Stanisław Aronson
Patrycja Bukalska
Rysiek of Special Operations Command
Rysiek z Kedywu
Summary The book is divided into eleven chapters, each of which is split into several short sections. There are photographs as illustrations, and a bibliography. At least half the narrative is Aronson's vivid first-person account, with Bukalska filling in background information as an invisible narrator. The first-person text is all in italic. Bukalska occasionally cites other contemporary accounts, personal memoirs and also military statements (in an accessible way, without using footnotes). The narrative contains lots of lively anecdotes and colourful characters. The book starts with a list of names of the main characters who will feature in the narrative. Then Patrycja Bukalska describes how she came to meet Stanisław Aronson, following interviews she conducted with several survivors of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. She describes how in 1988, after 43 years away from Poland, Aronson was finally able to visit his original country and be reunited with those of his closest friends, his comrades-in-arms, who were still alive. Chapter One gives Aronson's background as a member of a well-to-do, assimilated Jewish family with a successful business. He was born in Warsaw in 1925, but the family moved to Łódź when he was still a boy. His conservative grandfather and some other relatives moved to Palestine in the 1930s. Although he encountered (some) anti-Semitism at school, Aronson had no idea what scale it would take on later. At school he was good at sports and had a favourite teacher who taught him map reading, a very useful skill in time of war. Chapter Two tells how when the war broke out, Stanisław, his sister and parents tried to drive east to join relatives, but before they could reach their goal the Soviet army crossed into Poland. Instead, the family headed north towards Lithuania, but were turned back at the border. The same thing happened on the Romanian border, and finally they ended up in Lwów (now Lvov in Ukraine). To escape deportation to the east into the USSR, they were regularly obliged to hide, but managed to maintain a reasonable life in Lwów for 16 months. But when Germany attacked Russia and the Germans entered Lwów, pogroms against the Jews began, and finally the Aronsons decided to join relatives in the Warsaw ghetto. Chapter Three describes how the family were smuggled into the ghetto. Although it was a shocking place full of starving people, there was some optimism that the war would end soon. No one had any idea of what would happen. The Aronsons lived in comparative comfort, in a small flat, worked and sold things to make a living. In summer 1942 the first liquidation of the ghetto took place, and at this time Stanisław's 21-year-old sister Janka disappeared. In January 1943 the next phase of liquidation came. It was impossible to hide, as the Germans burned down the buildings, driving people out. Stanisław and his parents ended up in a dense crowd in a school building next to the Umschlagplatz - the infamous place where the Jews were loaded onto cattle trucks for transport to the death camps. Separated from his parents, he was herded onto a train, and never saw them again. Finding a small hole in the roof, he squeezed through and managed to crawl under the train. When it stopped in fields at night, he escaped. Soon he ended up back in Warsaw, where friends of his sister's gave him shelter, though he had to keep changing location. Chapter Four describes in detail how Aronson was asked to join the Polish Home Army (underground resistance, largest in Europe), to carry out sabotage operations and assassinations. He was given a false identity and became Rysiek Żukowski, and also got accommodation and a way of taking part in the fight against the Nazi occupiers. We learn about Józef Rybicki, the former teacher who directed the Warsaw Special Operation Command and was a man of great principle, ensuring that the young people under his command understood the right and wrong of what they were doing. Aronson describes his work as a "full-time terrorist" in a series of remarkable anecdotes - the operations ranged from damaging the braking systems in trains with special chemicals, planting bombs under vehicles, blowing up train tracks and shooting German gendarmes to carrying out the assassination of collaborators sentenced to death by underground courts. In the course of these activities Aronson encountered extreme danger, incredible heroism, gross treachery, and amazing luck. The chapter includes debate on the extent to which the Home Army tried to help the Jews during the Ghetto Uprising, when the surviving Jews made a desperate final attempt to resist the Nazis, the point being that some would argue that the non-Jewish Poles deliberately left the Jews to their fate. Although Rybicki knew Aronson was a Jew, he kept it secret, as being Jewish was an added risk and moreover many Poles were indifferent or even hostile to the Jews, stereotypically regarding them as pro-Soviet aliens. However, in his entire Home Army career Aronson never encountered anti-Semitism. His fortune was the opposite - here he made some extremely close friendships that lasted for life. We meet his nearest friends, Olgierd, at 23 the oldest in the group, Sońka, the section commander who was from a working class background, Leszek and his fiancée Beata (Atka) Branicka, both from aristocratic families, and her friend Rena. The girls acted as couriers, carrying weapons and messages. Detailed security systems were in place to protect the agents' identities, and they knew little about each other. But these friends were like a replacement family for Aronson, giving him some sense of normality amid the chaos of war and the loss of all his relatives. Chapter Five is about the Warsaw Uprising, including Aronson's ground-up account of everything that happened to him during the fighting and after he was wounded. Background information discusses how the Uprising was judged to be a fatal error on the part of the Polish Home Army, who believed they could take the city back from the German forces now that they were about to be displaced by the Red Army troops that had reached the far side of the Vistula River. Instead, the city was ruined and tens of thousands of Polish civilians and military personnel were massacred. Aronson describes his unit's activities during the Uprising. First they captured the same school building near the Umschlagplatz where he had been parted from his parents. In the initial phase, the insurgents captured a lot of ground, and were optimistic that it would only take them a week to gain control of the city, but they were very wrong. Aronson then took part in fierce fighting in the Wola district, under bombardment from planes and artillery. Their lack of proper military training was a disadvantage, and finally the insurgents were beaten and had to evacuate the district. Aronson was badly wounded in the leg and lung, and woke up in an improvised hospital in a cellar in the Old Town area, where the Poles held out for much longer. The only way in and out of this area was through the sewers, and when the inevitable evacuation took place, the wounded had to be left behind. As the Germans retook buildings, they murdered the wounded survivors. But Aronson was lucky - at his hospital there were some German prisoners who had been treated well by their captors, and defended the Poles when their would-be killers arrived. Eventually, Aronson walked out with civilian population. Meanwhile his friends Rena and Atka were in the less intense City Centre area, where Rena acted as a liaison officer and Atka was a nurse. Their male friends Olgierd, Sońka, Leszek and Aronson (Rysiek) were all wounded, and stuck in other districts. Olgierd also had a dramatic escape, saving his own life and that of several others by pretending to be a priest. Eventually he and Rysiek ended up in the same place, at a former mental hospital, where they were given proper medical treatment. But as soldiers pretending to be civilians they were not out of danger, and each of the friends went through more narrow escapes before reaching safety. Finally they were reunited at the home of Rena's aunt, in a remote village near Krakow. But the arrival of the Red Army meant a new danger, because the Polish underground was now determined to fight the Bolsheviks. Chapter Six tells how Aronson decided to go home to Łódź to look for his family. He found their home uninhabited, and evidence that it had been used as a Nazi command centre. None of his relatives ever came home. In January 1945 the city was occupied by the Soviets. Gradually Aronson was joined by his friends, who all came to live in the house in Łódź. Efforts were made to recruit them for the anti-Soviet campaign, but its leaders were arrested before it could take place. Poland was already lost to the communists, and by 1946 former Home Army soldiers were being imprisoned or shot. Finally Aronson's family home was requisitioned. Realising that he could not stay in Poland under the Soviet system, he decided to join his relatives in Palestine. This meant a sad parting from his friends, especially Olgierd, whom he never saw again. Chapter Seven describes how difficult it was to get to Palestine, which was still part of the British Empire. In an effort to limit Arab-Jewish unrest, the British had set a quota on the number of immigrant visas issued each year, so the only way to enter Palestine was illegally. Zionist organisations were trying to help Jewish refugees by smuggling them into the country, so Aronson tried this route. He was given a false ID and travelled to Budapest, from where he was to be taken by lorry to Austria. This meant crossing the border illegally on foot in a forest, but there his group was arrested. Aronson managed to escape, and made his own way to an Austrian town, where there was a refugee camp. Here as he wandered the streets wondering what to do, by a stroke of luck he met an RAF officer who advised him to go to the Polish Red Cross on the Italian border. The officer realised that the information Aronson had about the war in Warsaw was very valuable. The Red Cross helped Aronson to travel to a British army base in Italy where the commanders debriefed him in detail. His report turned out to be extremely important to military intelligence. Although he thought he was a civilian now, he discovered that he was still a Home Army lieutenant, as far as the military was concerned. Finally he underwent some military training, though now that the war was over there was little for the soldiers to do. Then Aronson was summoned by General Sosabowski whose son had been one of his commanders in Warsaw, and whose survival he had reported as soon as he reached the army base. The general wanted him to get his wounded son out of Poland, as he urgently needed an operation to save his sight and had to be taken to Britain. Although Aronson accompanied the general to a Polish post in Munich, the mission was aborted as absurdly dangerous, as well as illegal. However, by then the general's son had already reached Paris. He and Aronson became good friends and were in touch for the rest of their lives. Aronson had a leisurely return to Italy, including a holiday in Rome. Then he rejoined his unit, whose task was to escort German prisoners on their way to be interrogated. He also took the opportunity to study medicine at Bologna University. He loved Italy, but he was still uncertain about where his new life should be - in Britain where he could go and study, or with his relatives in Palestine. After a visit from his uncle in August 1946, arrangements were made for him to have a month's holiday in Palestine. After more delays and difficulties on the way, he boarded a ship to Alexandria. Chapter Eight. In Alexandria, Aronson was taken across the desert to a Polish transit camp, but had to get British permission to go on to Tel Aviv, which meant another delay. He took the opportunity to visit Cairo and enjoy himself, finally crossing the Suez Canal, Sinai and Gaza in November 1946. Hearing that terrorists were blowing up trains to Tel Aviv, he decided to take a cab, because he knew about that sort of terrorism from the other end. Chapter Nine describes Aronson's uncertainty about how his relatives in Tel Aviv would receive him, and their inability to ask him any direct questions about what had happened in Poland during the war. He was the only member of the family to have survived. Though surprised by his relatives' silence on the matter, he was relieved as he couldn't talk about his experiences anyway. Now he thinks it may have been better to tell his story then; finally this book is giving him that opportunity. In any case, his aunts, uncles and cousins were extremely welcoming. Palestine was a very foreign place to him, which felt safe despite conflict between the Jews, the British and the Arabs. News from his friend in Britain discouraged him from making the choice of going to study there, so now he needed to find a way to stay in Palestine, where the political situation was complex, with frequent outbursts of violence. Here Bukalska fills in with information on events in Palestine leading up to the post-war period, and how Zionist fighting organisations had developed, eager for independence. In 1947 Aronson finally received his immigration visa. In August 1947 he was demobbed, but then the British mandate in Palestine ended and the country was divided into a Jewish and an Arab state. In 1948 the new state of Israel was founded, and Aronson was soon back in uniform, helping to fight for its survival against the hostile neighbouring Arab countries. Once again, he was among soldiers with limited experience and few weapons. Despite their advantages, the Arab countries failed to work together, and Israel was gradually able to arm itself, especially with an efficient air force. The narrative describes Aronson's involvement in subsequent Israeli wars. In the war for independence he acted as a liaison officer between land and air command. Israel miraculously won and even gained new territory, emerging as a stronger state, but with no guarantee of peace. Chapter Ten describes how Aronson was finally able to start a new life as an Israeli citizen, remaining a reserve officer. Demobbed in 1950, he worked for his family business and then as an insurance agent. He bought a house, married in 1956 and had two children, a daughter born in 1961 and a son in 1965. He built a new house and lived in it for 30 years, having founded his own business making and selling classic gramophone records. As a reserve officer he was called up for training each year, and fought in a series of wars, including the brief Sinai war of 1956, the six-day-war of 1967, 1969, and the Yom Kippur war of 1973. We learn the background to each war and Aronson's memories of his role in each one. He comments that the 1973 war showed that Israel cannot manage without US political support, and that the country's problems will never cease. He does not avoid criticism of Israel, especially the aggressive actions of Ariel Sharon during the Lebanon war of 1982, and the heavy-handed use of elite troops against Palestinian protestors. War was a constant feature of Aronson's life, and he felt as if he needed the adventures it brought. After the age of 50 he passed the age limit for active service but became an army public relations officer, briefing and escorting foreign journalists and VIP visitors, including Egypt's President Sadat in 1977, when he made peace with Israel, for which he paid with his life in 1981. This was a fascinating part of Aronson's career. Finally at the age of 62 he resigned, preferring not to act as a spokesman for actions he could not defend. Chapter Eleven tells how Aronson never lost his strong sense of connection to Poland. He built a successful life in Israel, but was cut off from his past. Israeli perceptions of Poland were limited to the idea that it was the site of the Holocaust, and that the Poles had done nothing but collaborate with the Nazis. Diplomatic relations between Poland and Israel were broken off by the USSR in 1967. A change in attitude only became apparent in the 1980s, and Polish independence brought a renewal of relations. But for decades no one in Israel was interested in Aronson's story, and telling it could have endangered the friends he had left behind in Poland, living under the communist regime. In 1988 he was finally able to go back and see his friends again. This was followed by regular visits, and he soon recovered his ability to speak Polish fluently. His strong ties with his comrades-in-arms never waned. He has taken part in debate over the role of the Home Army in helping the Jews in Poland, and the extent of anti-Semitism during the war. Although lucky enough not to have encountered it personally within the underground forces, he was aware of its existence, but argues that it is not possible to generalise on how the Poles behaved towards the Jews during the war; saving Jews certainly took extreme heroism, not just a sense of civic duty, but undeniably there was plenty of indifference to their fate. Through this debate Aronson became actively involved in Poland again, giving talks and interviews, as a valuable source of information and a very rare person- a Jew who fought for the underground. He also had a plaque placed on the school building near the Umschlagplatz to commemorate how it was successfully captured during the Uprising - a site of Jewish triumph, not just tragedy. He has been highly decorated for his part in the fight for Poland. The Epilogue tells how Aronson is now the only survivor of the tight-knit group of friends who fought together, but he is in close contact with their families. Wanting his story to be preserved for his descendants, he decided to write this book, and to record all his memories in it, though admittedly he has wiped out some of the worst ones. He still wonders if he did enough to help his own family, but at least he can immortalise all the images of their past lives.
About the author:
Patrycja Bukalska
Rysiek of Special Operations Command
Rysiek z Kedywu
Tłum. Rysiek of Special Operations Command
Summary The book is divided into eleven chapters, each of which is split into several short sections. There are photographs as illustrations, and a bibliography. At least half the narrative is Aronson's vivid first-person account, with Bukalska filling in background information as an invisible narrator. The first-person text is all in italic. Bukalska occasionally cites other contemporary accounts, personal memoirs and also military statements (in an accessible way, without using footnotes). The narrative contains lots of lively anecdotes and colourful characters. The book starts with a list of names of the main characters who will feature in the narrative. Then Patrycja Bukalska describes how she came to meet Stanisław Aronson, following interviews she conducted with several survivors of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. She describes how in 1988, after 43 years away from Poland, Aronson was finally able to visit his original country and be reunited with those of his closest friends, his comrades-in-arms, who were still alive. Chapter One gives Aronson's background as a member of a well-to-do, assimilated Jewish family with a successful business. He was born in Warsaw in 1925, but the family moved to Łódź when he was still a boy. His conservative grandfather and some other relatives moved to Palestine in the 1930s. Although he encountered (some) anti-Semitism at school, Aronson had no idea what scale it would take on later. At school he was good at sports and had a favourite teacher who taught him map reading, a very useful skill in time of war. Chapter Two tells how when the war broke out, Stanisław, his sister and parents tried to drive east to join relatives, but before they could reach their goal the Soviet army crossed into Poland. Instead, the family headed north towards Lithuania, but were turned back at the border. The same thing happened on the Romanian border, and finally they ended up in Lwów (now Lvov in Ukraine). To escape deportation to the east into the USSR, they were regularly obliged to hide, but managed to maintain a reasonable life in Lwów for 16 months. But when Germany attacked Russia and the Germans entered Lwów, pogroms against the Jews began, and finally the Aronsons decided to join relatives in the Warsaw ghetto. Chapter Three describes how the family were smuggled into the ghetto. Although it was a shocking place full of starving people, there was some optimism that the war would end soon. No one had any idea of what would happen. The Aronsons lived in comparative comfort, in a small flat, worked and sold things to make a living. In summer 1942 the first liquidation of the ghetto took place, and at this time Stanisław's 21-year-old sister Janka disappeared. In January 1943 the next phase of liquidation came. It was impossible to hide, as the Germans burned down the buildings, driving people out. Stanisław and his parents ended up in a dense crowd in a school building next to the Umschlagplatz - the infamous place where the Jews were loaded onto cattle trucks for transport to the death camps. Separated from his parents, he was herded onto a train, and never saw them again. Finding a small hole in the roof, he squeezed through and managed to crawl under the train. When it stopped in fields at night, he escaped. Soon he ended up back in Warsaw, where friends of his sister's gave him shelter, though he had to keep changing location. Chapter Four describes in detail how Aronson was asked to join the Polish Home Army (underground resistance, largest in Europe), to carry out sabotage operations and assassinations. He was given a false identity and became Rysiek Żukowski, and also got accommodation and a way of taking part in the fight against the Nazi occupiers. We learn about Józef Rybicki, the former teacher who directed the Warsaw Special Operation Command and was a man of great principle, ensuring that the young people under his command understood the right and wrong of what they were doing. Aronson describes his work as a "full-time terrorist" in a series of remarkable anecdotes - the operations ranged from damaging the braking systems in trains with special chemicals, planting bombs under vehicles, blowing up train tracks and shooting German gendarmes to carrying out the assassination of collaborators sentenced to death by underground courts. In the course of these activities Aronson encountered extreme danger, incredible heroism, gross treachery, and amazing luck. The chapter includes debate on the extent to which the Home Army tried to help the Jews during the Ghetto Uprising, when the surviving Jews made a desperate final attempt to resist the Nazis, the point being that some would argue that the non-Jewish Poles deliberately left the Jews to their fate. Although Rybicki knew Aronson was a Jew, he kept it secret, as being Jewish was an added risk and moreover many Poles were indifferent or even hostile to the Jews, stereotypically regarding them as pro-Soviet aliens. However, in his entire Home Army career Aronson never encountered anti-Semitism. His fortune was the opposite - here he made some extremely close friendships that lasted for life. We meet his nearest friends, Olgierd, at 23 the oldest in the group, Sońka, the section commander who was from a working class background, Leszek and his fiancée Beata (Atka) Branicka, both from aristocratic families, and her friend Rena. The girls acted as couriers, carrying weapons and messages. Detailed security systems were in place to protect the agents' identities, and they knew little about each other. But these friends were like a replacement family for Aronson, giving him some sense of normality amid the chaos of war and the loss of all his relatives. Chapter Five is about the Warsaw Uprising, including Aronson's ground-up account of everything that happened to him during the fighting and after he was wounded. Background information discusses how the Uprising was judged to be a fatal error on the part of the Polish Home Army, who believed they could take the city back from the German forces now that they were about to be displaced by the Red Army troops that had reached the far side of the Vistula River. Instead, the city was ruined and tens of thousands of Polish civilians and military personnel were massacred. Aronson describes his unit's activities during the Uprising. First they captured the same school building near the Umschlagplatz where he had been parted from his parents. In the initial phase, the insurgents captured a lot of ground, and were optimistic that it would only take them a week to gain control of the city, but they were very wrong. Aronson then took part in fierce fighting in the Wola district, under bombardment from planes and artillery. Their lack of proper military training was a disadvantage, and finally the insurgents were beaten and had to evacuate the district. Aronson was badly wounded in the leg and lung, and woke up in an improvised hospital in a cellar in the Old Town area, where the Poles held out for much longer. The only way in and out of this area was through the sewers, and when the inevitable evacuation took place, the wounded had to be left behind. As the Germans retook buildings, they murdered the wounded survivors. But Aronson was lucky - at his hospital there were some German prisoners who had been treated well by their captors, and defended the Poles when their would-be killers arrived. Eventually, Aronson walked out with civilian population. Meanwhile his friends Rena and Atka were in the less intense City Centre area, where Rena acted as a liaison officer and Atka was a nurse. Their male friends Olgierd, Sońka, Leszek and Aronson (Rysiek) were all wounded, and stuck in other districts. Olgierd also had a dramatic escape, saving his own life and that of several others by pretending to be a priest. Eventually he and Rysiek ended up in the same place, at a former mental hospital, where they were given proper medical treatment. But as soldiers pretending to be civilians they were not out of danger, and each of the friends went through more narrow escapes before reaching safety. Finally they were reunited at the home of Rena's aunt, in a remote village near Krakow. But the arrival of the Red Army meant a new danger, because the Polish underground was now determined to fight the Bolsheviks. Chapter Six tells how Aronson decided to go home to Łódź to look for his family. He found their home uninhabited, and evidence that it had been used as a Nazi command centre. None of his relatives ever came home. In January 1945 the city was occupied by the Soviets. Gradually Aronson was joined by his friends, who all came to live in the house in Łódź. Efforts were made to recruit them for the anti-Soviet campaign, but its leaders were arrested before it could take place. Poland was already lost to the communists, and by 1946 former Home Army soldiers were being imprisoned or shot. Finally Aronson's family home was requisitioned. Realising that he could not stay in Poland under the Soviet system, he decided to join his relatives in Palestine. This meant a sad parting from his friends, especially Olgierd, whom he never saw again. Chapter Seven describes how difficult it was to get to Palestine, which was still part of the British Empire. In an effort to limit Arab-Jewish unrest, the British had set a quota on the number of immigrant visas issued each year, so the only way to enter Palestine was illegally. Zionist organisations were trying to help Jewish refugees by smuggling them into the country, so Aronson tried this route. He was given a false ID and travelled to Budapest, from where he was to be taken by lorry to Austria. This meant crossing the border illegally on foot in a forest, but there his group was arrested. Aronson managed to escape, and made his own way to an Austrian town, where there was a refugee camp. Here as he wandered the streets wondering what to do, by a stroke of luck he met an RAF officer who advised him to go to the Polish Red Cross on the Italian border. The officer realised that the information Aronson had about the war in Warsaw was very valuable. The Red Cross helped Aronson to travel to a British army base in Italy where the commanders debriefed him in detail. His report turned out to be extremely important to military intelligence. Although he thought he was a civilian now, he discovered that he was still a Home Army lieutenant, as far as the military was concerned. Finally he underwent some military training, though now that the war was over there was little for the soldiers to do. Then Aronson was summoned by General Sosabowski whose son had been one of his commanders in Warsaw, and whose survival he had reported as soon as he reached the army base. The general wanted him to get his wounded son out of Poland, as he urgently needed an operation to save his sight and had to be taken to Britain. Although Aronson accompanied the general to a Polish post in Munich, the mission was aborted as absurdly dangerous, as well as illegal. However, by then the general's son had already reached Paris. He and Aronson became good friends and were in touch for the rest of their lives. Aronson had a leisurely return to Italy, including a holiday in Rome. Then he rejoined his unit, whose task was to escort German prisoners on their way to be interrogated. He also took the opportunity to study medicine at Bologna University. He loved Italy, but he was still uncertain about where his new life should be - in Britain where he could go and study, or with his relatives in Palestine. After a visit from his uncle in August 1946, arrangements were made for him to have a month's holiday in Palestine. After more delays and difficulties on the way, he boarded a ship to Alexandria. Chapter Eight. In Alexandria, Aronson was taken across the desert to a Polish transit camp, but had to get British permission to go on to Tel Aviv, which meant another delay. He took the opportunity to visit Cairo and enjoy himself, finally crossing the Suez Canal, Sinai and Gaza in November 1946. Hearing that terrorists were blowing up trains to Tel Aviv, he decided to take a cab, because he knew about that sort of terrorism from the other end. Chapter Nine describes Aronson's uncertainty about how his relatives in Tel Aviv would receive him, and their inability to ask him any direct questions about what had happened in Poland during the war. He was the only member of the family to have survived. Though surprised by his relatives' silence on the matter, he was relieved as he couldn't talk about his experiences anyway. Now he thinks it may have been better to tell his story then; finally this book is giving him that opportunity. In any case, his aunts, uncles and cousins were extremely welcoming. Palestine was a very foreign place to him, which felt safe despite conflict between the Jews, the British and the Arabs. News from his friend in Britain discouraged him from making the choice of going to study there, so now he needed to find a way to stay in Palestine, where the political situation was complex, with frequent outbursts of violence. Here Bukalska fills in with information on events in Palestine leading up to the post-war period, and how Zionist fighting organisations had developed, eager for independence. In 1947 Aronson finally received his immigration visa. In August 1947 he was demobbed, but then the British mandate in Palestine ended and the country was divided into a Jewish and an Arab state. In 1948 the new state of Israel was founded, and Aronson was soon back in uniform, helping to fight for its survival against the hostile neighbouring Arab countries. Once again, he was among soldiers with limited experience and few weapons. Despite their advantages, the Arab countries failed to work together, and Israel was gradually able to arm itself, especially with an efficient air force. The narrative describes Aronson's involvement in subsequent Israeli wars. In the war for independence he acted as a liaison officer between land and air command. Israel miraculously won and even gained new territory, emerging as a stronger state, but with no guarantee of peace. Chapter Ten describes how Aronson was finally able to start a new life as an Israeli citizen, remaining a reserve officer. Demobbed in 1950, he worked for his family business and then as an insurance agent. He bought a house, married in 1956 and had two children, a daughter born in 1961 and a son in 1965. He built a new house and lived in it for 30 years, having founded his own business making and selling classic gramophone records. As a reserve officer he was called up for training each year, and fought in a series of wars, including the brief Sinai war of 1956, the six-day-war of 1967, 1969, and the Yom Kippur war of 1973. We learn the background to each war and Aronson's memories of his role in each one. He comments that the 1973 war showed that Israel cannot manage without US political support, and that the country's problems will never cease. He does not avoid criticism of Israel, especially the aggressive actions of Ariel Sharon during the Lebanon war of 1982, and the heavy-handed use of elite troops against Palestinian protestors. War was a constant feature of Aronson's life, and he felt as if he needed the adventures it brought. After the age of 50 he passed the age limit for active service but became an army public relations officer, briefing and escorting foreign journalists and VIP visitors, including Egypt's President Sadat in 1977, when he made peace with Israel, for which he paid with his life in 1981. This was a fascinating part of Aronson's career. Finally at the age of 62 he resigned, preferring not to act as a spokesman for actions he could not defend. Chapter Eleven tells how Aronson never lost his strong sense of connection to Poland. He built a successful life in Israel, but was cut off from his past. Israeli perceptions of Poland were limited to the idea that it was the site of the Holocaust, and that the Poles had done nothing but collaborate with the Nazis. Diplomatic relations between Poland and Israel were broken off by the USSR in 1967. A change in attitude only became apparent in the 1980s, and Polish independence brought a renewal of relations. But for decades no one in Israel was interested in Aronson's story, and telling it could have endangered the friends he had left behind in Poland, living under the communist regime. In 1988 he was finally able to go back and see his friends again. This was followed by regular visits, and he soon recovered his ability to speak Polish fluently. His strong ties with his comrades-in-arms never waned. He has taken part in debate over the role of the Home Army in helping the Jews in Poland, and the extent of anti-Semitism during the war. Although lucky enough not to have encountered it personally within the underground forces, he was aware of its existence, but argues that it is not possible to generalise on how the Poles behaved towards the Jews during the war; saving Jews certainly took extreme heroism, not just a sense of civic duty, but undeniably there was plenty of indifference to their fate. Through this debate Aronson became actively involved in Poland again, giving talks and interviews, as a valuable source of information and a very rare person- a Jew who fought for the underground. He also had a plaque placed on the school building near the Umschlagplatz to commemorate how it was successfully captured during the Uprising - a site of Jewish triumph, not just tragedy. He has been highly decorated for his part in the fight for Poland. The Epilogue tells how Aronson is now the only survivor of the tight-knit group of friends who fought together, but he is in close contact with their families. Wanting his story to be preserved for his descendants, he decided to write this book, and to record all his memories in it, though admittedly he has wiped out some of the worst ones. He still wonders if he did enough to help his own family, but at least he can immortalise all the images of their past lives.
This is the true story of Stanisław Aronson, born in 1925 in Warsaw into an assimilated Jewish family. The story takes us through his protected early life, in very good circumstances. However, World War II breaks out and everything around him collapses. The story then travels through the turmoil of escaping from the German advance, first from Łódź, then Warsaw, and later on further into eastern Poland. During this fascinating story we are witnesses to the Soviet occupation of Lwów, the tragic destruction of Warsaw, two years of combat service in an elite unit of the Polish underground army known as “Kedyw Kolegium A”, or Special Operations Command. We see images of some extremely memorable, hair-raising operations, real “Missions impossible” , followed by the Warsaw Uprising, during which Aronson is seriously wounded, the fall of the Old City and his escape from Warsaw in its death throes. Then comes bitter disillusionment when he realises that the entire Aronson family has died in Shoah. Then comes his final escape from Poland, just before the Soviet regime tightens its grip. Then Aronson serves in the famous Polish 2 Corps in Italy. The turning point in his life is his decision to emigrate to Palestine in 1947. Then he spends the rest of his life in Israel, where he develops a civilian career, as well as taking part in all the Middle Eastern wars of the 20th century.
Aronson is married with a son and a daughter, and two grandchildren.
This story is not only a story of war, narrow escapes and tragedies, but also of great friendship between a small, very tightly knit group of close friends, who for two years lived and fought together. They have remained bonded all their lives in a sort of fraternity that has now extended into a third generation. This is also the story of two nations: Poles and Jews, whose common history and culture parted ways, within the panorama of the entire 20th century. It is a story of identity and memory, the search for an answer: who am I, the only one to have survived?
About the author:
Patrycja Bukalska (born 1972) is a journalist who writes for the weekly Tygodnik Powszechny and has published articles in several leading journals including the Polish editions of Newsweek and The National Geographic, and also foreign press (Spanish, Slovak, Lithuanian). An expert on war-time Warsaw, she has worked as a volunteer at the Warsaw Uprising Museum, in the Oral History Archive and as a guide. Her favourite task is to listen and record people's accounts of their personal life stories. She lives in Warsaw with her husband, two sons and two dogs.
Copyright © by Społeczny Instytut Wydawniczy Znak 2007, wykonanie serwisu Indecity