Icek Bernsztajn
Icek (Izaak) Bernsztajn – lawyer, teacher and publicist, was born on November 13, 1899 in Płock (in the house at 15 Kwiatka Street) in the family of Tobiasz and Sura. In 1918, he entered the seventh grade of the Philological Middle School of the Men’s School Society in Turek, and in June 1920 he received his secondary school certificate. On July 24, he joined the army as a volunteer, serving actively until November 28 of that year. He graduated from the Faculty of Law and Political Science at the University of Warsaw. He taught religion at the Jewish school in Płock. He was also the author of many works, including: “Rozprawy o psychologii i pedagogice” [“Discourses on psychology and pedagogy”], “O okresie dojrzewania w życiu naszych klasyków” [“On the period of adolescence in the lives of our classics”], “Żydowska literatura i nauka na rzecz idei Królestwa Izraela” [“Jewish literature and science for the idea of the Kingdom of Israel”].
During the German occupation he lived in the Warsaw Ghetto. He was a collaborator of Emanuel Ringelblum, he wrote for the chronicle of the Warsaw ghetto. Two of his essays were found in the Ringelblum Archive: “Warszawa – 1941 r.” and “Kelsmski Kaznodzieja”. He died together with his family in the ghetto, in precisely unknown circumstances.
As he wrote in his essay “Głód w Warszawie” [“Famine in Warsaw”]:
“I saw a black cart today; the open door allowed me to see a coffin with a body. A woman, deprived of strength, hurried after it, sobbing to herself. The street was full of people who looked at her and heard her cries, surprised but silent. She ran, dragged herself behind the coffin, like a wounded bird, and everyone around her stared. My friend told me today that of his neighbors’ eight-person family, only two people remained: a mother and her son. He didn’t know which of the two will be taken first by hunger. And they walk around like this, mother and son, with yellowish, dried bodies, glowing like phosphorus…”
We publish the biogram of Icek Bernsztajn on the 82nd anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
