Michael Smuss, a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland and participant in its resistance, has died in Israel at the age of 99. He joined the ghetto uprising in 1943 as a teenager, where he assisted in making petrol bombs. Following his capture, he survived concentration camps and a death march. After World War II, Smuss became an artist and Holocaust educator. The German and Polish embassies in Israel have paid tribute to him.
Early Life and Ghetto Experience
Michael Smuss was born in 1926 in the Free City of Danzig, an area now known as Gdansk, Poland. He later moved to Lodz before being deported to the Warsaw Ghetto with his father. Within the ghetto, which housed hundreds of thousands of Jews facing severe conditions, Smuss's German language proficiency allowed him to work outside in a factory repairing and repainting helmets, as he recounted in a 2022 video for the Sumter Museum in the US.
Role in the Resistance
Smuss joined the Jewish Resistance within the ghetto. He and others collected paint thinner to create petrol bombs, which they prepared in bottles to be thrown from the roofs of houses near the ghetto's entrance. On April 19, Nazis initiated the liquidation of the ghetto. The resistance engaged in combat using weapons obtained from Italian soldiers who had been sent from Africa to the Russian front, exchanged for warm clothing. Smuss described this as "the greatest uprising in this war against Germany." The resistance lasted 28 days.
He described the conditions during the uprising as "very rough... no shower, no food. They were burning up, liquidating one house after another, full of smoke burning in your eyes," and noted "thousands of bodies lying in front of houses and 'the smell of gas and decomposed bodies'." Smuss was taken prisoner on April 29, along with other resistors. A photograph from Corbis via Getty Images, identified by The Jerusalem Post, shows Michael Smuss as the fourth person from the left among those taken prisoner after the uprising.
Post-War Life and Recognition
After the war, Smuss became an artist and focused on Holocaust education. The German embassy in Israel stated that he "repeatedly risked his life during the Holocaust, fighting for survival and helping other prisoners in the Warsaw Ghetto – even after he was captured by the Nazis and deported to concentration camps." They also reported that "thousands of people, especially young people in Germany, have learned from his testimonies." The Polish embassy noted that Smuss "lectured youth on the history of Polish Jews and expressed his memories through art. His legacy endures." Last month, Germany's ambassador to Israel awarded Smuss the German Federal Cross of Merit for his contributions to Holocaust education and promoting dialogue between the two countries.
Discrepancy in Reporting
The Polish embassy and the Holocaust Educational Trust, a UK charity, referred to Smuss as the last surviving fighter of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. However, in 2018, Israeli officials and international media outlets, including the BBC, had reported that Simcha Rotem, who died at age 94, was the last surviving fighter of the uprising.