of the survey “Two and a half years of war” carried out by Oyneg Shabes; it is
uncertain whether she managed to respond.²⁹²
Emanuel Ringelblum titled one of his essays on eminent Warsaw ghetto personalities “Symchowicz Roza – angel on the earth.”²⁹³
Roza Symchowicz’s teaching activities as well as her biography are associated
with the history of TSYSHO. The organisation dates back to the era of WWI:
On 23 March 1915, a kindergarten with Yiddish as the language of instruction was
opened in the kitchen for starving children in Warsaw at Gęsia Street 7, under the
patronage of a classic of modern Jewish literature, Yitzkhok Leyb Peretz (1851–
1915) and his friend Yankev Dinezon (1856–1919), author of popular novels, some
of them about Jewish children, contributor to the Hebrew and Yiddish press, community activist. After Peretz’s death, his work was continued by the Dinezon
Committee with the participation of a representative of the Bund, Vladimir
Medem,²⁹⁴ and a representative of Left Poalei Tsiyon, I. Rechtman.
TSYSHO was established by the First Congress of Jewish Schools in Warsaw
in June 1921 (the official name was: Union of Jewish Schools in the Republic
of Poland).
In the interwar period TSYSHO ran a network of community primary
schools, two secondary schools, and the Medem Sanatorium in Miedzeszyn near
Warsaw.²⁹⁵ During WWII, the Medem Sanatorium functioned as a CENTOS facility;
on 22 August 1942, its staff along with its pupils were deported to Treblinka.
Teachers at TSYSHO schools were educated by the Jewish Teachers’ Seminary
in Vilna, established on 11 November 1921. It trained staff for schools with Yiddish
as the language of instruction. The patron of the school was Vladimir Medem,
with Roza Symchowicz as the co-founder. 124 graduates included Natan Smolar
and Israel Lichtenstein. In 1931, the Seminary was closed by the Vilna educational
authorities.
292 See Oyneg Shabes: People and Works, docs. 17, 18, 23, 25, 33; Lerer-yizkor-bukh, p. 87.
293 See Archiwum Ringelbluma. vol. 29a: Pisma Emanuela Ringelbluma z bunkra, p. 231. See also doc. 24.
294 Vladimir Medem (real name Grinberg, 1879–1923), leader and theoretician of the Bund (party member from 1900), editor for many socialist periodicals. Member of the Bund Central Committee in 1906–14 and 1917–23. He advocated national and cultural ideas for Jews, and after WWI was one of the first to criticise the Bolsheviks.
295 See doc. 12.
