Polish Order of Virtuti Militari 5th Class Silver medal awarded posthumously to a Warsaw Ghetto Uprising hero

Michal Klepfisz (1913-1943) was born in Warsaw, Poland, to Miriam (neé Rojza, ?-1942) and Jakob Klepfisz (?-1942). His parents were both teachers at Warsaw public schools, and Miriam served as the director of the Association of Jewish Teachers. Jakob came from a long line of renowned Warsaw Hassidic rabbis, but he broke with tradition and joined the Bund. The Bund, or League of Jewish workers in Russia, Lithuania, and Poland was the Jewish Socialist party. Both Miriam and Jakob remained active Bundists as adults, and raised Michal and his older sister, Gina (1908-1942), as such. Growing up Michal was a member of Tsukunft, the youth branch of the Bund, as well as a leader in Morgenstern, the Bund’s sports organization. Through his involvement with the Bund, Michal met his wife, Rose Perczykow (1914-2016). The couple married in 1937, and moved in with Michal’s parents and sister.

Michal studied mechanical engineering at the Politechnikum in Warsaw, and graduated in 1939. He began working as an engineer, but his work was interrupted when Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Roughly a week after the invasion, the Warsaw Mayor ordered all men of military age to leave the city and move east to avoid being taken by the Germans. Michal left for less than two months before returning to Warsaw. However, all of Rose’s siblings, and their families chose to leave the city permanently, leaving Rose's mother, Rikla, without a place to live in Warsaw. As a result, Rose arranged for Rikla to move in with her, Michal, and his family. On October 12, 1940, the Germans established a Jewish ghetto in Warsaw. Michal, Rose, Gina, and their parents were forced to move into an apartment in the ghetto, and by November, the ghetto was sealed and they were not allowed to leave. Rose was pregnant at the time, and she gave birth to their daughter Irena (Irene, b.1941) on Michal’s 28th birthday.

Between July and September 1942, the area in the ghetto where the Klepfisz family lived was raided. Rose’s mother, Rikla, and Michal’s parents, Miriam and Jakob, were taken during the raid by the SS and transported to the Treblinka II killing center in German-occupied Poland, as part of the first set of transports from Warsaw. Michal decided to get his family out of the ghetto, so he obtained false papers for Rose, and they returned to Warsaw avoiding detection. Gina decided to flee with them, after she was caught by a Jewish police officer for helping other people sneak out of the ghetto. Initially, Rose and Irena went into hiding with an older Polish couple in the village of Gleboczyce. Later, Michal found Rose a position as a housekeeper for a family in Warsaw. Rose and Michal also decided to place Irena in a Catholic orphanage in order to keep her safe. In December 1942, Gina died while undergoing an operation in a Catholic hospital. In order to keep the rest of the family and other friends in hiding safe, they gave Gina a Roman Catholic funeral, and buried her under her false name, Kazimiera Jozwiak.

After sneaking out of the ghetto, Michal became an active member of the underground Bund resistance movement and the Jewish Combat Organization (ZOB). His blue eyes and light-colored hair allowed him to pass easily as a non-Jew, and he managed to purchase the birth certificate and identity card of a man named Tadeusz Metzner, who was currently working in Germany. Originally, Michal lived in the cellar at the home of Stephan Machai, a worker in the factory where Michal had been an engineer. The home became a meeting place for underground workers until Michal was forced to move. The mother of the real Tadeusz Metzner thought her son was back in the city, and kept coming to the home looking for him. Michal was afraid she might expose his false identity.

The Bund central committee appointed Michal the task of acquiring weapons for the ZOB. He was in charge of confirming the purchase and supplying the money for any arms deals. He also worked with other resistors to smuggle the weapons, as well as illegal literature and correspondence, into the ghetto. As it became increasingly difficult to purchase weapons, Michal used his engineering background to learn how to make them. From his own research, and training with Dr. Zbigniew Lewandowski, the head of the Polish Home Army’s Technical Research Office, Michal began making grenades, bombs, and Molotov cocktails. He then snuck back into the ghetto, and organized small factories to train other ZOB personnel to build these weapons. After these munition plants were set up, Michal returned to Warsaw and worked on smuggling the supplies they needed for weapons production into the ghetto.

In January 1943, Michal was arrested, sent back to the ghetto, and put on a train for Treblinka. He broke through the metal window screen in the train car and squeezed through it. He ran under heavy fire from the sentries. He injured his knee, but managed to hide until the train was gone. He returned to Warsaw, and continued his work for the resistance despite the increased risk of arrest. On April 17, 1943, Michal discreetly met up with his wife to celebrate his and his daughter’s birthdays, and then he snuck back into the ghetto with a revolver he had obtained. Two days later, German troops and police entered the ghetto to deport the surviving inhabitants. The ZOB had been preparing for their arrival, and the Warsaw ghetto uprising began. Michal fought in the brush factory district under the command of Marek Edelman. On the second day of the uprising, April 20, their group was crossing from one attic to another, when they came across a German with a machine gun. Michal sacrificed himself by covering the machine gun with his body, and clearing a path for the other men. After driving off the Germans, Edelman and his surviving fighters returned and buried Michal’s body. On February 18, 1944, the Polish government-in-exile posthumously awarded Michal the Virtuti Militari medal, Poland’s highest honor. Michal’s wife and daughter both survived, and Rose received his medal while living in Sweden after the war.

Rozka Perczykow (later Rose Klepfisz, 1914-2016) was born in Warsaw, Poland, to Rikla (neé Seitman) and Szlama Perczykow (?-1927). Szlama was a watchmaker, and Rikla was a housewife. Rose was the second youngest of six children. She had three older sisters and an older brother, Genia, Anka, Guta, and Beniek, and one younger sister, Sala (Krysia). At the insistence of her oldest sister Genia, who was a teacher, Rose attended a Polish grammar school rather than a private Jewish school. Their parents agreed it would be safer for her to learn Polish, rather than speak Yiddish in public. In 1927, Rose’s father died, and she had to drop out of school, and get a job as a tutor to help support her family. Rose’s family was never particularly religious, but they were very culturally Jewish. They observed all of the holidays, spoke Yiddish at home, and were active Bundists. The Bund, or League of Jewish workers in Russia, Lithuania, and Poland, was the Jewish Socialist party. As a teenager, Rose joined a Bundist sports club, Jutrznia, where she met her future husband, Michal Klepfisz (1913-1943). The couple married in 1937, and moved in with Michal’s parents, Miriam and Jakob Klepfisz. Michal’s older sister, Gina (1908-1942), also lived in the 6-bedroom apartment.

On September 1, 1939 Germany invaded Poland. Roughly a week after the invasion, the Warsaw Mayor ordered all men of military age to leave the city and move east to avoid being taken by the Germans. Michal left for less than two months before returning to Warsaw. However, all of Rose’s siblings, and their families, chose to leave the city permanently. With no other family left in Warsaw for Rose’s mother, Rikla, to live with, Rose arranged for her mother to move in with her, Michal, and his family. On October 12, 1940, the Germans established a Jewish ghetto in Warsaw. Michal, Rose, Gina, and their parents were forced to move into an apartment in the ghetto, and by November, the ghetto was sealed and they were not allowed to leave. Rose was pregnant at the time, and she gave birth to their daughter Irena (Irene, b.1941) on Michal’s 28th birthday. After her daughter’s birth, Rose became very sick and was taken to an old apartment building that had been converted into the ghetto hospital. While there, she had to undergo operations without any antibiotics.

Between July and September 1942, the area in the ghetto where the Klepfisz family lived was raided. Rose’s mother, Rikla, and her in-laws, Miriam and Jakob, were taken during the raid by the SS and transported to the Treblinka II killing center in German-occupied Poland, as part of the first set of transports from Warsaw. During the next raid, Rose hid in the apartment with her daughter, and was shoving pieces of candy into Irena’s mouth to keep her from making any noise. Michal decided to get his family out of the ghetto, so he obtained false papers for Rose, and they returned to Warsaw avoiding detection. Gina decided to flee with them after she was caught by a Jewish police officer helping other people sneak out of the ghetto. Initially, Rose and Irena went into hiding with an older Polish couple in the village of Gleboczyce, while Michal and Gina stayed in the city. After threats of a German raid on the village, Rose decided it was safer to return to Warsaw. Michal got her a job as a housekeeper and tutor for a sympathetic Polish family, the Roubas. She assumed a false identity as a Christian Pole, going by the name Leokadia Mecner. Rose and Michal also decided to place Irena in a Catholic orphanage to keep her safe. In December 1942, Gina died while undergoing an operation in a Catholic hospital. In order to keep the rest of the family and other friends in hiding safe, they gave Gina a Roman Catholic funeral, and buried her under her false name, Kazimiera Jozwiak.

On April 19, 1943, German troops and police entered the ghetto to deport the surviving inhabitants, which sparked the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Michal was an active member of the underground Bund resistance movement and the Jewish Combat Organization (ZOB), and had played a key role in smuggling weapons into the ghetto. He snuck back into the ghetto shortly before the uprising so that he could participate in the fighting. Rose found out roughly two weeks later that Michal died on the second day of the uprising. Rose stayed in hiding with the Rouba family, and was still in the city when the Warsaw uprising broke out in August 1944. Ukrainian troops allied with Germany raided their building and transported Rose and the Roubas to Pruszkow, a transient camp just outside of Warsaw. Rose discovered that Irena’s orphanage was going to be evacuated to Pruszkow as well, so she searched the incoming transports for her daughter. She found Irena on a cart with other children coming into the camp, grabbed her, and ran away.

After the Soviet Union liberated Warsaw in November, 1944, Rose was able to make contact with other Bundists who had survived. Marek Edelman, a ZOB leader who had been with Michal when he was killed, took Rose and Irena on a train to Łódź, where they lived with other displaced Bundist families. Then in 1946, another Bund member, Jacob Platt, got them visas for Sweden, and they left for Stockholm in March. While they were living in Sweden, the Polish government-in-exile sent Rose a Polish Virtuti Militari medal, which they had awarded posthumously to Michal. On April 11, 1949, Rose and Irena immigrated to the United States. Rose’s original plan was to stop in the US before traveling on to Australia to join her sister, Anka, and her brother, Beniek, who had both immigrated there with their families. None of their other siblings survived the war. Instead, Rose decided to stay in New York and raise Irena there. She got a job as a librarian, and then an archivist, working to preserve Jewish and Holocaust history.

Rząd Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej na uchodźstwie (Government of the Republic of Poland in Exile) was established after Germany and the Soviet Union occupied Poland in September 1939. The Polish government-in-exile was first based in Paris, but moved to London after the French army surrendered to the Germans in the mid-1940s. The Allied powers accepted the government-in-exile as the legitimate representative of the Polish people soon after it was created. The Polish government allied itself with the Allied powers, as its members believed that only a total military victory over Germany would restore Poland's independence and freedom. The government-in-exile led the Polish war effort throughout World War II, and amassed its own land, air, and naval forces. In addition, it commanded the largest underground army of the war, the Armia Krajowa (the Polish Home Army). In 1942, reports about the mass murder of Jews in Poland reached London. At that point, the Polish government-in-exile made several public declarations on the subject, and officially demanded that the Allied powers stop the Germans from continuing their campaign to murder Jews, and other individuals they deemed undesirable. From December 1942 onward, the government-in-exile backed the rescue work of Zegota, which offered aid to Jews throughout occupied Poland.