Adam Czerniaków
Adam Czerniaków | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | 23 July 1942 | (aged 61)
Nationality | Polish |
Occupation(s) | Engineer, politician |
Adam Czerniaków (30 November 1880 – 23 July 1942)
Life and career
Czerniaków was born on 30 November 1880 in
The Warsaw Ghetto deportations
As the German authorities began preparing for mass deportations of Jews from the
Realizing that deportation meant death, Czerniaków went to plead for the orphans. When he failed, he returned to his office at 26/28 Grzybowska Street and killed himself by taking a cyanide capsule. 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 council, explaining: "I can no longer bear all this. My act will prove to everyone what is the right thing to do."[5] He was succeeded by his deputy Marek Lichtenbaum.
Diary of Adam Czerniaków
Czerniaków kept a diary from 6 September 1939 until the day of his death. It was published in 1979 and has been translated into English. His wife Niunia survived the war and preserved his diaries.
In the 2001 Warner Bros motion picture, Uprising, actor Donald Sutherland portrayed Adam Czerniaków. Excerpts of his diary are featured in the 2010 documentary film A Film Unfinished.
The theatre company Voices of the Holocaust toured England during 2013–14 with the play Fragile Fire based on the Warsaw Ghetto uprising which featured scenes depicting Czerniaków. In 2015 the actor and writer Tim Dalgleish (formerly of Voices of the Holocaust) wrote a full-length play based on Czerniaków's journals called The Last Days of Adam: The true story of Adam Czerniaków. The play depicted Czerniaków as a conflicted character, torn between the need to ameliorate the worst excesses of the Nazis and the danger of being manipulated into becoming a collaborator.
American composer Arnold Rosner's From the Diaries of Adam Czerniaków, Op. 82 is a half-hour classical music work composed in 1986 and scored for full orchestra and a narrator, who reads selected diary entries. The work was commissioned and later recorded by the conductor David Amos. According to the work's only commercial recording, made in 2015, the English translation of Czerniaków's words was made by Raul Hilberg and Stanislaw Staron, in collaboration with Josef Kermisz of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.
Personal life
Czerniaków was married to Niunia (dr Felicja Czerniakówa) on 24 July 1912. They had a son named Jas, who became a lawyer and economist. Following the
Niunia survived the war and lived in poor financial conditions till her death in 1950. She was buried next to her husband at the Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery in Warsaw.[citation needed]
See also
- Julian Tuwim, a nephew of Adam Czerniaków
- Chaim Rumkowski, Jewish Council's head in the Łódź Ghetto
References
- ^ "Adam Abram Czerniaków (ID: iirp.254)". sejm-wielki.pl (in Polish). Retrieved 2022-09-18.
- ^ Israel Gutman, Resistance. Houghton Mifflin. p. 200.
- ^ Gutman, Resistance, p. 203.
- ^ Marcin Urynowicz, Adam Czerniaków 1880-1942. Prezes Getta Warszawskiego, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, Warszawa 2009, p. 138
- ^ a b c d Czerniaków's Biography, at www.diapozytyw.pl
- ^ "Adam Czerniakow and His Diary". Holocaust Research Project. Retrieved 2011-09-28.
- ^ Okopowa street cemetery Archived 2020-05-18 at the Wayback Machine in Warsaw
- ^ "Imię: Jan Nazwisko: Czerniaków". new.getto.pl. Retrieved 2022-09-21.
Further reading
- ISBN 1-56663-230-7.
- JSTOR 25778050.
- Dalgleish, Tim (2015) The Last Days of Adam: The True Story of Adam Czerniakow