A Jewish Kapo in Auschwitz: History, Memory, and the Politics of Survival

Acknowledgments

xi Acknowledgments This book began to run through my mind as I was writing my previous study, Arrows in the Dark: David Ben-Gurion, the Yishuv Leadership , and Rescue Attempts during the Holocaust. That work offers an extensive account of the labors of the father of the subject of this book. Yitzhak Gruen­ baum, a leader of the Jewish community under the British Mandate and formerly the most prominent and influential Jewish politician in Poland, was assigned major roles in the Yishuv’s efforts to aid Europe’s beleaguered and endangered Jews and bring as many of them as possible to Palestine. My work on that earlier history also taught me the great importance of documentation residing outside Israel, in particular that from Polish and French sources. Such evidence is critical for the re-creation, analysis, and evaluation of the convoluted story of Yitzhak’s son Eliezer, the subject of the current work. This book is the story of Eliezer Gruenbaum and his time, but also a narrative of the tortuous path I and my research assistants trod to collect the necessary evidence. That search took years. I would like to express my gratitude to the staff of the Polish Central Archives of Modern Records, and to Neli Oren, who served as my liaison to the archive. I also want to thank the staff of the archive of the Auschwitz-­ Birkenau National Museum, in particular the former deputy director, Teresa Swiebocka. In addition, I am grateful to those people and organizations that generouslygrantedmeaccesstoanimportantFrenchcollectionof documents. Further thanks go to Henry Meyer, director of the archive at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, as well as to Michlean Amir and Vincent Slat of his staff, all three of whom provided me with gracious and professional assistance. Galia Glasner-Heled, Eran Turbiner, and Jeannine (Levana) Frenk, Israeli scholars who have researched and written about the Holocaust, all kindly made available to me their private collections of documents and notes that were critical in piecing together Eliezer Gruenbaum’s story. Friling - Jewish Kapo.indb 11 4/11/2014 2:48:55 PM xii ||| Acknowledgments Two translators—Shmuel Katz, from the Polish, and Doron Modan, from the French—helped me delve into documents and sources in these languages. Their professionalism and patience deserve special recognition. My colleague Shmuel Trigano of the University of Paris at Nanterre–­ Sorbonne, also provided me with invaluable assistance. Special thanks go to Irena Steinfeldt, now the head of Yad Vashem’s Righteous among the Nations department. She collected for me documents from different places around the world, helped translate, and offered her services as a careful reader of manuscripts. Her comments, clarifications, wide-ranging assistance, and especially her profound friendship were critical to my work. It goes without saying that I alone am responsible for everything written in the book. But I benefited greatly from the comments and suggestions of a number of colleagues and friends who read my Hebrew manuscript. I list them in alphabetical order: Shlomo Aronson, the late Dan Bar-On, Uri Bialer, Hadas Blum, Kimmy Caplan, Galia Glasner-Heled, Daniel Gutwein, Yehoshua Porath, Smadar Rothman, Hanna Yablonka, and Lisa Yavnai. Re’ut Ben-Horin was my associate through a large part of the research and writing of the expanded Hebrew edition. I thank her for her wonderful, dedicated , and careful work, as well as for her patience and friendship. Hadas Blum, my excellent research assistant, helped me swim through the sea of details on which the book sails, assisted in drafting the Hebrew edition, and provided essential editorial assistance for this English edition. The book was written during my tenure as a research fellow at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. I would like to thank Paul Shapiro, Lisa Yavnai, Rado Ioanid, and the rest of the center’s staff and fellows for being gracious hosts and providing an enriching environment in which I learned a great deal. This English version of the book is published by the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. Ilan Troen, Jehuda Reinharz, and Sylvia Fuks Fried deserve my gratitude for their confidence, assistance, and support. I am also grateful to Phyllis Deutsch,­ editor-in-chief of the University Press of New England, and the members of her staff for their important contribution to the process of publication. Further thanks go to Rivka Carmi, president of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and Avigad Vonshak...