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Preview: Artifacts
From the New Museum
Ring of Courage
By
Leah Goldstein
One of the exceptional artifacts to be
displayed in the new Holocaust History Museum, due to open in
March 2005, is an extraordinary ring. One of a pair, the ring was
used by Jewish and Polish resistance fighters in Warsaw to
identify each other during clandestine operations against the
Nazis during WWII.
Members of the Zionist youth group
Beitar established the Jewish militia organization—ZZW—even
before the Warsaw ghetto was built. They were well equipped and
trained, and after the Nazi invasion, they established contact
with the Polish underground, Armia Krajowa (AK), which
assisted them from outside the ghetto walls. Contact people were
chosen for their “Aryan” looks and fluency in Polish and, using
frequently changing pre-arranged passwords, the two groups
smuggled people, arms and information in and out of the ghetto.
An additional
means of identification—used in particular during meetings of
higher-level officers—were two identical gold rings set with a red
stone and engraved with Jewish symbols, which they were required
to explain each time they met. A star on the red stone represented
the biblical passage “there shall step forth a star out of Jacob”
(Numbers 24:17); and the number seven in the center of the star
symbolized the seven branches of the Temple’s Menorah
(candelabrum). The lamb and lion depicted on the inside of the
ring represented the Jewish victims and the courage of Judah
respectively, and on either side of the ring, fruit, flowers and
plants signified the belief that the Jewish people would flourish
and be fruitful once again.
The ring in the
possession of the Jewish underground fighters was lost in the
ghetto ruins. Its twin remained in the hands of Henryk Iwanski,
leader of the Polish underground. In 1962, Chaim and Chaya Lazar,
former partisans in the Vilna forests, traveled to Poland to
conduct research on the ZZW. They located Iwanski, who told them
of the existence of the ring, but could not bring himself to part
with it. Four years later, Henryk and his wife Wiktoria were
recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations. In April
1978, Chaya’s husband Chaim returned to Warsaw for the opening of
the Jewish pavilion in the Auschwitz Museum. During his stay, he
visited Iwanski, who had become seriously ill: “On the shelf above
his bed lay the famous ring,” Lazar recalled. “I took it, played
with it and then returned it to its place. All the time I was
thinking: ‘How can I persuade him to display it in Israel?’” Two
days later he returned, and to his great surprise, Iwanski gave
him the ring. “I put the ring on my finger and my heart was
completely flooded with joy,” Lazar said. Soon after, Iwanski
passed away.
After Chaim died in 1997, Chaya
requested the original ring be displayed in Yad Vashem. Following
her death last year, the ring was permanently loaned to Yad
Vashem’s museum collection a few days before Holocaust Remembrance
Day, in memory of Chaya and Chaim Lazar. It will be displayed in
the new Holocaust History Museum, so that the incredible story of
courage, concealed for so many years, may be told once again.
Copyright ©2004 Yad Vashem The Holocaust
Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority |
