Simcha "Kazik" Rotem, the last surviving fighter of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising against the Nazis, died on Saturday in Israel at the age of 94. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin made the announcement.

Rotem, who went by the nom-de-guerre Kazik, served in the Jewish Fighting Organization that staged the uprising on April 19, 1943, when the Nazis began deporting the surviving residents of the Jewish ghetto in Poland's capital.

Thousands of Jews died in what was Europe's first urban anti-Nazi revolt. Most of them burned alive, while nearly all the rest were sent to Treblinka concentration camp.

"This evening, we part from... Simcha Rotem, the last of the Warsaw Ghetto fighters," Rivlin said in a statement. "He joined the uprising and helped save dozens of fighters."

Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu mourned Rotem's death, saying that "his story and the story of the uprising will accompany our people forever."

Read more: 75 years on: the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in film

Sewer escape

According to Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Rotem was born in Warsaw in 1924. At the outbreak of World War II, his family's home was destroyed by German bombing raids, resulting in the death of his brother, grandparents, aunt and uncle.

"When I regained consciousness, I found myself under the wreckage of the house. Only after I managed to extricate myself did I see that our house was totally destroyed and no sign of life was to be seen," the resistance fighter said in an interview with the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum.

Rotem was sent to live with relatives in the city of Klwow. But by 1943, he returned to the Warsaw Ghetto and that is when he joined the Jewish Combat Organization, commanded by the legendary Mordechai Anielewicz. He was 19 years old at the time.

Read more: Poland, Greece team up on Nazi-era war reparations demands

"We knew that something was about to happen. But to tell the truth, even at this stage, meaning in the final stage before the ghetto's liquidation, we probably still couldn't accept this thing... A total annihilation, in the 20th century, in the very heart of Europe — something like this is just impossible. It was hard to accept this notion," he said.

After World War II, Rotem lived the rest of his life in Israel

Rotem ultimately survived the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising by masterminding an escape through the drainage system with dozens of comrades, guided by Polish sewer workers.

To choose one's death

After the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto, he went on to participate in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising led by Polish resistance fighters against the Nazis. When the war concluded, he immigrated to Israel and lived there the rest of his life.

Speaking at a 2013 ceremony in Poland to mark the 70th anniversary of the uprising, Rotem recalled that by April 1943 most of the ghetto's Jews had died and the 50,000 who remained expected the same fate.

Read more: WWII Jewish uprising remembered in Warsaw

Of the uprising, Rotem said he and his comrades took up arms in order to "choose the kind of death" they wanted.

"But to this very day I keep thinking whether we had the right to make the decision to start the uprising and by the same token to shorten the lives of many people by a week, a day or two," Rotem said.

Rotem's funeral will be held on Monday afternoon at Kibbutz Harel. He is survived by children and grandchildren.

jcg/sms (AFP, dpa)

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Each evening at 1830 UTC, DW's editors send out a selection of the day's hard news and quality feature journalism. You can sign up to receive it directly here.</s>Simcha Rotem, last surviving fighter in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943, died in Jerusalem Saturday at the age of 94.

Rotem, born in Warsaw in 1924 as Kazik Ratajzer, was active in Zionist youth movements by his early teen years. He was 15 when World War II broke out and Nazi Germany invaded Poland.

Early in the war German bombs destroyed his family’s home, killing several family members including his brother and grandparents. He and his mother were wounded.

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In 1942 Rotem joined the Warsaw Ghetto’s Jewish Combat Organization, or ZOB, which was committed to armed resistance against the Nazis.

In April 1943 the Nazis began efforts to empty the Ghetto of its remaining occupants, leading to the outbreak of combat, with Rotem fighting under one of the leaders, Marek Edelman.

The insurgents preferred to die fighting instead of in a gas chamber at the Treblinka death camp where the Nazis had already sent more than 300,000 Warsaw Jews.

Speaking at a 2013 ceremony in Poland to mark the 70th anniversary of the uprising, Rotem recalled that by April 1943 most of the ghetto’s Jews had died and the 50,000 who remained expected the same fate.

Rotem said he and his comrades launched the uprising to “choose the kind of death” they wanted.

“But to this very day I keep thinking whether we had the right to make the decision to start the uprising and by the same token to shorten the lives of many people by a week, a day or two,” Rotem said.

“At the first moment when I saw the great German force entering the Ghetto, my first reaction, and I’m sure not just mine — I felt we were nothing,” Rotem recalled in a testimony to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum. “What could we do with our pathetic, almost non-existent weaponry, when faced with the tremendous German firepower, with light canons and tanks and armored personnel carriers and a huge infantry force numbering hundreds, hundreds if not thousands…I felt utterly helpless.”

But that feeling was followed by “an extraordinary sense of spiritual uplifting…this was the moment we had been waiting for…to stand up to this all-powerful German.”

However Rotem noted the rebels had no illusions about their chances. “We’d kill as many of them as we could [but] we knew our fate was completely clear.”

Thousands of Jews died in Europe’s first urban anti-Nazi revolt, most of them burned alive, and nearly all the rest were then sent to Treblinka.

As the Germans pounded the Ghetto and the uprising faltered, Rotem was instrumental in helping fighters flee to safety through the Warsaw’s sewer system to forests outside the city.

He continued to fight alongside Polish partisans and in 1944 participated in the Warsaw Uprising. After the war he joined avengers group Nakam, which was dedicated to exacting vengeance on Nazi war criminals.

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the greatest incidence of Jewish resistance to the Nazis, has become a monumental symbol in Jewish and Israeli lore. Unlike the rest of the world, which commemorates Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, the day of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, Israel does so according to the Jewish date of the uprising (usually in April).

Rotem made aliyah to Israel in 1946 and served as a manager in a supermarket chain until retiring in 1986.

In 2013 Poland’s president awarded Rotem with the Grand Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, one of the nation’s highest honors, for his actions during the war.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday eulogized Rotem. “Kazik fought the Nazis, saved Jews, made aliyah after the Holocaust, and told the story of his heroism to thousands of Israelis,” he said.

“His story and the story of the uprising will forever be with our people.”

President Reuven Rivlin noted that in one interview, Rotem said his one message to Israeli teens would be “to be human beings.”

“We are all animals on two legs,” Rotem said. “That’s how I feel. And among those animals on two legs there are some who are deserving of that description — humans.”

Rivlin said: “Thank you for everything, Kazik. We promise to try every day to be deserving of the description ‘Human.'”</s>Rotem is being honored by world leaders.

Simcha Rotem, the last remaining survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, has died this week at the age of 94.

Known as Kazik, Roten was part of a group of Jewish partisan fighters who mounted an insurrection against Nazi occupiers in 1943 after they began deporting Jewish residents of Warsaw to concentration camps. The Nazis were able to quash the uprising and killed and captured most of the Jewish fighters, but Rotem is credited with helping dozens of rebel fighters escape, the BBC reported.

Though Nazis were able to overtake the Jewish fighters, the operation was considered successful in helping the larger fight against Nazi occupiers. The Jewish fighters battled Nazis for nearly a month, delaying deportations and forcing Nazis to redeploy resources to put down the resistance. The group was able to hold their positions in heavily fortified bunkers and killed 16 Nazi soldiers while wounding nearly 100, the Guardian reported.

Simcha Rotem was credited with helping scores of Jewish fighters escape, helping them move through the city’s drainage system. Rotem was also able to escape the Warsaw Ghetto but returned in 1944 for another Warsaw Uprising led by Polish resistance forces.

Later, Rotem said he felt conflicted about his role in helping to lead the uprising, knowing it led to the death of the majority of those involved.

“But to this very day I keep thinking whether we had the right to make the decision to start the uprising and by the same token to shorten the lives of many people by a week, a day or two,” he said in a 2013 interview (via the BBC).

As the BBC noted, Rotem died in Jerusalem on Saturday after battling a long illness and was honored by Jewish leaders across the world.

“Thank you for everything, Kazik,” said Israeli President Reuven Rivlin. “We promise to try every day to be deserving of the description ‘human.’ ”

Others mourned the loss of final surviving members of the Warsaw Uprising. The number of Holocaust survivors has dwindled as many reach their late 80s and 90s.

“This is a loss of a special character since Kazik was a real fighter, in the true sense of the word,” Avner Shalev, the chairman of the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, told the Guardian. “The challenge for all of us now is to continue giving meaning to remembrance without exemplary figures like Kazik.”

Simcha Rotem moved to Israel, where he worked until retiring in 1986.</s>The last surviving fighter from the doomed 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising by Jewish partisans against the Nazis died Saturday in Israel aged 94, the country's president said.

Simcha Rotem, who went by the nom-de-guerre Kazik, served in the Jewish Fighting Organisation that staged the uprising as the Nazis conducted mass deportations of residents to the death camps.

"This evening, we part from... Simcha Rotem, the last of the Warsaw Ghetto fighters," Israel's President Reuven Rivlin said in a statement.

"He joined the uprising and helped save dozens of fighters".

Hundreds of Jewish fighters began their fight on April 19, 1943, after the Nazis began deporting the surviving residents of the Jewish ghetto they had set up after invading Poland.

The insurgents preferred to die fighting instead of in a gas chamber at the Treblinka death camp where the Nazis had already sent more than 300,000 Warsaw Jews.

Speaking at a 2013 ceremony in Poland to mark the 70th anniversary of the uprising, Rotem recalled that by April 1943 most of the ghetto's Jews had died and the 50,000 who remained expected the same fate.

Rotem said he and his comrades launched the uprising to "choose the kind of death" they wanted.

"But to this very day I keep thinking whether we had the right to make the decision to start the uprising and by the same token to shorten the lives of many people by a week, a day or two," Rotem said.

Thousands of Jews died in Europe's first urban anti-Nazi revolt, most of them burned alive, and nearly all the rest were then sent to Treblinka.

Rotem survived by masterminding an escape through the drain system with dozens of comrades. Polish sewer workers guided them to the surface.

He went on to participate in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising led by Polish resistance fighters against the Nazis.</s>Simcha Rotem, the last known Jewish fighter from the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising against the Nazis, has died. He was 94.

Rotem, who went by the underground nickname "Kazik," was among the rebels who carried out the single greatest act of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. Though guaranteed to fail, the Warsaw ghetto uprising symbolized a refusal to succumb to Nazi atrocities and inspired other resistance campaigns by Jews and non-Jews alike.

Rotem, who passed away Saturday after a long illness, helped save the last survivors of the uprising by smuggling them out of the burning ghetto through sewage tunnels.

The Jewish fighters fought for nearly a month, fortifying themselves in bunkers and managing to kill 16 Nazis and wound nearly 100.

Six million Jews perished in the Holocaust.</s>The Western Journal has not reviewed this Associated Press story prior to publication. Therefore, it may contain editorial bias or may in some other way not meet our normal editorial standards. It is provided to our readers as a service from The Western Journal.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Simcha Rotem, the last known Jewish fighter from the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising against the Nazis, has died. He was 94.

Rotem, who went by the underground nickname “Kazik,” was among the rebels who carried out the single greatest act of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. Though guaranteed to fail, the Warsaw ghetto uprising symbolized a refusal to succumb to Nazi atrocities and inspired other resistance campaigns by Jews and non-Jews alike.

Rotem, who passed away Saturday after a long illness, helped save the last survivors of the uprising by smuggling them out of the burning ghetto through sewage tunnels.

The Jewish fighters fought for nearly a month, fortifying themselves in bunkers and managing to kill 16 Nazis and wound nearly 100.

Six million Jews perished in the Holocaust.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.</s>JERUSALEM (AP) — Simcha Rotem, an Israeli Holocaust survivor who was among the last known Jewish fighters from the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising against the Nazis, has died. He was 94.

Rotem, who went by the underground nickname “Kazik,” took part in the single greatest act of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. Though guaranteed to fail, the Warsaw ghetto uprising symbolized a refusal to succumb to Nazi atrocities and inspired other resistance campaigns by Jews and non-Jews alike.

Rotem, who passed away Saturday after a long illness, helped save the last survivors of the uprising by smuggling them out of the burning ghetto through sewage tunnels. The Jewish fighters fought for nearly a month, fortifying themselves in bunkers and managing to kill 16 Nazis and wound nearly 100.

“This is a loss of a special character since Kazik was a real fighter, in the true sense of the word,” said Avner Shalev, chairman of the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. “The challenge for all of us now is to continue giving meaning to remembrance without exemplary figures like Kazik.”

Rotem was born in 1924 in Warsaw, at a time when its vibrant Jewish community made up a third of the city’s population. After World War II broke out, he was wounded in a German bombing campaign that destroyed his family home. His brother and five other close relatives were killed. Shortly after, the city’s Jews were herded into the infamous ghetto.

The ghetto initially held some 380,000 Jews who were cramped into tight living spaces, and at its peak housed about a half million. Life in the ghetto included random raids, confiscations and abductions by Nazi soldiers. Disease and starvation were rampant, and bodies often appeared on the streets.

The resistance movement began to grow after the deportation of July 22, 1942, when 265,000 men, women and children were rounded up and later killed at the Treblinka death camp. As word of the Nazi genocide spread, those who remained behind no longer believed German promises that they would be sent to forced labor camps.

A small group of rebels began to spread calls for resistance, carrying out isolated acts of sabotage and attacks. Some Jews began defying German orders to report for deportation.

The Nazis entered the ghetto on April 19, 1943, the eve of the Passover holiday. Three days later, the Nazis set the ghetto ablaze, turning it into a fiery death trap, but the Jewish fighters kept up their struggle for nearly a month before they were brutally vanquished.

The teenage Rotem served as a liaison between the bunkers and took part in the fighting, before arranging for the escape of the few who did not join revolt leader Mordechai Anielewicz in the command bunker on 18 Mila Street for the final stand.

The Nazis and their collaborators ultimately killed 6 million Jews before the Allies’ victory in World War II brought an end to the Holocaust.

After the war, Rotem immigrated to pre-state Israel and fought in its war of independence. He was later an active speaker and member of the Yad Vashem committee responsible for selecting the Righteous Among the Nations, non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. In 2013, on the revolt’s 70th anniversary, he was honored by Poland for his role in the war.

While the world marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27, the date of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, Israel’s annual Holocaust memorial day coincides with the Hebrew date of the Warsaw ghetto uprising — highlighting the role it plays in shaping the country’s psyche. Even the day’s official name — “Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day” — alludes to the image of the Jewish warrior upon which the state was founded. The valiant ghetto battle offered a powerful contrast to the image of feeble Jews being marched to their deaths in Nazi camps.

“Kazik fought the Nazis, saved Jews, immigrated to Israel after the Holocaust, and told the story of his heroism to thousands of Israelis,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “His story and the story of the uprising will forever be with our people.”

Rotem is survived by his two children and five grandchildren.

With his passing, there is only a single known remaining Warsaw ghetto uprising survivor left in Israel — 90-year-old Aliza Vitis-Shomron. Her main task in the ghetto had been distributing leaflets and smuggling weapons before she was ordered to escape and tell the world of the Jews’ heroic battle.

She said news of Rotem’s death brought tears to her eyes.

“It’s a difficult day because this really means that this is it. I’m the only one left and there is no one else to keep the story alive,” she told The Associated Press. “He was the last fighter. I’ll keep speaking till my last day, but no one lives forever. After me, who will keep telling?”

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.</s>JERUSALEM (AP) — Simcha Rotem, an Israeli Holocaust survivor who was among the last known Jewish fighters from the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising against the Nazis, has died. He was 94.

Rotem (pictured), who went by the underground nickname “Kazik,” took part in the single greatest act of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. Though guaranteed to fail, the Warsaw ghetto uprising symbolized a refusal to succumb to Nazi atrocities and inspired other resistance campaigns by Jews and non-Jews alike.

Rotem, who passed away Saturday after a long illness, helped save the last survivors of the uprising by smuggling them out of the burning ghetto through sewage tunnels. The Jewish fighters fought for nearly a month, fortifying themselves in bunkers and managing to kill 16 Nazis and wound nearly 100.

“This is a loss of a special character since Kazik was a real fighter, in the true sense of the word,” said Avner Shalev, chairman of the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. “The challenge for all of us now is to continue giving meaning to remembrance without exemplary figures like Kazik.”

Rotem was born in 1924 in Warsaw, at a time when its vibrant Jewish community made up a third of the city’s population. After World War II broke out, he was wounded in a German bombing campaign that destroyed his family home. His brother and five other close relatives were killed. Shortly after, the city’s Jews were herded into the infamous ghetto.

The ghetto initially held some 380,000 Jews who were cramped into tight living spaces, and at its peak housed about a half million. Life in the ghetto included random raids, confiscations and abductions by Nazi soldiers. Disease and starvation were rampant, and bodies often appeared on the streets.

The resistance movement began to grow after the deportation of July 22, 1942, when 265,000 men, women and children were rounded up and later killed at the Treblinka death camp. As word of the Nazi genocide spread, those who remained behind no longer believed German promises that they would be sent to forced labor camps.

A small group of rebels began to spread calls for resistance, carrying out isolated acts of sabotage and attacks. Some Jews began defying German orders to report for deportation.

The Nazis entered the ghetto on April 19, 1943, the eve of the Passover holiday. Three days later, the Nazis set the ghetto ablaze, turning it into a fiery death trap, but the Jewish fighters kept up their struggle for nearly a month before they were brutally vanquished.

The teenage Rotem served as a liaison between the bunkers and took part in the fighting, before arranging for the escape of the few who did not join revolt leader Mordechai Anielewicz in the command bunker on 18 Mila Street for the final stand.

The Nazis and their collaborators ultimately killed 6 million Jews before the Allies’ victory in World War II brought an end to the Holocaust.

After the war, Rotem immigrated to pre-state Israel and fought in its war of independence. He was later an active speaker and member of the Yad Vashem committee responsible for selecting the Righteous Among the Nations, non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. In 2013, on the revolt’s 70th anniversary, he was honored by Poland for his role in the war.

“Kazik fought the Nazis, saved Jews, immigrated to Israel after the Holocaust, and told the story of his heroism to thousands of Israelis,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “His story and the story of the uprising will forever be with our people.”

Rotem is survived by his two children and five grandchildren.

With his passing, there is only a single known remaining Warsaw ghetto uprising survivor left in Israel — 89-year-old Aliza Vitis-Shomron. Her main task had been distributing leaflets in the ghetto before she was ordered to escape and tell the world of the Jews’ heroic battle.</s>JERUSALEM—Simcha Rotem, an Israeli Holocaust survivor who was among the last known Jewish fighters from the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising against the Nazis, has died. He was 94.

Rotem, who went by the underground nickname "Kazik," took part in the single greatest act of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust. Though guaranteed to fail, the Warsaw ghetto uprising symbolized a refusal to succumb to Nazi atrocities and inspired other resistance campaigns by Jews and non-Jews alike.

Rotem, who passed away Saturday after a long illness, helped save the last survivors of the uprising by smuggling them out of the burning ghetto through sewage tunnels. The Jewish fighters fought for nearly a month, fortifying themselves in bunkers and managing to kill 16 Nazis and wound nearly 100.

"This is a loss of a special character since Kazik was a real fighter, in the true sense of the word," said Avner Shalev, chairman of the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. "The challenge for all of us now is to continue giving meaning to remembrance without exemplary figures like Kazik."

Rotem was born in 1924 in Warsaw, at a time when its vibrant Jewish community made up a third of the city's population. After World War II broke out, he was wounded in a German bombing campaign that destroyed his family home. His brother and five other close relatives were killed. Shortly after, the city's Jews were herded into the infamous ghetto.

The ghetto initially held some 380,000 Jews who were cramped into tight living spaces, and at its peak housed about a half million. Life in the ghetto included random raids, confiscations and abductions by Nazi soldiers. Disease and starvation were rampant, and bodies often appeared on the streets.

The resistance movement began to grow after the deportation of July 22, 1942, when 265,000 men, women and children were rounded up and later killed at the Treblinka death camp. As word of the Nazi genocide spread, those who remained behind no longer believed German promises that they would be sent to forced labour camps.

A small group of rebels began to spread calls for resistance, carrying out isolated acts of sabotage and attacks. Some Jews began defying German orders to report for deportation.

The Nazis entered the ghetto on April 19, 1943, the eve of the Passover holiday. Three days later, the Nazis set the ghetto ablaze, turning it into a fiery death trap, but the Jewish fighters kept up their struggle for nearly a month before they were brutally vanquished.

The teenage Rotem served as a liaison between the bunkers and took part in the fighting, before arranging for the escape of the few who did not join revolt leader Mordechai Anielewicz in the command bunker on 18 Mila Street for the final stand.</s>A man who was one of the last remaining survivors of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising that constituted the most significant act of Jewish resistance against Nazi terror has died at the age of 94, Israel's official Holocaust memorial and museum, Yad Vashem, announced on Sunday.

Simcha Rotem – known by his underground nom de guerre "Kazik" – was born in the Polish capital in 1924 and went on to become a political figure after World War II while educating people about the persecution and extermination of Jews at the hands of the Third Reich.
Simcha Rotem, the last surviving fighter of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, also a participant in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, dies at the age of 94.