570 Summary
The last issue of “Przegląd Marksistowski”, 45 pages long, published in August 1941, commemorated the anniversary of Leon Trotsky’s murder. It comprises the translations of Trotsky’s writings as well as accounts of his life based on the quotations from his books, among them My Life, and History of the Russian Revolution.
The Trotskyist press ceased to appear in September 1941, most probably due to Ehrlich’s attempt to hide outside the ghetto. However, in December that year Ehrlich decided to return to the ghetto. The last known Trotskyist publication is a leaflet with a May Day appeal, which has also been published in the present volume. Salomon Ehrlich was murdered during the so-called Grossaktion.
Polish Socialists emerged as an independent organization in 1941. It grouped together the activists of the left wing of PPS who opposed the political stance the party took after the outbreak of the war. The manifesto of Polish Socialists, announced in September 1941, has been reprinted by many clandestine journals in the ghetto, among them – obviously – the newspaper published by the group itself. The title of the journal was originally “Podziemne Ghetto”, later renamed “Getto Podziemne” (both mean “Underground Ghetto”, the “mediaeval” writing of the word “ghetto” instead of “getto” was adopted deliberately). The editors of the first issue (October 1941) remain undetermined; from November 1941 the journal was edited by Lucjan Szulkin, assisted by Jerzy Neuding, one of the leaders of the group in the Warsaw ghetto.
Two issues of the journal preserved in the Ringelblum Archive are no 1 (October 1941) and no 2 (February 1942). Of no 2 one page is missing, but it is preserved in the copy from Central Archives of Modern Records (Archiwum Akt Nowych, Warsaw). According to the post-war account of Szulkin there was another issue, published in December 1941 (after Szulkin took the journal over) and probably also numbered as no 1. This issue as well as the issues of March and April 1942 are not preserved. Jerzy Neuding was murdered on 17–18 April, the night when Nazis killed 52 people in the Warsaw ghetto. Other members of the organization were arrested shortly afterwards.
Communist underground press published in the Warsaw ghetto comprises three titles: “Morgn Fray”, “Morgn Frayhayt” (also published as “Proletarisher Radio-komunikat fun Morgn Frayhayt”), and “Fraye Prese”.
As for “Morgn Fray”, five issues (nos 2, 4, 6, 15, 18), published from March to December 1941, are preserved in the Ringelblum Archive. The earliest preserved issue of “Morgn Frayhayt” has been identified by the editors of the present volume as dating to October 1941. Over 70 issues of the journal are preserved in the Ringelblum Archive. One issue, also included in the present volume, comes from Hersch Wasser Collection (YIVO, New York). The last issue appeared on 10 March 1942. It was also the time communist groups in the ghetto joined the Polish Worker’s Party (PPR), founded two months earlier. From December 1941 onwards “Morgn Frayhayt” was a daily paper, a unique endeavour in the Warsaw ghetto.
The only preserved issue of “Fraye Prese” dates to 13 January 1942. It has been ennumerated among collected press issues in the internal documentation of “Oyneg Shabes” and identified by the editors of the present volume in the item ARG I 1318 (“Morgn Frayhayt”).
