WARSAW (EJP)---Israeli President Shimon Peres and his Polish counterpart Lerch Kaczynski paid tribute Tuesday to Jews who took part in the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising against Nazi tyranny, saying there had never been a greater victory even though the insurgents perished.
Speaking at official ceremony at the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial on the Zamenhofa street near 'Umschalgplatz', the site from where the Nazi transported more than 350,000 Jews from the ghetto to the death camp of Treblinka, Peres said: "The majority of the insurgents died, murdered in cold blood. They lost the battle, but from history's point of view there never was a greater victory, a victory of humanity over human bestiality.”
The Jewish revolt was crushed by the Nazi troops and marked a symbolic stand against the Holocaust.
In his highly emotional address, Peres spoke of the insurgents' "historic heroism, surpassing all legend, all celebration, all measure -- a heroism which our children will carry with pride in their hearts."
“We shall always carry a burden of the past in our hearts, of all that is horrid together with that which inspires for the future. We will enter a new road of hope of an enlightened Man. May the names of all heroes of the Uprising in the Warsaw he elevated and glorified.”
The Israeli president added "Revenge? Of course we want revenge. A Jewish state was established – this is our revenge on the Nazis. The Arab countries attacked us seven times and were unable to defeat us, this is revenge. During times of intifadas and Iranian uranium enrichment, it is through peace that the forces of light can avenge the actions of the forces of darkness."
The Polish president said the heroism of the Jewish fighters would not be forgotten.
"The Holocaust is now distant by two generations but we should never forget what happened," Kaczynski said.
"Today's ceremony shall be firstly a tribute to heroes, but secondly, also a sign of our memory."
Around 6 million Jews perished in the Holocaust, including the vast majority of Poland's Jewish population, which was the biggest in Europe before 1939.
"The soldiers of the ghetto fought not for victory but for honour," the Polish president said.
He added: "May today’s ceremony be a tribute to all the heroes. Let it also be a testimony of our memory and our sensitivity that such tragedy never repeats itself. Glory to the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto! Glory to the heroes of all other Jewish risings! The memory of their deeds will never fade away."
Both presidents also stressed the strong ties between the two countries 65 years after the uprising. Peres spoke of "a new Poland" that has "set out on a new road," while Kaczynski defended the idea of a "strong Israel."
"Today's ceremony, with the presence of the Polish army honouring the Jewish victims, is historical and a sign of the new relation between Israel and Poland," Ephraim Teitelbaum, a representative of a French-Polish association promoting a revival of Jewish culture in Poland, told EJP.
"There is a clear wish of a deep rapprochement between Jews and Poles," Bronislaw Geremek, a Polish MEP and former Foreign Minister, said.
Guests at the ceremony included US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who earlier decorated Marek Edelman, the last surviving leader of the uprising, with the French Legion of Honour during a ceremony at the French embassy.
Leading Polish and Israeli personalities as well as Holocaust survivors, a delegation from the French Jewish community led by Richard Prasquier, and dozens of Israeli and Polish youths, attended the ceremony.
The mayors of several European cities also attended the service during which Cantor Joseph Malovany from New York recited the memorial prayer 'El Mole Rahamim' while Poland’s chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, said Kaddish, the prayer for the dead.
There was also a prayer by Roman Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox bishops.
Earlier, the head of the Polish armed forces read the names of the Jews who fought at the ghetto followed by the sound of the roll.
He read: "I am calling you Warsaw ghetto fighters. Your suffering and deth were not in vain. They have not been forgotten. You laid down your lives for your beloved city, for your faith and tradition, for the centuries-long history of the Polish Jews, for freedom and fraternity on you native soil."
At the end of the ceremony, the Israeli and Polish presidents walked together to the site where the future Museum of the history of Polish Jews will be built. The museum will serve as a centre for education and culture dedicated to preserving the lasting legacy of Jewxish life in Poland.
A ghetto survivor, Stanislaw Wierzba, 83, recalled the uprising: "It was the
only solution," he said. "What other fate awaited us? It was a case of either
die with dignity or be deported to crematorium ovens like my relatives who
were probably killed in Treblinka."
Largest Jewish city in Europe
On the eve of World War II, Warsaw alone had a Jewish community of 400,000, making it the largest Jewish city in Europe and the second in the world after New York.
Half of the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust were Polish.
A handful of Jewish paramilitary groups, mostly made up of people in their
teens and twenties, were created in the ghetto.
With an estimated strength of 200, they scraped together a small arsenal
of home-made arms and weapons smuggled in by the non-Jewish Polish resistance.
They first clashed with Nazi troops on January 18-22, 1943, managing to
hinder the deportations.
On April 19, 1943 they decided to take up arms again rather than face
near-certain death in the Nazis' "Final Solution".
"We knew perfectly well that there was no way we could win," Edelman, 85,
told AFP in an interview.
"It was a symbol of the fight for freedom. A symbol of standing up to
Nazism, and of not giving in."
For almost a month, the fighters battled 3,000 Nazi troops who began razing
the ghetto with explosives and fire after failing to crush the revolt as
easily as expected.
Around 7,000 Jews died in the revolt, most of them burned alive, and more
than 50,000 were deported.
The 63-day revolt and the Germans' brutal response cost the lives
of 200,000 civilians and fighters, and led to the near-total destruction of
Warsaw by Nazi troops.
"I still recall women with children in their arms hurling themselves from
the fourth floor of buildings the Germans had set on fire so that they would
not be burned alive," Wierzba recalled.
At the end of Tuesday's ceremony, the Israeli and Polish presidents walked to the place where the future Museum of the History of Polish Jews will be built. The museum will serve as a centre for education and culture dedicated to preserving the lasting legacy of Jewish life in Poland.
Gazeta Wyyborcza, a leading Polish newspaper, on Tuesday devoted eight pages to the uprising anniversary.
The day’s programme of commemorative events included a concert by the Israeli Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta in Warsaw’s National Opera. At midnight, members of the orchestra played again for Warsaw residents at the monument to the heroes of the Ghetto uprising.