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Research Article

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising at the Eichmann trial

Received 31 Jan 2024, Accepted 16 Jul 2024, Published online: 25 Jul 2024

ABSTRACT

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1943) was the ultimate symbol of Jewish heroism during the Holocaust. This article examines its presence in the trial of Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann (1961) and focuses on three testimonies of survivors of the uprising: Zivia Lubetkin and Yitzhak Zuckerman, senior members of the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB), and Dr. David Wdowinski, political leader of the Jewish Military Organization (ZZW). Examination of the circumstances of their summons to testify, the dynamics of the testimonies, and the responses to them shows that although this trial was a national consensus event, it was an arena for political clashes; for the revisionists, it was the first step in shifting the story of ZZW heroism from the margins to the center of Israeli public discourse.

1. Introduction

On 3 May 1961, Zivia Lubetkin and Yitzhak (Antek) Zuckerman testified at the Eichmann trial. In their testimonies, they told of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1943), which had long been a symbol of Jewish heroism during the Holocaust. Both were senior fighters in the Jewish Fighting Organization (Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa, ZOB) in the Warsaw ghetto. Lubetkin was the highest-ranking woman at headquarters and Zuckerman was deputy commander. In Israel, they were the founding leaders of Kibbutz Lohamei HaGeta’ot and belonged to the Zionist left. Their testimonies made a great impression and provided dignity and comfort to the audience in and out of the courthouse. Alongside the admiration, however, criticism was voiced. The main argument was that although Lubetkin and Zuckerman were a national symbol of the heroism of the rebels, the historical story they told in court was incomplete and they deliberately omitted the role of the revisionists who fought in the revolt within the framework of the Jewish Military Organization (Zydowski Zwiazek Wojskowy, ZZW).

Five weeks later, Dr. David Wdowinski testified at the Eichmann trial. During the Holocaust, he headed the Alliance of Revisionist Zionists (Hatzohar) in Poland and was the political leader of the ZZW in the Warsaw Ghetto. Wdowinski was a psychiatrist, who after World War II emigrated to the US and lived in New York. In his testimony, he also spoke about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. On the face of it, the injustice had been remedied. His testimony at the trial reinforced the already established narrative of the revolt and confirmed the role of the revisionists on its fringes; from a historical perspective, it heralded the shifting of the story of the ZZW to the center of public discourse in Israel.

The present article follows the three testimonies, starting with the circumstances under which the witnesses were summoned to court, the dynamics and rhetoric of the testimonies, with emphasis on the presentation of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and the responses to the testimonies in Israel. The responses show the perceptions of the Israeli public in the early 1960s of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, shed light on the place of the Eichmann trial in the history of Israeli society, and indicate that although the trial was a unifying national catharsis,Footnote1 it was also an arena for political struggle.

The Eichmann trial was not the first one in which the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising played a role. It was also featured at the Nuremberg Trials (1945–1946), where, however, it did not play a central role because the main topic was destruction and victimhood, not manifestations of resistance by Jews.Footnote2 Although the prosecutor in the Eichman trial was mindful of destruction and victimhood, he also sought to display Jewish heroism during the Holocaust, first and foremost fighting in the ghettos.Footnote3 The Eichmann trial was not the first time that the topic of the Holocaust was mentioned in an Israeli courtroom either, but it was the first time that the defendant was a Nazi criminal. In the 1950s, Israeli citizens were prosecuted under the Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law (1950),Footnote4 and in the Kastner affair.Footnote5 By examining the Lubetkin and Zuckerman testimonies on one hand, and Wdowinski’s on the other, as well the connection between them, I intend to show that the endeavor to give the trial a consensus character necessarily entailed recognizing it also as an arena for political clashes, a storm that took place behind the scenes.

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which broke out on 19 April 1943 and lasted until May 16, was the longest, most wide-ranging, and best-known armed resistance of Jews to the Germans in occupied Europe during World War II. The uprising broke out when German forces entered the ghetto to liquidate it. Their goal was to deport the Jews who remained in the ghetto to the Treblinka death camp or concentration and labor camps in the Lublin area. The Germans encountered resistance from the Jews and required more forces and weapons than planned. Historian Havi Dreifuss has shown that the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was prolonged because the fighting took place in two intertwined spaces. One was the area of armed warfare, the actions of the ZOB and ZZW, which together numbered no more than 800 men and women, as well as the armed actions of Jews in the ghetto who did not belong to any organization. Second, the area of civil resistance. These were the actions of all the Jews in the ghetto who remained there at the time, some 45,000 people.Footnote6

The Jewish community in Palestine cemented the story of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising shortly after it happened, as a clear and prominent display of heroism during the Holocaust against the background of news of the mass extermination. The underground fighters in the ghettos and the Jewish partisans became heroes during the Holocaust, and the survivors among them who arrived in Israel were received with great honor. From the first years of the State of Israel, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising assumed a central place in the ceremonies of Holocaust remembrance.Footnote7 The heroism of the fighters was commemorated in a western Negev kibbutz of the Hashomer Hatzair movement, which was named after the commander of the ZOB, Mordecai Anielewicz. On 19 April 1949, the sixth anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Kibbutz Lohamei HaGeta’ot (Ghetto Fighters) was formed in Western Galilee, and the first Holocaust museum in Israel, the Ghetto Fighters’ House, was established, where memorial rallies were held every year.Footnote8 In 1959, the Knesset enacted the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day Law, setting the date for it on 27 Nissan, in direct and open connection with the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising that broke out in that month. The Knesset decision regarding the date is found in its resolution from 1951, according to which the 27th of the month of Nissan was ‘Holocaust and Ghetto Uprising Remembrance Day.’ The ‘Ghetto Uprising’ referred first and foremost the Warsaw ghetto uprising.Footnote9

The Eichmann trial opened in Jerusalem on 11 April 1961, and it was a key event in the history of Israeli society. Nazi criminal, SS Obersturmbannführer, Adolf Eichmann (1906–1962), played a central role in the implementation of the ‘final solution.’ He was one of the participants at the Wannsee Conference (1942), wrote the protocol, and closely supervised the extermination of Hungarian Jews (1944). After World War II, Eichmann fled to Argentina, where he found refuge with his family. In May 1960, he was caught in Buenos Aires by the Israeli security services (Mossad) and secretly transferred to the State of Israel. On 23 May 1960, Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, announced that Eichmann was in Israel and would be put on trial. The trial aroused interest worldwide, and many journalists came to cover the event. In December 1961, the judges found Eichmann guilty and sentenced him to death. On the night of 31 May to 1 June 1962, he was executed and his ashes scattered outside Israeli territorial waters.Footnote10

Historical research has adopted two main approaches to the significance of the Eichmann trial as a key event in the history of Israeli society. According to one approach, the trial was a turning point because for the first time, the subject of the Holocaust burst into public discourse.Footnote11 A different approach contends that the trial shows a continuation of trends from the 1950s.Footnote12 Historian Anita Shapira distinguished between the public and private dimensions of Holocaust remembrance. In the public sphere, the subject of the Holocaust was present massively and intensively before the Eichmann trial, e.g. in the controversy regarding reparations from West Germany, and the Kastner affair, while and at the private level, personal stories about the Holocaust were publicized for the first time during the Eichmann trial.Footnote13 But in the past 15 years, research has shown that it is clear that the subject of the Holocaust was present in both dimensions during the 1950s.Footnote14

Convicting the defendant was not the sole objective of the Eichmann trial. The trial was a central public arena for describing at length the destruction of the Jewish people during the Holocaust, stressing the uniqueness of the Holocaust in history, showing the danger of manifestations of anti-Semitism, and reinforcing the correctness of the Zionist path, the basis for the existence of the State of Israel.Footnote15 The story of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising fits into the realization of these goals, especially the latter. The heroes of the revolt that the Israeli public was familiar with were members of the pioneering Zionist movements. The figures of the fighters echoed the values accepted in the Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel before the establishment of the State (the Yishuv) and in the early days of the State, based on the image of the sabra, the new Jew who takes up arms and fights back.Footnote16

A hundred and ten witnesses testified at the trial, most of them Holocaust survivors. Their testimonies were not needed to achieve the legal goal. The Israel Police based the case on documents, but this was not enough to construct the trial as an impressive and consciousness-shaping event. ‘In order merely to secure a conviction, it was obviously enough to let the archives speak,’ explained the prosecutor, Attorney General Gideon Hausner. ‘But I knew we need more than a conviction; we need a living record of a gigantic human and national disaster, though it could never be more than a feeble echo to the real events.’Footnote17 This was the mood of the public, which in any case was less interested in the conviction because Eichmann’s identity was not in doubt. As the poet Haim Gouri wrote, the witnesses who survived the Holocaust were the main part of the trial, counsel for the prosecution.Footnote18

In addition to the testimonies of Lubetkin, Zuckerman, and Wdowinski, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was mentioned briefly in the testimonies of two survivors who fought in the uprising and immigrated to Israel: Hela Schuepper Rufeisen, a member of the Akiba movement in the Warsaw Ghetto, and Israel Gutman, a member of Hashomer Hatzair, who later became a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a leading Holocaust researcher.Footnote19 In these two testimonies, the witnesses referred briefly to the rebellion: Schuepper Rufeisen, as part of her activity as a courier (kasharit) in the underground; Gutmann, as a biographical detail that preceded the subject to which he was called to testify, as a prisoner in Auschwitz.Footnote20 Both testified after Lubetkin and Zuckerman, and both made reference to the fighting of ZOB in the uprising.

The first part of the article deals with the testimonies of Lubetkin and Zuckerman and the prosecutor’s decision that they alone be summoned to testify about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the dynamics of their interrogation, and the responses to their testimonies, which contained elation at their core and criticism in the margins. This criticism led to Wdowinski’s testimony, which is addressed in the second part. This part describes Wdowinski’s appeal to the prosecutor, his summons, the course of the testimony, and the responses to it – mainly the political use that was made of the episode. The third part is concerned with a comparison between the testimonies of Lubetkin and Zuckerman, and that of Wdowinski. This discussion leads to positioning the latter as a milestone in the timeline of revisionist efforts to move the story of ZZW to the center of public discourse in Israel. The historical sources include formal documents about the trial, mainly the protocol, news items and commentaries in the daily press, documents and correspondence of the prosecution and the Israel Police, as well as testimonies and memoirs of the activists. An overview shows that the trial reflected trends that were already prevalent in the Israeli public in previous years, and even more so in the political system.

1.1. Testimonies of Zivia Lubetkin and Yitzhak Zuckerman

During the Holocaust, Zivia Lubetkin (1914–1978), born in Byten, Poland, and Yitzhak (Antek) Zuckerman (1915–1981), born in Vilna, were both in Warsaw, both members of Dror, a socialist Zionist movement, and they were a couple. When World War II broke out, they fled to the Soviet Union. A few months later, they returned to Warsaw and became central figures in the underground activities of their movement. Initially, their missions involved efforts to survive after the closure of the ghetto (1940) and create an organized educational and cultural framework for the youths. During the Great Action (Grossaktion, 1942) they were among the founders of the ZOB, which united most members of the various movements in the ghetto. At the time of the uprising, Zuckerman, who was deputy commander of ZOB, was on the Aryan side working to link the fighters in the ghetto with the Polish underground and obtain weapons. Lubetkin took part in the hostilities and was one of a group of fighters who managed to escape the burning ghetto through the sewers. Both participated in the Warsaw Uprising (1944), and after the war, worked to consolidate the remnants of the movement in Poland. Zuckerman was one of the main activists of ‘Escape’ (Bricha) for the illegal transfer of survivors to Palestine-Land of Israel, which was under British Mandate rule. After the war, they married and came to Israel, she in May 1946, he in April 1947, and were among the founding leaders of Kibbutz Lohamei HaGeta’ot. In the 1950s, Lubetkin was secretary of the kibbutz and Zuckerman led the memorial project. Both belonged to the Ahdut Ha’avoda Party, and in the 1950s ran for the Knesset on the party list.Footnote21

Lubetkin and Zuckerman were well-known figures in the Jewish community in the Land of Israel even before they arrived there. Like the media in the US and England,Footnote22 the Hebrew press published reports about the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto shortly after it took place. At the time, it was mistakenly reported that Lubetkin had been killed in the uprising. Until it became known otherwise, eulogies were delivered and memorials held praising her heroism.Footnote23 When she arrived in Israel, she was received as a role model. So was Zuckerman, who was honored as a hero of the uprising, deputy commander of the ZOB.Footnote24 Immediately upon their arrival, they appeared on public platforms and spoke about the Warsaw Ghetto, with emphasis on the underground activity and the uprising. These performances had a political connotation, both in light of the platform on which they stood, which belonged to the movement and party,Footnote25 and because they were central figures in the movement, in Poland and in Israel. In June 1946, Lubetkin spoke at the 15th Conference of the United Kibbutz, held at Kibbutz Yagur,Footnote26 for many hours before an audience of thousands. Those present described it as a sacred occasion, comparable to Mount Sinai, in which the revolt was told by ‘the Jewish heroine of our generation.’Footnote27 It was documented, printed, and distributed, and in the 1950s appeared in the press as well as in establishment publications.Footnote28 In May 1947, Zuckerman spoke for six hours about the Ghetto and the uprising in the council of the United Kibbutz, at Kibbutz Na’an. This, too, was the performance of a ghetto fighter who became a legend.Footnote29

Talking on these podiums, Lubetkin and Zuckerman emphasized the importance of the collective and the role of the pioneering movements in organizing and conducting the uprising. They briefly mentioned the existence of a group of revisionist fighters. Lubetkin said that contact was made and there was an attempt to integrate them into the ZOB but it did not happen.Footnote30 Zuckerman noted that the ZZW acquired weapons and fought during the uprising in Muranowska Square in the Warsaw Ghetto.Footnote31 This contributed to establishing the central role of the pioneering movements as leaders of the revolt, and in Israel as leaders of this heroic story. The same line was evident in Zuckerman’s activity in the 1950s, when, together with the poet and translator Moshe Bassok, he edited an anthology on the subject of Jewish fighting in occupied Europe during the Holocaust, with emphasis on underground organizations. In this thick book (812 pages), the story of the fighting of the ZZW appeared in a footnote.Footnote32

The revisionists also honored Lubetkin and Zuckerman as heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, but their public appearances caused them discomfort. They expected both Lubetkin and Zuckerman to rise above political interests and hoped that when speaking in public they would mention the fighters regardless of movement or party. When Lubetkin arrived in the Land of Israel, the revisionist newspaper HaMashkif wrote: ‘We congratulate a Jewish fighter on her arrival in the homeland and welcome her with good wishes. Let her show courage and tell something of the truth about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.’Footnote33 In a similar vein, journalist and writer, Kalman Katznelson, wrote upon the arrival of Zuckerman, whom he introduced as the leader of the uprising, ‘the man who made history with his own hands.’Footnote34 This trend continued into the 1950s.Footnote35

In light of the above, it is understandable that the prosecutor in the Eichmann trial decided that Lubetkin and Zuckerman were best suited to testify in court about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. They were the most senior surviving fighters living in Israel; honoring them as heroes of the rebellion was a consensus. They were charismatic and reflective, with proven experience in public speaking. And Hausner admired them. He was in contact with them in preparation for the trial. On his own initiative, he went to their home in the kibbutz and asked for their advice in the preparations for the trial. In his memoirs, he described them as a wonderful couple.Footnote36

To summon them, Hausner had to remove three obstacles. First, he needed to add them to the lists of potential witnesses prepared by Bureau 06 of the Israel Police. The possibility of their testimony first came up at a meeting held in November 1960, during which they tried to locate survivors based on predefined criteria, eloquence being one of them.Footnote37 Although Zuckerman and Lubetkin met the criteria, they were not included in preliminary lists prepared by the police or in the list of witnesses the prosecution recommended to summon.Footnote38 But Hausner, who during that period was devoting all his time to preparing for the trial,Footnote39 regarded these lists merely as recommendations. In the subsequent lists of the police, their names already appeared.Footnote40

A second obstacle was the opinion of the police investigator who collected statements from Lubetkin and Zuckerman and determined that they were not suitable to testify. Both described to the investigator what they had already related in public appearances in years past about the Warsaw Ghetto and the uprising.Footnote41 The investigator determined that they did not represent the majority of the Jewish public in Warsaw because they were members of the underground. He also noted that ‘there is a danger that the Zuckermans’ testimony could follow political party lines.’Footnote42 As far as the prosecutor was concerned, Lubetkin and Zuckerman’s statements were merely a formality. This was also clear to the police. A third obstacle was personal. Lubetkin was not eager to testify because she was looking to the future, building her life on the kibbutz in Israel. To change her mind, in addition to his rhetorical powers and his personal connections with the couple, Hausner also recruited the deputy commander of Bureau 06, Ephraim Hofstadter.Footnote43

As far as the prosecution was concerned, Lubetkin and Zuckerman were not only the most suitable candidates for the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising topics but the only ones. Few of the ZZW fighters survived. The heads of the organization, including its commander, Pawel Frenkel (1920–1943), were killed. Two surviving female fighters lived in Israel, Fela Finkelstein (Szapszyk) (1921–2008) and Ziuta Hartman (Rottenberg) (1922–2015), both couriers,Footnote44 but Hausner did not consider summoning them, not because they were women or because he did not think highly of their role. Three female couriers in the underground in the ghettos testified at the Eichmann trial: Hela Schuepper Rufeisen, Rivka Kupper, and Fredka Mazia. Likely, he did not know of the existence of the ZZW women, and in any case, did not seek additional witnesses on the matter.

Hausner assigned Lubetkin and Zuckerman to testify at a morning meeting, each testimony lasting more than an hour and a half,Footnote45 which was lengthy compared to most of the testimonies at trial. They opened the group of testimonies about the fighting of the Jews in the ghettos and forests, and the Israeli public was waiting for them eagerly. ‘From time to time, we felt like asking Hausner, “When are we going to get to the revolt?”’ wrote Haim Guri.Footnote46 The climax of Lubetkin’s testimony was the outbreak of the revolt. She described how armed Germans surrounded the ghetto, facing young Jews with few weapons, eager for battle and willing to sacrifice their lives. She said: ‘When the Germans came near the foot of one of our strongholds and passed by in formation, and we threw the bombs and the hand grenades, and we saw the Germans’ blood pouring in the streets of Warsaw – we felt within us great rejoicing, and it was of no importance what would happen the following day.’Footnote47 Zuckerman described the uprising from his perspective on the Aryan side and in his capacity as deputy commander of the ZOB, and read, in Yiddish and Hebrew, the last letter of Anielewicz, the legendary commander who was killed.Footnote48

During the interrogation, Hausner endeavored to present the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising as a broad heroic action by ghetto fighters whose status as national heroes was already established. Here he had to face another obstacle. The head of the court, Supreme Court Justice Moshe Landau, aimed to hold a substantive discussion and objected to dramatic descriptions during the testimonies.Footnote49 When Lubetkin took the stand, he even warned Hausner not to delve into much detail about the rebellion, and during the testimony, he instructed them to hurry up.Footnote50 It seems that it was for a reason that Hausner scheduled these testimonies for the morning hours, on the assumption that at the beginning of the day the court will show more patience.

In the course of the interrogation of the two witnesses, Hausner emphasized the unification of the ranks among the Jewish forces fighting in the underground organization and during the uprising. He asked Lubetkin:

Q. The Jewish youth movement obviously existed in the underground. Did you organize all the youth movements in the underground?

A. I have said that immediately from the beginning, matters became organized. We called upon the Jewish youth movements to organize themselves.

Q. And did they all respond?

A. They all responded.

Q. From the extreme right to the extreme left?

A. From the extreme right to the extreme left.Footnote51

Ostensibly, this was an unnecessary repetition. But the goal was to show how all the Jews organized for the revolt, regardless of party affiliation. He then asked: ‘In order not to discriminate against anyone – did this include both secular movements and the religious movements?’ The answer was affirmative.Footnote52 When questioning Zuckerman, he asked whether the underground ‘embraced all the Jewish national movements?’ Zuckerman replied, ‘Almost without exception.’ The prosecutor repeated the question, ‘All the Zionist movements?’ The answer was affirmative, and Zuckerman noted that non-Zionist movements also joined the underground, referring to the Bund.Footnote53

The reactions to Lubetkin and Zuckerman’s testimonies confirmed the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising as a story of heroism that embraced all the Jews in the ghetto. The reports in all the daily newspapers reflect excitement and elation, especially following the stories of abuse, humiliation, and murder heard until then in testimony at the trial.Footnote54 The right-wing paper, Herut, reported extensively on the testimonies, protesting the lack of mention of members of their movement.Footnote55 Within a week, two articles were published, accompanied by a preliminary comment: ‘What Zivia and Antek did not say in court,’Footnote56 including information from Adam Halperin, a Beitar member in Warsaw who was close to the leaders of the ZZW.Footnote57

Their testimonies also caused disappointment. As in years past, the revisionists knew that Lubetkin and Zuckerman were movement and party people, not questioning their status as heroes of the uprising, but expected them to break through political barriers, at a time like this, on the huge public platform that the witness stand in the Eichmann trial was. Herut editor, Isaac Remba, wrote: ‘With bated breath we all listened to the testimonies of Zivia Lubetkin and Yitzhak Zuckerman about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. And here is an excellent opportunity for these witnesses to reveal the glory of our national unity, not to hover in worlds of imagination but to tell the truth, as it was, that in the ghetto uprising, Jewish brothers joined forces rising above all streams and parties. […] But look at the narrow-mindedness, the petty jealousy, the paltry account settling, as if the witnesses were guided not by the great judgment of the murderers of our people but by election calculations!’ Remba directed his arguments at the prosecutor, writing: ‘The question, previously inconceivable, is based on what standard did the prosecution choose its witnesses.’ The answer to this rhetorical question was: political power.Footnote58

This article started a correspondence between Hausner and Remba, which in retrospect prepared the ground for summoning a survivor who could tell about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising from the perspective of the revisionists. In response to the article, Hausner wrote a personal letter to the editor, rejecting the accusation of political considerations, stating that the Eichmann trial ‘is the trial of the Jewish people against its enemy,’ and noted that those responsible for the list of witnesses were the Israel Police.Footnote59 This was only partly true, given his deep involvement in choosing Lubetkin and Zuckerman to testify. In any case, it satisfied Remba, who in his reply complimented Hausner on the conduct of the trial and voiced harsh criticism of Lubetkin.Footnote60 But an immediate transition from attack to superlatives suggests that he expected Hausner to include something in the trial about the fighting of the revisionists in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Just at that time, David Wdowinski approached the prosecutor and asked to testify at the trial. Wdowinski and Remba met in the 1930s in Warsaw, at Beitar meetings.Footnote61 It is difficult to know whether Remba had a hand in the matter, but given the proximity in time, it is clear that his courtesy toward the prosecutor did not hurt.

1.2. Testimony of Dr. David Wdowinski

During the Holocaust, Dr. David Wodwinski (1895–1970) was in Warsaw and served as head of the psychiatric department of the city hospital, Czyste. After the ghetto was sealed, he continued to work as a physician. He was born in Bendzin, grew up in Lodz, studied medicine in Warsaw and Lvov (Lemberg), and in 1920 continued his studies in Vienna, specializing in psychiatry. In 1923, he joined the Alliance of Revisionist Zionists and was active in the movement while working as a physician. In 1933, he accepted the request of Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the leader of Hatzohar, returned to Warsaw, and served as head of the Revisionist Zionist Party in Poland. In the Warsaw ghetto, Wodwinski was one of the leaders of the revisionists and served as chairman of the political committee of the ZZW, together with Dr. Leon Strykowski, who was a member of the Central Committee of Hatzohar in Poland, and Leon Rodel, a journalist and publicist. Wdowinski was not a combat soldier in the ZZW, but in his capacity, he was in contact with the commanders of the organization. During the preparations for the armed uprising, he represented the ZZW in an attempt to unite with the ZOB. Following the uprising and the liquidation of the ghetto, he was deported to the Majdanek death camp and was a prisoner in various concentration camps. After the war, he served as an Irgun emissary in Europe and the US. In 1946, he moved to France and from there to New York, where he settled.Footnote62 He was not a known figure in Israel. His name was occasionally mentioned in the press, usually in right-wing newspapers, but not necessarily in connection with the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising but with the role he played in Hatzohar.Footnote63

Wdowinski followed the Eichmann trial from New York. On the day Lubetkin and Zuckerman testified, he sent a telegram to Hausner offering himself as a witness in the trial. He introduced himself as follows: ‘I am one of the few survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto. I was the commander of a national military organization in the uprising. I was in the ghetto until the end. After that I was in nine concentration camps from Majdanek to Dachau. In Warsaw, I was a physician and head of the mental illness department. I saw what the Germans did in general and soldiers in particular. Thus, I know details that no one knows.’ He noted that he was a physician, at the time teaching psychology at the New School for Social Research in New York, and mentioned several names of Herut activists and colleagues in Israel who knew him.Footnote64 Hausner immediately replied that if he were summoned to testify, it would not be about the Warsaw Ghetto and the uprising, because ‘we will not be able to go back to the topics that have already been discussed.’ He instructed him to send a list of issues he could testify about in connection with the camps as soon as possible. Thus, he did not reject him but neither did he promise anything.Footnote65

Wdowinski arrived in Israel at the end of May and was received with honors by revisionist movement activists and MKs from the Herut faction.Footnote66 The members and activists of Herut knew that Wdowinski did not participated the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising but knew the leaders of the ZZW and was familiar with their preparations for armed resistance. Chaim Lazar met with him daily, provided him with materials on the ZZW.Footnote67 Upon arrival, he sent a message to the Israel Police investigator. At the beginning of his remarks, he stated that he knew that the Warsaw Ghetto had already been discussed at the trial, and therefore ‘I would only like to add details related to the uprising in the ghetto and the revisionist underground.’ The high point of these details was what he saw about a week after the outbreak of the uprising, when he was taken to Umschlagplatz: ‘I saw above the bunker on Muranovska Street (the bunker of the Irgun headquarters) a blue and white flag flying on the roof of the house where the bunker was located and I heard shots from that direction, meaning that the resistance was still continuing in this place.’ Next, he described his deportation to Majdanek, where he served as a doctor. He also noted that he had heard Eichmann’s name, one time from a Jew who escaped from Sobibor and a second time in a camp in Budzyń.Footnote68 Given the revisionist attacks on the Lubetkin and Zuckerman testimonies, Hausner appears to have correctly believed that rejecting Wdowinski would strengthen the argument that there was a political flaw in the selection of witnesses, which he was determined to prevent. He probably also found value in Wdowinski’s testimony, given his past as a prisoner in the camps and the mention of the defendant’s name.

Hausner assigned Wdowinski to testify on the day survivors of the Chełmno and Treblinka death camps were summoned. Most of his testimony concerned the horrors of Majdanek and Budzyń. During his testimony, Hausner did not ignore the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, but as he promised, he did not devote a central place to it. He did not instruct Wdowinski to tell about the uprising but asked closed questions. Indeed, he incorporated the topic into introducing the witness to the court. After listing his personal information (name, place of residence, and profession), he asked: ‘At the time of the Second World War, were you in Warsaw?’ The witness confirmed. Hausner: ‘And, at the time of the ghetto revolt, you were the commander of the Irgun Zva’i Leumi in the Warsaw Ghetto?’ The witness confirmed. Hausner said, ‘And you took part in the general uprising and in military activities until, ultimately, your bunker fell? When was that?’ The witness said it was the last week of April 1943. The prosecutor asked:

Q. And then all the strongholds held by the Irgun Zva’i Leumi in Warsaw fell?

A. There were still a few outposts that went on fighting and, as far as I know, a few units fought on for at least three weeks more.

Q. When you came out of your bunker and were transferred to the Umschlagplatz, you saw one of your strongholds?

A. I saw the outpost at Murinowska Square, 79 Murinowska Street. Our flag – the blue and white flag – was flying over the building; the outpost was still fighting – I heard the shots.

Q. From the Umschlagplatz, you were put into freight cars and taken to Lublin?

A. Yes. On the following day, the day after we were captured – we waited a whole day, and on the following day they took me and the remnants of my family – for a large part of my family had been killed at Treblinka, and even before Treblinka, in the first ‘action’ between June and Yom Kippur, 1942.

Q. And then you were brought to the camp at Majdanek?

A. Yes.Footnote69

After that, the prosecutor asked about Majdanek and the Budzyń camps, and about the occasions on which he heard the name of the accused. Thus, Hausner made sure that all the details that Wdowinski wanted to convey about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising were indeed heard: the very existence of a revisionist fighting organization, the flag that flew, and the shots that were heard. His testimony lasted about forty minutes and concluded the last session of the day. The record gives the impression that those present in the court were already exhausted.Footnote70

In press reports, Wdowinski’s testimony was combined with that of other survivors of the death camps, all of which contained extremely harsh stories of mass murder. As expected, the journalists who called attention to his testimony and referred to the mention of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising were people of Herut. Journalist Aviezer Golan noted that the potential of Wdowinski’s testimony had not been exhausted because it could have complemented Lubetkin’s. Journalist Chaya Lazar wrote in the same vein.Footnote71 Neither reproached the prosecutor, but were disappointed that the story of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was heard too little, too late. Chaim Lazar claimed that Wdowinski ‘missed the rare historic opportunity,’ and found him responsible for the failure by keeping his answers to the prosecutor’s questions regarding the ZZW and the Warsaw ghetto Uprising brief and laconic. Nevertheless, Lazar encouraged Wdowinski to write an autobiography and include the story of the ZZW during the Warsaw ghetto uprising, and also begin working on a book of his own about the ZZW.Footnote72

Nevertheless, for the Herut people, the mere appearance of Wdowinski as a witness in the Eichmann trial was enough. It was an opportunity to present the story of ZZW in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in the forums of the movement and the party, to advance its documentation, and to use it as a political tool in the public arena. Wdowinski’s testimony was recorded and preserved in the Jabotinsky Institute archives in Tel Aviv, and excerpts were published in the bulletin of the Institute.Footnote73 At a press conference held about a week after the testimony, Wdowinski spoke about the activities of the ZZW. A report in the Herut newspaper stressed how even during this horrible period in the Warsaw ghetto, political account settling continued.Footnote74 Between the lines it was implied that the prosecutor in the Eichmann trial understood that the story told in court about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was incomplete, and therefore rushed to summon Wdowinski, which was far from the truth. In any case, during the trial, Wdowinski’s testimony did not upset the prosecution’s agenda, did not challenge the story of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising as it was established in the Israeli public discourse until then, and reinforced Hausner’s effort to give the trial the character of a consensus event.

1.3. A comparative perspective of the Lubetkin-Zuckerman and the Wdowinski testimonies

From the perspective of the revisionists, the mention of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in the Eichmann trial was a triple missed opportunity: first, because of the prosecution’s decision that only Lubetkin and Zuckerman would testify about the uprising; second, because of the dynamics of their interrogation, during which the prosecutor allowed them to speak almost freely and sought to emphasize the unity of the ranks in organizing for the uprising; and third, when during Wdowinski’s summons and in the course of his testimony, the uprising was mentioned only to go through the motions. But this was the chronicle of a predictable missed opportunity. Wdowinski’s testimony had no chance of competing with Lubetkin’s and Zuckerman’s because these were entirely different.

The first difference was in the content of the testimonies. In Lubetkin’s and Zuckerman’s cases, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the main part of the testimonies and their purpose; in Wdowinski’s testimony, the uprising was incorporated as a footnote. A second difference had to do with timing: Lubetkin and Zuckerman were summoned in advance, whereas Wodowinski was summoned during the trial. Lubetkin and Zuckerman were assigned to testify as part of the testimonies concerning Polish Jews and were first in a series of witnesses who were members of the underground and partisan movements, whereas Wdowinski was part of the group of testimonies on the subject of death camps. They testified in the morning, he at the end of the day of hearings. Testifying at the end of the day was much more challenging for witnesses to tell their story. The same happened to Rachel Auerbach (1903–1976), who intended to describe in her testimony the cultural activity in the Warsaw ghetto and the documentation project (the Oyneg Shabes Archive). Auerbach was called to the stand at the end of the day on which Lubetkin and Zukerman testified. Although as director of the collection of Witness Testimony at Yad Vashem she played an important role in the prosecutor’s work before the trial, Hausner and the judges kept reminding her that the time was limited.Footnote75 Lubetkin and Zuckerman’s testimony lasted for a total of about three hours, and the prosecutor did not rush them, whereas Wdowinski’s testimony did not exceed forty minutes, and toward the end, Hausner indicated that the time was up. The third difference was in the prosecutor’s attitude toward the witnesses. Hausner showed an attitude of respect and recognition toward Lubetkin and Zuckerman and treated their testimonies seriously, whereas he treated Wdowinski casually. He did not appear to have known him before the trial, perhaps he had not even heard his name. A fourth difference had to do with the profile of the witnesses: Lubetkin and Zuckerman were Holocaust survivors, heroes of the uprising, pioneering Zionists, who established a kibbutz in Israel. Wdowinski was a Holocaust survivor who lived in the US and taught at an academic institution. They were well-known figures in the country; he was almost anonymous.

Wdowinski also felt a missed opportunity but not regarding the mention of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in his testimony. On this subject, he did manage to say what was important to him: raising the flag above the ruins. His motivation to testify was different and had to do with how he viewed the trial as a whole. He wanted to testify to show that it was the German nation sitting on the dock, not Eichmann alone, and expected to have more time to stress this.Footnote76 After testimonies at the trial ended, he sent Hausner a letter on the subject, which was also published on the front page of Herut.Footnote77 The newspaper report appears to suggest that Wdowinski was complaining about the brief mention that the ZZW received during his testimony, but that is not what Wdowinski meant in his letter. He was not the one who initiated the publication of the letter but rather Herut activists did, who continued to use the cause of the rebellion for political purposes.Footnote78 Hausner replied matter-of-factly; as far as he was concerned, the matter was closed.Footnote79

Two years after the trial, Wdowinski published an autobiographical book in which he described the period of his life during the Holocaust. The book was published in English and distributed in the US and England.Footnote80 The last chapter began with his testimony at the Eichmann trial, which served as a starting point for discussing the Holocaust, Zionism, and the Jewish people from the perspective of a Holocaust survivor who did not live in Israel. As noted in the review articles, for Wdowinski the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was far from being the main point of the book, which was rather his personal story and point of view on the Holocaust, Zionism, and related matters.Footnote81 Moreover, Wdowinski never downplayed the importance of ZOB. He wrote: ‘I must emphatically stress that the other organization was no less honest and no less heroic, as was proven during the revolt. It deserves the same recognition and the same respect as my organization.’Footnote82 In his book, he wrote that he had hoped that the organizations would succeed in uniting and that after meeting with Lubetkin it was clear to him that this would not happen. But there was no attempt to settle accounts in his writing. He called the uprising ‘the Jewish War’ in the Warsaw ghetto, meaning a war that embraced the entire community, regardless of movement or party.Footnote83 This is also evident in his early publications.Footnote84 In so doing, he shed light on an important angle of the resistance in this revolt that did not concern only the fighting organizations, and only recently received attention in research.Footnote85

From a historical perspective, there is another difference between the testimony of Wdowinski and those of Lubetkin and Zuckerman. For him, testifying at the Eichmann trial was the first appearance before the Israeli public and a trigger for the publication of his Holocaust story in a book. His autobiography was published in English (1963) and in Hebrew translation after Wdowinski’s death (1970) by the Memorial Project of the Revisionists in Israel. A second edition, including a review of the ZZW in the Warsaw Ghetto and the Uprising by Herut activist, Chaim Lazar, was published in 1985 by Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority. The change in publishers reflects the shift of the ZZW story toward the center: the second edition was published a few years after the political turnaround (1977), when the right-wing Likud party first came to power.

Over the years, Wdowinski’s story of the Holocaust was blurred in favor of showcasing the ZZW in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. As the historian Tadeusz Swietochowski observed, the second edition was interpreted as an attack on the leaders of the Zionist establishment and the political system in Israel, but in practice, the value of the book lies not necessarily in describing the uprising, because Wdowinski did not command forces on the ground but was a political leader.Footnote86 Lubetkin and Zuckerman did not write autobiographies, but what they told about the Warsaw ghetto and the uprising was published in books after their deaths. Lubetkin’s book (1979) combines her two key appearances, in Kibbutz Yagur (1946) and at the Eichmann trial. Zuckerman’s book (1990) is a transcript of testimonies he provided in the 1970s.Footnote87 In both books, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is a central theme. For them, the Eichmann trial was the last significant public appearance as heroes of the uprising;Footnote88 for Wdowinski, the testimony at the trial was the first appearance on a public stage, although not necessarily his own but that of the ZZW in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

2. Conclusion

At the time, the Eichmann trial reflected and confirmed perceptions prevalent in the Israeli public discourse on the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in the years preceding the trial, and did not change them. This was the result of a combination of two elements. First, the prosecution process was planned in advance to tell the familiar story of the revolt by senior surviving fighters, whose status as heroes of the Holocaust was already established. Second, the spontaneous move by the prosecution to summon Wdowinski added a footnote to this story, without undermining its dominance. In both instances, prosecutor Hausner played a key role, effectively shaping the character of the Eichmann trial as a unifying national event.Footnote89 His response to Wdowinski’s appeal should not be interpreted as acceptance of the importance of the revisionists’ role in the story of the Uprising but rather as a tactical move that served to strengthen the character of the Eichmann trial as a consensus event, devoid of political interests. The testimonies of Lubetkin and Zuckerman and of Wdowinski differed in almost every respect, except for being a means of wrangling, even clashing, in a political arena. Everything was political: Lubetkin and Zuckerman were political personas; critics on the right, who attacked Lubetkin and Zuckerman’s testimonies as political, did the same by enlisting Wdowinski’s testimony for their own political purposes.

The Eichmann trial was an arena of the struggle over the image of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in Israeli public discourse. Just as during the Holocaust unification between the ZOB and the ZZW turned out to be impossible,Footnote90 the Eichmann trial makes it clear that the story of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in the Israeli public discourse could not be unified. Until the trial, its essence was the narrative created by Lubetkin and Zuckerman, centered on the ZOB, while the revisionists struggled to insert the ZZW into it. The Eichmann trial marks the point in the timeline when the stories of the heroism of the ZOB and the ZZW in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising met on a pan-Israeli public stage. For the right, Wdowinski’s testimony was the first step in propagating the story of the ZZW from a platform other than that of right-wing forums, and it was a harbinger of its movement toward the consensus. The historical importance of this testimony was that it happened. The revisionists understood this early on. They channeled the ire and disappointment aroused by Lubetkin’s and Zuckerman’s testimonies, and the elation mixed with disappointment that followed in the wake of Wdowinski’s testimony to promote the story of the ZZW in the public discourse as a whole. In this, they were helped by the fact that the Eichmann trial was the last public appearance of Lubetkin and Zuckerman, members of the Zionist left and kibbutz members.

For the Israeli right, the Eichmann trial marked a turning point in their coping with the presence of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in Israeli public discourse. Until the trial, the revisionists had not challenged the public status of Lubetkin and Zuckerman. In the politics of the Jewish Yishuv in Palestine, revisionists were apostates, and in the first years of the State they were always in opposition, on the fringes of the political system.Footnote91 From there, they attacked the consensus and at the same time fought to become part of it. After the right consolidated its power in Israel, its tactics changed. As in the past, an accusing finger was pointed at Lubetkin. But whereas in the past the goal was to join the story of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, now the goal was to lead it. This was reflected in the tendency toward a zero-sum game: the prominence of the ZZW at the expense of the retreat of the ZOB.Footnote92

Thus, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in the Eichmann trial was a litmus test for the balance of power between the center and the margins of Israeli society and politics. In the foreground, the presence of this story at the trial reflected and expressed a consensus on the story that was heard about the uprising of the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust and on the character of this historical trial as a unifying event. Behind the scenes, there were political struggles between the center and the margins. These mark the Eichmann trial as a historical event that confirmed trends already prevalent in Israeli public discourse and a milestone in the changing characteristics of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in this discourse and of Holocaust remembrance in Israeli society in general.

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Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sharon Geva

Sharon Geva is a senior lecturer at the department of History at Kibbutzim College, Israel. Her first book, To the Unknown Sister: Holocaust Heroines in Israeli Society (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2010) was awarded the 2011 Mordechai Ish Shalom Prize by the Yad Itzhak Ben-Zvi Institute in Jerusalem. Her book, Women in the State of Israel: The Early Years was published by The Hebrew University Magnes Press (2020). Her latest book, Zivia Lubetkin and Yitzhak (Antek) Zuckerman: A Double Biography, was published by Hakibbutz Hameuchad, Yad Tabenkin and the Ghetto Fighters’ House (2023).

Notes

1 Weitz, “The Holocaust on Trial.”

2 Finder, “The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising at Nuremberg,” 179; Yablonka, “The Development of Holocaust,” 5–7.

3 Weitz, “In the Name of Six Million Accusers,” 37.

4 Brot, The Gray Zone.

5 Weitz, “The Holocaust on Trial.”

6 Dreifuss (Ben-Sasson), Warsaw Ghetto – The End, 18–29, 387–91.

7 Barzel, Sacrificed Unredeemed; Kantor, Inscribing Their Praise.

8 Carmi, “Between two Hills”; Kantor, Inscribing Their Praise, 287–302; Inbar, “Kibbutz Lohamei Hagetaot.”

9 Stauber, “The Debate in the 1950s”; Stauber, “The Holocaust,” 97–115.

10 Yablonka, The State of Israel; Lipstadt, The Eichmann Trial.

11 Zertal, The Nation and Death.

12 Yablonka, The State of Israel; Lipstadt, The Eichmann Trial, 190–91.

13 Shapira, “The Holocaust.”

14 Cohen, Israeli Holocaust Research; Geva, To the Unknown Sister; Shaul, Holocaust Memory in Ultraorthodox society; Druker Bar-Am “The Holy Tongue.”

15 Weitz, “The Founding Father,” 245–48.

16 Almog, The Sabra, 82–90.

17 Hausner, Justice in Jerusalem, 291

18 Gouri, Facing the Glass Booth, 269–70.

19 Margolin Peled, “Hela Rufeisen Schüpper”; Ben-Sasson, “They Are so Alive.”

20 The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, Vol. 1, 434; The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, Vol. 4, 1153.

21 Geva, Zivia Lubetkin and Yitzhak (Antek) Zuckerman.

22 Finder, “The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising at Nuremberg,” 179–80.

23 Levita, “Hazkarat neshmot,” 23; “Azkara le-halaley ha-ghetto,” 2.

24 “Y. Zuckerman ba’aretz.”

25 Weitz, Aware But Helpless, 208–9.

26 Lubetkin, “Achronim al hachoma.”

27 “Kol hashabat sipra Zivia,” 1.

28 Lubetkin, “Ne’arot bema’arachot hagetto,” 90; Lubetkin, “Hayamim ha’akhronim shel haghetto,” 28–35.

29 Zuckerman, “The 25th Council.”

30 Lubetkin, “Akhronim al hakhoma,” 13, 28, 47.

31 Zuckerman, “The 25th Council.”

32 Zuckerman and Bassok (eds.), Sefer Milḥamot ha-geta'ot, 177–78.

33 “Zivia Lubetkin ba’aretz,” 2.

34 K.K., “Lelo hemshech,” 3.

35 Agaf, “Sefer Milḥamot ha-geta'ot,” 6.

36 Hausner, Justice in Jerusalem, 294–95.

37 “Witnesses in the Eichman trial.”

38 “Ephraim Hofstadter to Gideon Hausner.”

39 Weitz, “In the Name of Six Million Accusers,” 30–31.

40 “Witnesses and statements.”

41 “Zivia Lubetkin’s statement”; “Yitzhak Zuckerman’s statement.”

42 “Menahem Resh to Ephraim Hofstadter.”

43 Geva, Zivia Lubetkin and Yitzhak (Antek) Zuckerman, 204–5.

44 Arens, Flags over the Warsaw Ghetto, VI.

45 “The Eichmann Trial: Protocols.”

46 Gouri, Facing the Glass Booth, 43

47 The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, Vol. 1, 407.

48 Ibid., 413–19.

49 Shaked, Moshe Landau: Judge, 234.

50 The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, Vol. 1, 397–98, 406, 408.

51 Ibid., 402.

52 Ibid.

53 Ibid., 412.

54 “Mor’ot milchemet haghetto,” 4; “Nagola alilat hahod vehagvura,” 4.

55 Lazar, “Bifrotz hamered baghetaot,” 1.

56 Halperin, “Hairgun hatzvai habeitari,” 2; Halperin, “Harishonim shehenifu,” 2.

57 Arens, Flags, 301–2.

58 Remba, “‘Anavnuto shel Abba Kovner,” 2

59 “Gideon Hausner to Issac Remba.”

60 “Issac Remba to Gideon Hausner.”

61 Nadava, “Dr. David Wdowinski,” 16–17.

62 Chariton, “Introduction”; Wdowinski, And We Are Not Saved, ix–xiv; Arens, Flags, 69–70, 76, 115, 301–2.

63 Nadava, “Dr. Wdowinski sarid galmud,” 2; “Dr. David Wdowinski mevaker ba’aretz,” 2.

64 “David Wdowinski’s telegram.”

65 “Gideon Hausner to David Wdowinski.”

66 “Telegram to Gideon Hausner”; Lazar, “David Wdowinski magia hayom,” 1.

67 Ozacky Lazar, and Ozacky Stern, Forgotten Heroes, 40–41.

68 “David Wdowinski’s statement.”

69 The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, Vol. 3, 1232.

70 Ibid., 1232–36.

71 Golan, “Yehudim ultzu laharog atzir,” 3; Shel, “Mefaked hairgun hatzva’i haleumi,” 2.

72 Ozacky Lazar, and Ozacky Stern, Forgotten Heroes, 40–42.

73 “Ha’irgun ha-ztvai ha’yehudi,” 3–6.

74 Nakdimon, “Achronei halochamim,” 1.

75 Cohen, “Rachel Auerbach” 213–18; Geva, “Documentation,” 70–71.

76 Wdowinski, And We Are Not Saved, 102.

77 “David Wdowinski hehzir,” 1.

78 Letter to Chaim Lazar.

79 “Hausner to Wdowinski.”

80 Wdowinski, And We Are Not Saved.

81 Steiner, “And We Are Not Saved,” 241.

82 Wdowinski, And We Are Not Saved, 79–80.

83 Ibid., 98.

84 Wdowinski, “Mered ghetto varsha,” 7.

85 Dreifuss, Warsaw Ghetto – The End, 387–517.

86 Swietochowski, “David Wdowinski,” 708–9.

87 Lubetkin, In the Days of Destruction; Zuckerman, Those Seven Years.

88 Geva, Zivia Lubetkin and Yitzhak (Antek) Zuckerman, 238.

89 Weitz, “In the Name of Six Million Accusers,” 26–49.

90 Dreifuss, 379–80.

91 Weitz, “The Road to the ‘Upheaval’.”

92 Arens, “The Warsaw Ghetto Revolt”; “The Unsung Heroes.”

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