The Boy Who Fought Hitler

This is where Ben’s story takes a sharp turn into one of the most evil chapters in history: the Holocaust.

As Ben’s family is enjoying their dinner, Germany’s leader, a man named Adolf Hitler, is plotting the destruction of Europe’s 9.5 million Jewish people.

Hitler rose to power in Germany during a time when the country was struggling. In 1918, Germany had been defeated in World War I. The German people felt humiliated, tired, and bitter. Hitler and his political party—the Nazis—gained power by tapping into these feelings.

Jewish people had lived in Germany and throughout Europe for centuries. But their unique religion and rituals often kept them separate. As a result, some people were prejudiced against them.

Hitler stood in crowded auditoriums and gave speeches filled with hateful lies about Jews. He said they were “subhuman” and “an inferior race.” He said they could not be trusted.

His lies fanned the flames of centuries-old prejudice against Jewish people. “Eliminate the Jews,” Hitler proclaimed, “and you will eliminate all of Germany’s problems!”

Hitler’s words spread from Germany to other countries in Europe. Many people turned against their Jewish neighbors. Synagogues were destroyed. Jewish-owned businesses were vandalized or burned to the ground.

By 1945, 6 million Jewish men, women, and children would be dead. Nazi troops and their helpers shot them, starved them, worked them to death. Many died in prisons known as concentration camps. The Nazis built these prison camps just for the purpose of killing Jewish people.

But for most of Ben’s childhood, he and his family were happy and comfortable. Nobody suspected that this kind of hateful violence was even possible. “Who could imagine such things?” Ben would say decades later. “Who could imagine?”

Ben was 18 when German troops invaded Poland and World War II began. With shocking speed, life for Poland’s Jews changed. Many lost their businesses or were fired from their jobs. They were not allowed to set foot in public parks or libraries, or to go out after 5 p.m. Anyone who broke these laws could be shot.

Ben’s parents wanted to leave Poland. But Hitler and the Nazis quickly took over most of the countries in Europe. Escape became impossible.

And then, starting on October 12, 1940, all the Jewish people in Warsaw and the surrounding towns were forced to move into one tiny area of the city. The area, which became known as the Warsaw ghetto, was surrounded by a 10-foot wall topped with barbed wire and broken glass.

Armed police herded hundreds of Jewish people through the streets. Ben looked with sorrow at those around him—women holding tight to their babies, men in business suits, teachers from his school, little girls wearing their fanciest shoes and dresses. No one was permitted to bring more than a few belongings.

Ben saw a sneering policeman shove an old woman who lagged behind the crowd. The policeman’s eyes were filled with disgust. Ben gripped his youngest brother’s hand, his heart pounding with fear and horror. The Nazis and their helpers, he realized, did not see them as humans. He felt like an animal—a helpless animal.

Roughly 400,000 Jewish people were crammed into the ghetto. Ben’s family moved into one small room. The gates to the ghetto closed.

Nobody was allowed to leave.

Rage at the Nazis burned inside Ben as life in the ghetto became increasingly desperate. One day, a policeman drove through the streets with a smile on his face, firing his gun. An epidemic of the deadly illness typhus swept through the crowded apartments, killing thousands. Each person was given only a tiny amount of food.

Like many young people, Ben soon learned tricks for sneaking out of the ghetto to find food for his family. There were holes in the wall and tunnels that led to the other side. With his blond hair and blue eyes, Ben blended in easily with the rest of the Polish population. Plus, he had an aunt on the outside. None of her neighbors knew she was Jewish, and she managed to help Ben without attracting suspicion.

Even with his aunt’s help, though, Ben and his family were slowly starving. They could do nothing, it seemed, except wait for death.

But Ben would soon learn that he could do something after all—if he dared. Tens of thousands of people, including thousands of Jews, were fighting back against the Nazis. They were called partisans. Like characters out of Robin Hood, they worked from bases hidden deep in the thick forests of Eastern Europe. Some were hardened fighters. Others were teenagers—mostly boys, but a few girls as well. They blew up factories, sabotaged railroads, stole weapons shipments, and upset the flow of supplies to German troops.

In several partisan forest camps, fighters also protected large numbers of Jewish families who had escaped the ghettos. The most famous partisan group was commanded by the Bielskis, three Jewish brothers who had fled a ghetto in Belorussia (now the country of Belarus) after the Nazis murdered their family. The brothers fought German troops, though their focus was protecting a community of about 1,200 Jewish men, women, and children.

Stories about partisans like the Bielskis spread through the Warsaw ghetto, offering a glimmer of hope to boys like Ben. One day, Ben’s aunt told him about a Polish partisan group in a forest 100 miles away. With his family’s blessing, Ben snuck out and joined up.

Ben struggled to adjust to life with the partisans. He had to learn to shoot, to fall asleep on the cold forest ground, to sneak up on Polish policemen and steal their weapons. Danger lurked everywhere in the hostile countryside, where Poles could earn rewards for turning in Jewish people to the Nazis.

But Ben’s experiences had toughened him. His bravery and skills soon earned him the respect of the most experienced fighters.

A few months after joining the partisans, Ben received word that his family was in trouble. He rushed back to Warsaw and was shocked by what he found in the ghetto. Orphaned children begged in the streets. His family was living in despair, sharing their single room with three other families. Each week, the police rounded up more people and sent them away to work as slaves. None returned. There were terrible rumors—that the Nazis were murdering Jewish people in concentration camps.

Ben stayed in the Warsaw ghetto for two days, sneaking in and out to steal food for his family. He wanted to take his brothers back to the forest with him. But many in the ghetto were sure the war would soon be over. Ben’s parents believed the younger boys would be safer in the ghetto.

For the rest of his life, Ben would break down in tears when he recalled the moment he left his parents and brothers to rejoin the partisans. He would never see his family again.