In late May 1942, Samuel Zygelbojm, a Bund leader and one of two Jewish representatives to the Polish government-in-exile in London, obtained a thorough report about the murder being perpetrated against Polish Jewry (the Bund Report). He spared no effort in disseminating such reports and in prompting the Allies to take action in the matter, foremost with respect to rescue. Reports on the murder of European Jewry continued to flow in, and as they accumulated, his attempts to make the Allies respond became more and more frequent and desperate. He was gripped with helplessness.
ZygelbojmΓÇÖs last letters, to the Polish BundΓÇÖs office in the United States and to his brother in Australia, speak with despair of the futility of his rescue efforts; he states in them that he "belongs to those who are over there." On May 12, 1943, when word came of the liquidation of the last Jews of WarsawΓÇöamong them his wife, Manya, and his 16-year-old son, TuviaΓÇöZygelbojm put an end to his life. In farewell letters addressed to the president of the Polish Republic, Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz, and to the Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile, Wladyslaw Sikorski, Zygelbojm wrote:
Responsibility for the murder of the entire Jewish population of Poland lies primarily with the murderers themselves, but indirectly humanity as a whole is responsible, all the Allied nations and their governments who to date have done nothing to stop the crime from going on.... The Polish government did much to rouse world opinion, but it was not convincing enough.... I cannot keep quiet, I cannot live, while the remnants of the Jewish people in Poland, who sent me here, are being destroyed. My comrades in the Warsaw Ghetto have died a heroΓÇÖs death in the final battle, with a weapon in their hands. I did not have the honor to fall like them. But I belong to them and to their graveΓÇötheir mass grave. May my death be a resounding cry of protest, against the indifference with which the world looks at the destruction of the Jewish world, looks on and does nothing to stop it. I know that a human life is of little value nowadays, but since I did not succeed in accomplishing anything while I was alive, I hope that my death will shock those who have been indifferent, shock them into action in this very moment, which may be the last moment for the remnants of Polish Jewry.
