Ghost Citizens by Lukasz Krzyzanowski

Author:Lukasz Krzyzanowski
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harvard University Press

Accepting payment from the inhabitants of the ghetto and designating it for the provision of additional assistance was also mentioned in Ludwik Fastman’s testimony. The former president of the Judenrat, who held the office prior to Szenderowicz’s appointment, testified: “I remember that the Jews gave rather large sums for being inscribed on the Palestine list. I entered them into the general income with the purpose of assistance. What was done in that area in 1943 and how the related amounts were entered in the books, that I do not know.”143

The attorney’s widow who married Fastman immediately after the war testified in favor of Szenderowicz. Romana Fargotsztejn-Fastmanowa, making use of her prewar acquaintances, wrote three letters to attorneys capable of influencing the course of the trial, including the lawyer Ludwik Gutmacher, the prosecutor (the so-called speaker of the prosecution) on the Citizens’ Tribunal. Fargotsztejn-Fastmanowa insisted that Szenderowicz “undeservedly became the victim of malicious slander. I owe my life to this man; he pulled me out of a transport that was going to Treblinka.”144 In another letter, she wrote, “You will say, sir, that perhaps Dr. Szenderowicz was moved by some particular views as to my person. But no, because just as he did for me, he rescued from the first deportation my servant (she is living in Radom now; her name is Jadzia Markowicz).”145 Fargotsztejn-Fastmanowa referred directly to the accusations advanced by Bela Frydman. She described in detail how Szenderowicz pulled her out from among people who, during the deportation, were on the ramp of the Radom railroad station. The woman declared that everything happened so quickly there was no question of saving her husband, Henryk Fargotsztejn, who was also among the people destined for deportation. Fargotsztejn-Fastmanowa in a letter attached to the trial documents affirmed: “It is out of the question that at that moment someone could have spoken to Dr. Szenderowicz or pleaded with him for anything.”146 The woman also tried to discredit the accusation of the attempted rape of Bela Frydman, writing that that was yet another charge advanced by the same individuals: “It is only vulgar picking on someone.”147 Fargotsztejn-Fastmanowa also made reference to the act Szenderowicz had admitted—slapping Bela Frydman’s face in the bathhouse—and presented her interpretation of this event: “Do you know, sir, what keeping the bathhouse in Jewish hands meant and whose job it was? It was the job of Dr. Szenderowicz, who wanted to show the Germans that we are not a breeding ground of spotted typhus, that we are not a filthy, slovenly people as they said we were. If Dr. Szenderowicz went so far as to aim a slap at a person who, whether consciously or unconsciously, wanted to discredit in front of the German commission the efforts of Jews and his work as a medical doctor, then that act ought not be brought under the criminal code.”148

The files of the trial before the Citizens’ Tribunal of the CKŻP reveal the extremely varied opinions and interpretations held by Radom survivors concerning

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