Abraham Gancwajch
| Abraham Gancwajch | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | 1902 |
| Died | 1943 Warsaw |
| Nationality | Polish |
| Occupation | Entrepreneur |
| Known for | Warsaw Ghetto Group 13 |
Abraham Gancwajch (1902 — possibly killed in 1943, Warsaw) was a prominent Nazi collaborator in the Warsaw Ghetto during the occupation of Poland in World War II, and a Jewish "kingpin" of the ghetto underworld. Opinions about Gancwajch's activities in the ghetto are controversial, although modern research concludes unanimously that he was an informer and collaborator motivated chiefly by personal interest.
Gancwajch was born in , Poland. As a youth, he apprenticed as a journalist and editor in Łódź, and eventually left Poland for Vienna, Austria, where he worked as reporter on the Jewish affairs for the Gerechtigkeit (Justice) periodical edited by Irena Harand. He was expelled from Vienna around 1936–1938 and returned to Poland, having gained his reputation as a teacher and a Zionist journalist with an oratorical skill.
After the German invasion of Poland, he surfaced in Warsaw as a refugee from Łódź, and as a person with connections to Sicherheitsdienst (SD). He first became a Nazi collaborator as a leader of the Hashomer Hatzair, delivering weekly intelligence reports to the Germans. In December 1940 he founded the Group 13 network, a Jewish Nazi collaborationist organization in Warsaw Ghetto, described by Gutman and Ringelblum as the "Jewish Gestapo".
Gancwajch believed that the Germans would win the war and called on the Jews of Warsaw to serve them as the basic means of survival. He preached collaboration with the German conquerors in a specially printed booklet which outraged the Ghetto residents. He was also a proponent of the Nazi Madagascar Plan of creating an autonomous place of settlement for all Jews under the protection of the Third Reich in one of the overseas countries.Adam Czerniaków, whom Gancwajch attempted to usurp as the head of the Judenrat mentioned him in his diary as "a despicable, ugly creature".Janusz Korczak who ran an orphanage in the ghetto when asked why he was dealing with him replied "I will see the devil himself to save my children".
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