Yitzhak Gitterman (1889-1943) was a director of the

American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, also known as Joint or JDC, is a Jewish relief organization based in New York City. Since 1914 the organisation has supported Jewish people living in Israel and throughout the world. The organization i ...

(JDC) in Poland, and a member of the underground Jewish Combat Organization. Gitterman was born in Hornostaipil,

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

and began a career of supporting refugees and other victims of persecution during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. In 1921, he was appointed director of the JDC in Poland. He took part in the rehabilitation of the Jewish population and the establishment of

welfare Welfare, or commonly social welfare, is a type of government support intended to ensure that members of a society can meet basic human needs such as food and shelter. Social security may either be synonymous with welfare, or refer specifical ...

institutions. With the German invasion of Poland in 1939, Gitterman left

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 ...

for

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, where he rapidly set up operations to aid the refugee community. In December 1939, Gitterman left Lithuania for Sweden to appeal for outside help for Jews in occupied Poland. The Germans stopped his ship in the

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and arrested all Polish nationals of military age. Gitterman was interned in a prisoner-of-war camp and returned to Warsaw in April 1940. Gitterman continued his activities in support of Jewish self-help in Warsaw even after funding from the JDC ceased. He was actively involved in operations of the ghetto underground, including clandestine efforts to document the ghetto experience (code-named Oneg Shabbat). As reports reached the ghetto of the mass murder of Jews in Poland, Gitterman helped raise funds to purchase weapons for the

Jewish Fighting Organization The Jewish Combat Organization ( pl, Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa, ŻOB; yi, ''Yidishe Kamf Organizatsie''; often translated to English as the Jewish Fighting Organization) was a World War II resistance movement in occupied Poland, which wa ...

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 ...

. Yitzhak Gitterman was killed on January 18, 1943, while taking part in the resistance during the first day of the second major wave of deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto.

Notes

:''This article incorporates text from the

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust hi ...

, and has been released under the

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''.

External links

*United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Yitzhak Gitterman
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gitterman 1889 births 1943 deaths People from Kyiv Oblast People from Radomyslsky Uyezd Ukrainian Jews Jews from the Russian Empire Polish people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent Polish humanitarians Warsaw Ghetto Uprising insurgents Resistance members killed by Nazi Germany People who died in the Warsaw Ghetto