I Came Home and There Was No One There

Book excerpt: This book comprises interviews with some of the last surviving veterans of the Jewish Fighting Organization in the Warsaw ghetto, accompanied by never previously published photographic “postcards” from a number of ghettos, and a reconstruction of the only surviving contemporary list of those soldiers. The first part of the book, “Still Circling,” is a collection of interviews with the last surviving soldiers of the Jewish Fighting Organization (ŻOB), which fought in the Warsaw ghetto uprising. The section opens with an interview recorded in 1985 with ŻOB commander Marek Edelman, and ends with another conversation with him recorded in 2000. Grupińska’s other interlocutors are also ŻOB veterans—rank-and-file soldiers, men and women. These veterans relate the stories of their homes and their backgrounds—some were Bundists, others from Zionist or religious families—followed by their recollections of how they experienced and remembered the uprising, which provides several unique perspectives of shared episodes. Images include portraits of Grupińska’s interlocutors as well as never before published photographs of the ghetto and its surroundings that are reminiscent of postcards. The second part of the book, “Rereading the List,” is intended to function like a litany of the names of the ŻOB members who fought in the Warsaw ghetto uprising. This “list” was compiled by a group of fighters in 1943 and rediscovered by the author in 2000. Each name is accompanied by a short story about the fighter—sometimes only a sentence or two—as well as any available photograph of them. The list is followed by a reconstruction of the ŻOB army, which captures its divisions and the places they fought.