Abraham Gancwajch (1902–1943) was a prominent Nazi collaborator in the

Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (german: Warschauer Ghetto, officially , "Jewish Residential District in Warsaw"; pl, getto warszawskie) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the G ...

during the

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

occupation of Poland Occupation commonly refers to: * Occupation (human activity), or job, one's role in society, often a regular activity performed for payment *Occupation (protest), political demonstration by holding public or symbolic spaces *Military occupation, t ...

, and a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

kingpin of the ghetto underworld. Opinions about his ghetto activities are controversial, though modern research concludes unanimously that he was an informer and collaborator motivated chiefly by personal interest.

Biography

Gancwajch was born in Częstochowa,

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

.Warsaw Ghetto Database.
at ''Warszawa.Getto.pl''; Note 1, 3, 4, 11, 13. Gancwajch brother-in-law was Moshe Merin, see
Note 4
an
Zimbio: The "13"
the Head of the Sosnowiec and Zaglebie Judenrats who also followed the same policy of "serving" the Germans. Merin was deported to Auschwitz. As a youth, he apprenticed as a journalist and editor in

Łódź Łódź, also rendered in English as Lodz, is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of cant ...

, and eventually left Poland for

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, Austria, where he worked as a reporter on Jewish affairs for the ''Gerechtigkeit'' (Justice) periodical edited by Irena Harand. He was expelled from Vienna around 1936–1938 and returned to Poland, having gained his reputation as a teacher and a

Zionist Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...

journalist with an oratorical skill.Itamar Levin, ''Walls Around: The Plunder of Warsaw Jewry During World War II and Its Aftermath'', Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004,
Google Print, pp. 94–98
After the

German invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week afte ...

, he surfaced in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

as a refugee from Łódź, and as a person with connections to the German ''

Sicherheitsdienst ' (, ''Security Service''), full title ' (Security Service of the '' Reichsführer-SS''), or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Established in 1931, the SD was the first Nazi intelligence organization ...

'' (''SD''). He first became a Nazi collaborator as a leader of the '' Hashomer Hatzair'', delivering weekly intelligence reports to the Germans. In December 1940 he founded the Group 13 network, a Jewish

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

collaborationist organization in the

, described by

Israel Gutman Israel Gutman ( he, ישראל גוטמן; 20 May 1923 – 1 October 2013) was a Polish-born Israeli historian and a survivor of the Holocaust. Biography Israel (Yisrael) Gutman was born in Warsaw, Second Polish Republic. After participati ...

and

Emanuel Ringelblum Emanuel Ringelblum (November 21, 1900 – March 10 (most likely), 1944) was a Polish historian, politician and social worker, known for his ''Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto'', ''Notes on the Refugees in Zbąszyn'' chronicling the deportation of Je ...

as the "Jewish Gestapo".Richard L. Rubenstein, John K. Roth, ''Approaches to Auschwitz: The Holocaust and Its Legacy'', Westminster, John Knox Press, 2003,
Google Print, p. 413
Gancwajch believed the Germans would win the war and called on Warsaw's Jews to serve them as a basic means of surviving. He preached collaboration with the German conquerors in a booklet which outraged Ghetto residents. He was also a proponent of the Nazi

Madagascar Plan The Madagascar Plan was a plan to forcibly relocate the Jewish population of Europe to the island of Madagascar which was proposed by the Nazi German government. Franz Rademacher, head of the Jewish Department of the German Foreign Office, p ...

to create an autonomous settlement for all Jews under the protection of the

Third Reich Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

in an overseas country. Adam Czerniaków, whom Gancwajch attempted to usurp as head of the ''

Judenrat A ''Judenrat'' (, "Jewish council") was a World War II administrative agency imposed by Nazi Germany on Jewish communities across occupied Europe, principally within the Nazi ghettos. The Germans required Jews to form a ''Judenrat'' in every c ...

'',Yehuda Bauer, ''Jews for Sale?: Nazi-Jewish Negotiations, 1933–1945'', Yale University Press, 1994,
Google Print, p. 70
mentioned him in his diary as "a despicable, ugly creature".

Janusz Korczak Janusz Korczak, the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit (22 July 1878 or 1879 – 7 August 1942), was a Polish Jewish educator, children's author and pedagogue known as ''Pan Doktor'' ("Mr. Doctor") or ''Stary Doktor'' ("Old Doctor"). After spending ...

, who ran an orphanage in the Ghetto, when asked why he was dealing with him, replied, "I will see the devil himself to save my children."

Final events and disappearance

In the Warsaw Ghetto Gancwajch lived a lavish life, collecting hefty sums from others by various means. On the other hand, he helped the poor and artists. But all his initiatives became corrupted; for example, he set up a hospital with ambulances, but the network soon came to be used primarily for smuggling by Group 13, a racketeering network that was officially to have combated black-marketeering in the Ghetto. After most of the Group 13 was eliminated by the Germans in 1943, Gancwajch reemerged outside the

ghetto A ghetto, often called ''the'' ghetto, is a part of a city in which members of a minority group live, especially as a result of political, social, legal, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished t ...

on the Aryan side in

, where he and other members of his group, pretending to be Jewish underground fighters, were hunting for Poles hiding or otherwise supporting the Jews. He was also the leader of the infamous

Żagiew Żagiew ("The Torch", ''Die Fackel''), also known as Żydowska Gwardia Wolności (the "Jewish Freedom Guard"), was a Nazi-collaborationist Jewish agent-provocateur group in German-occupied Poland, founded and sponsored by the Germans and led by ...

, a

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...

-sponsored Jewish organization.Tadeusz Piotrowski, ''Poland's Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces and Genocide in the Second Republic, 1918–1947'', McFarland 1998,
Google Print, p. 66
He is also known to have tried to sabotage attempts at the

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising; pl, powstanie w getcie warszawskim; german: link=no, Aufstand im Warschauer Ghetto was the 1943 act of Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto in German-occupied Poland during World War II to oppose Nazi Germany' ...

. The Jewish Combat Organization sentenced him to death, but were never able to execute him. His ultimate fate remains unknown.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gancwajch, Abraham 1902 births 1940s missing person cases Holocaust perpetrators in Poland Jewish collaborators with Nazi Germany Missing person cases in Poland People from Częstochowa Polish Ashkenazi Jews Polish Zionists Hashomer Hatzair members Warsaw Ghetto inmates Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown

Biography

Final events and disappearance

See also

References