys, it was not musketeers, it was a very, very set up army with an aim, and a way to reach the aim. When you are surrounded by such an army and the only thing you can put against is your body, what chances are you … and what kind of defence can you put? You needed to survive, and I survived, it was sheer incident. The people who died were much more heroic than I was. Much better people. Not to speak about how well educated, how compassionate, if you would see the mothers.

At certain times, 1942, men started to come back from the extermination camps, two or three men came. When they saw how the Germans were marching the Jews into the gas chambers they probably noticed that there were trains that were taking back to the people’s clothing of the deceased.

So they threw themselves in the train and this way they arrived into the Warsaw ghetto. And they started to walk from house to house and warn us that there is nothing waiting for us. No work.

Because the Germans were lying and telling us that we were going to another place and there will be work. And they were telling us that it was a lie and that we were going to death and we will die. And he advised us to start building shelters. And at no price, no time absolutely not to give ourselves up to the Germans. Which we did.

In the meantime, the Communists, a few, one or two communists, managed to get a few guns from the ??? side. They were bought for a high price. I know exactly because my uncle got one gun, One tiny gun and no ammunition. They decided that when attacked by the Germans they will kill one before they are killed.

And this was what was later told to be an uprising. I heard about the Polish uprising. It was an armed resistance. Here there were no arms. It was only a farewell from the Jews that knew they were going to die and decided to take revenge.

(now this must’ve shocked the Germans to get any kind of resistance, no matter how small it was, so how did the Germans respond? )

I cannot speak for the Germans, the first thing was, you must understand, this is the point of view of me, the old woman.

I don’t believe in heroes. I don’t believe in brave soldiers. I know that the huge thing of life is so deeply instilled in the human being that you want so much to live. So naturally, they heard a few shots and two soldiers dropped on the ground, they ran out from the ghetto. I don’t call it cowardice. No they wanted to live. They had families in Germany. They had children. As bad as life is you want to live.

There was only one exception: mothers went to death because they were holding the children in their arms.

All others, we tried so much to live, there were moments when it was entirely lost. But we fought for life. And the ones who had these guns shot them.

The ghetto was bombed right from the beginning When the Germans came in. From Sept 9 to 21, Warsaw was surrounded by the Germans and they gave an ultimatum to the Polish Burgemeister – to the Polish Mayor – to give up the city. The mayor did not want so they attacked it for three days, and the aeroplanes were … throwing bombs … almost over our heads because there was no defence.

This is my answer to the gradual destruction of Warsaw when they finally entered there was no wall … the city was already destroyed, especially the Jewish quarter. And then while the fights were going on … they destroyed the ghetto quite thoroughly. And whatever was left, the poverty, you know, if you wanted wood you had to break the staircases. The ghetto was destroyed already.

In April 17, 1943, I found myself on the train of the brush factory in the Warsaw Ghetto, people were working making brushes for the German army. And I came there to visit my relatives.

And it was in April 17 at night. A Jewish member of the fighting organisation, the fighting organisation was divided amongst the three small ghettoes. An organisation member from the brush factory came down to our house and told us that the ghetto is surrounded. Because they were looking out. We knew that the Germans are coming in to clean up the ghetto. To make it … free of the Jews. So he came to our house and said that the Polish police surrounded the ghetto. So the Germans would send the Polish police and they would follow, so that an attack is imminent, to go down to the bunker. We went down to the bunker. It happened to be one of the strongest bunkers in Warsaw Ghetto. I would once try to describe to you how an 18 year old young man provide quarters for 53 people with water and electricity and know what was needed to survive. The family … who financed the bunker anticipated to stay there for two years till the war would finally end. So I found myself in this bunker with my sister, and I had a boyfriend.

We were there from April 17, I heard from the outside the fight at one night, when was it, and one night, when was it, a man came down who stayed with us in the bunker, it was like this. When the first phase of the uprising calmed down the Germans started to burn down one house after another, they sprayed it with gasoline and set it on fire, so the Jewish fighting organisation lost their bunker and they came to us, told us that they will give us food, and came the leader. I think that he was not a Jew. He came, and he was wearing a tremendous gun. I was told it’s a Belgian Mauser. And he had a speech to us.

“Let us in. Our bunker is burned down. We will bring you food.”

In other words, they would not impose themselves on us. And this was the part that stayed with us. It was…

Things went very fast. One night, a group of inhabitants from [that] part came down. And one man came over to the sink—we had, you know, some arrangement of a thing—was washing blood down his hand. And he turned to me and he said,

“You see, I became a murderer already too.”

He went out—outside—because they were constantly on guard. And there they caught a man whom they thought betrayed the bunker.

We waited in the bunker for a month. We were in the bunker while above, there was fighting.

Exactly. From April 17th till May 13th. And it took two days to place me on the field of the Maidanek concentration camp.

When I was finally freed, people asked me if I thought of going to Israel.

I am not a Zionist. And especially—I do believe, I do believe that the way the world is now situated, we Jews have to have a place like all others, whether it’s good, whether it’s bad. But just for my peace of mind—if all others have it, let those Jews have it too. I strictly underline with all my might that what I have in mind is not a home of the human body.

Let it take longer. I say what I always said: a hundred years of evolution are better and more noble than one year of revolution. No fights. No killing.

My heart and my sympathy goes to the Palestinian population.

Often you hear American Jews and some Israelis saying—using the Holocaust as a justification or an explanation of why—of the Israeli policies in the West Bank and Gaza.

Look, I will make it very short. The people who speak in the name of the Jewish people are plain and uneducated. They have no right to talk about the Holocaust.

They are all liars, imposters. If they would go through what I went through—another like me went through—they wouldn’t accept such a bloodthirsty attitude. They are directed by a superpower, paid for what they do.

I am not… when I come sometimes to meetings, I want to be the one who, for the sake of history, will speak for people who are against these policies. I’m always gagged, or outright thrown out from the meeting. They don’t let me tell it.

So now, if you give me a chance, I’m telling you: I am… I’m very much opposed.

I don’t want to go any farther—to compare what the Jews do in Israel with the Arabs. I’m afraid.

Let me only tell you that the Palestinian people’s fault is the one and only:

They were born in this terrain. I don’t think that this deserves persecution.

They are innocent. They show tremendous… patience.

I wish them from the bottom of my heart a peaceful and good life. If I only could, I would stretch my arms and brace them all.