November 1940, Warsaw–Ghetto. [Menachem Mendel Kon?], ”אַ בעזוך בייַ
די אומגליקליכע קינדער“ [Visit to unhappy children]. Account from the
orphanage at Leszno Street 127 and Wolska Street 18.
The authorship of this account has been established with a high degree of probability by comparing it with another work, signed by M. M. Kon, “In memory of
our beloved friend, member of Oyneg Shabes, Rabbi Shimon Huberband.”¹³⁵ The
evident similarity of style, the archaic spelling largely influenced by the German
language, as well as some elements of the contents suggest that both texts are
written by the same author.
Menachem Mendel Kon (Kohn) (1881–1943) was, before the war, a wealthy
merchant in the city of Ostrołęka; in the Warsaw ghetto, he was an activist
in the ŻSS and a founder and treasurer of Oyneg Shabes. Among other initiatives,
he advocated levying a tax on the wealthy inhabitants of the ghetto to
help the starving. After the Gross-Aktion, he became a member of the Civic
Committee at ŻKN, which collected funds for the Jewish Fighting Organisation
135 See Shimon Huberband, Kiddush Hashem: Jewish Religious and Cultural Life in Poland during the Holocaust, ed. J. S. Gurock, R. S. Hirt (Hoboken, NJ and New York, 1987), pp. 107–109.
