NOTEWORTHY DEATH

Jewish insurgent in Warsaw ghetto revolt

WARSAW, Poland - Boruch Spiegel, one of the last remaining survivors of the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising by poorly armed Jewish insurgents against the powerful Nazi German force that occupied Poland, has died. He was 93.

Spiegel died May 9 in Montreal, where he had spent the past four years in a nursing home, his son Julius Spiegel said Tuesday.

With Spiegel’s death, the tiny group of survivors of the legendary World War II revolt that was crushed 70 years ago this month grows even smaller.

Spiegel was one of about 750 Jewish fighters who on April 19, 1943, started an uprising that took the Germans off guard. The fighters were overwhelmingly outnumbered and outgunned and the revolt never had a real chance of victory, but the fighters still managed to hold out for a month, longer than some countries invaded by Hitler.

The German revenge was brutal and involved burning the Warsaw ghetto down. A few dozen of the Jewish fighters survived by escaping the ghetto through underground sewage canals to reach the socalled Aryan side of the Polish capital. Spiegel and his future wife, Chaika Belchatowska, were among them. Others were sent to camps, where most died.

After surviving the ghetto uprising, Spiegel and Belchatowska joined the Polish partisans and also took part in the 1944 Warsaw uprising, a larger citywide revolt against the occupying Germans.

It’s not clear how many of the fighters are still living, but the number is certainly small.

Spiegel is survived by his son, Julius, a retired parks commissioner for Brooklyn; daughter Mindy Spiegel of Montreal; and four grandchildren. His wife died in 2002.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 12 on 05/22/2013

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