Simcha Rotem, the last known Jewish fighter from the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising against the Nazis, died Saturday after a long illness. He was 94.
The Jewish fighters fought for nearly a month, fortifying themselves in bunkers and managing to kill 16 Nazis and wound nearly 100.
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 was born in Warsaw in 1924, the eldest of four children. When he was 12, he joined a Zionist youth movement. When World War II broke out in September 1939, Kazik lost his brother Israel and five more relatives when his family's home was destroyed by German bombs. Kazik was wounded in the bombardment but survived.
Eventually, Rotem's parents sent him away from the capital, hoping he would escape the fate that awaited most Jews in Poland, but when he learned about what was happening in the Warsaw Ghetto, he returned to join the fighters.
President Reuven Rivlin said Saturday, "We are saying farewell to the young man Kazik, Simcha Rotem, the last of the Warsaw Ghetto fighters. Kazik returned to the ghetto when he was 18, three months after his parents had sent him to Radom to save him from the fate that awaited most of the Jews in Poland. He had heard about what was happening in the ghetto and couldn't sit quietly by."
During the uprising, Rotem served as a liaison between the bunkers and the German side. At the end of the uprising, he helped save the last survivors of the uprising by smuggling them out of the burning ghetto through sewage tunnels.
In 1946, Kazik joined the Aliyah Bet movement to smuggle Jewish immigrants past a British blockade on Mandatory Palestine. He was imprisoned at the Atlith transit camp by British authorities. He later joined the Haganah – the paramilitary force that later formed the core of the Israel Defense Forces – and fought in the 1948 War of Independence.
Following the establishment of the state, Rotem served in a number of government positions.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, "In the name of all the citizens of Israel, I express sorrow for the passing of Simcha Rotem, the last of the Warsaw Ghetto fighters. Kazik fought the Nazis, saved Jews, made aliyah after the Holocaust and told the story of his heroism to many Israelis.
"His story and the story of the uprising will stay with us forever," Netanyahu said.
Starting in 1963, Kazik served on the Yad Vashem committee to honor Righteous Among the Nations, gentiles who saved Jews during the Holocaust, putting their own lives at risk.
Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev said that Rotem had been "a real fighter in every sense of the word."
"We have lost a very important voice and now our goal is to continue to give meaning to memory in the absence of role models like Kazik," Shalev said.
