Page 107 - Centrum Dialogu im. Marka Edelmana w Łodzi. "Fragmenty pamięci".

Wielka Szpera 5-12 września 1942 The Great Szpera, 5-12 September 1942

decided – that is, myself and my close associates – that regardless of how hard this is going to be, we
are going to do it with our own hands. It is I who has to perform this difficult surgery, it is I who has
to cut off the members to save the body. I have to take the children, for if I don’t, others will be taken
as well, may God forbid that…

I haven’t come here today to comfort you, nor to assure you. I have come to reveal my sorrow and
pain to you. I have come like a thief, to take that which is the best, which you hold near your hearts!
I did everything to avert this calamity, and once averting it was no longer possible, I tried to mitigate
it. Yesterday, I ordered the recording of all nine-year-olds. I wanted to save at least the nine- and ten-
year-olds. This idea was rejected. But I did succeed in saving the children over the age of ten, and may
this be of some comfort to us in our endless misery.

There are many people suffering from tuberculosis in the ghetto, who have days left to live, weeks at
best. I don’t know anymore – this may be a monstrous plan, but I must needs lay it out to you: give me
the sick so we can save the healthy. I know full well how dear they are to everybody, especially to us,
Jews. But extreme times call for extreme measures, and practical decisions have to be made about
who should and may be saved! Logic dictates that we save that which can be saved, and not that
which cannot be salvaged anyway…
We live in a ghetto, after all. Resources are so meager that they are not enough for the healthy, let
alone for the sick. Each of us provides for the sick at the expense of his own health. We give them
our bread, what little sugar we have, or a piece of meat, but they don’t recover anyway, while we
are deteriorating. Of course, this is not sacrifice at its most beautiful or dignified, but in times like
this, when we have to decide whether to give up the sick, who have absolutely no chances of pulling
through and at the same time bring sickness upon others, or to save the healthy, I could only make
one choice, and I decided in favor of the latter. I have thus issued specific instructions to the doctors,
and they will have to surrender all the terminally sick so as to save all the healthy ones, who still want
to live, and who can live…

I understand you, mothers. I can see your tears. I can also feel what is going on in your hearts, fathers.
Tomorrow, when your children have been taken away from you, you’ll have to go to work, and it was
only yesterday that you played with them. I have felt this, and I have known this since four in the after-
noon yesterday. That moment, I broke down. I am filled with your sorrow and your excruciating pain.
I don’t know how I’m going to live through this. I will let you in on a secret. I was asked for a sacrifice of
24,000 – 3,000 for eight days in a row. I managed to knock it down to 20,000, and maybe even less, but
only on condition that all children aged 10 and less are deported. The children over the age of 10 are
safe. The children and the elderly together make up around 13,000 people, so some of the sick have
to go as well. I can’t speak, it’s too much. I just want to clearly state my request: let me carry out this
operation. I dread the thought that others, God forbid, could take over from me…

I am standing before you a broken man. Do not envy me. This is the hardest job I have ever been
tasked with. I am extending my broken, trembling hands toward you, and I implore you: make your

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