Michał Klepfisz
| Michał Klepfisz | |
|---|---|
Michał Klepfisz
|
|
| Born | April 17, 1913 Warsaw, Poland |
| Died | April 20, 1943 (aged 30) Warsaw |
| Place of burial | Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery |
| Allegiance |
 Polish resistance
|
| Service/branch |
 ŻOB
|
| Battles/wars |
World War II Warsaw Ghetto Uprising |
| Awards | Virtuti Militari |
Michał Klepfisz (Warsaw, 17 April 1913 – 20 April 1943, Warsaw) was a chemical engineer, activist for the Bund, and member of the Jewish Morgenstern sports organization. During World War II he belonged to the Jewish Combat Organization, fighting the Nazi German forces in Poland. He was killed in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and was posthumously decorated by the Polish government in exile with a Silver Cross of the Virtuti Militari.
Klepfisz graduated from the Warsaw Polytechnic with a degree in engineering. In the interwar period he was a member of the Bund-affiliated Morgnshtern organization. In 1937 he married Róża Perczykof ("Lodzia"; later known as Rose Klepfisz, 1914-2016).
In 1942 he was put on a train to the Treblinka extermination camp by the Nazis, but escaped by taking out the metal screen behind the train window and made his way back to Warsaw. Soon afterward he managed to get his wife, sister Regina and daughter Irena smuggled out of the Ghetto (they survived the Holocaust). They hid with a Polish woman, Maria Sawicka, a member of Żegota, who before the war had run track with Regina, and who had previously hidden Klepfisz when he had left the Ghetto.
During the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Klepfisz directed the underground production of explosives for the Jewish resistance. After receiving instruction from the Polish Home Army (AK) in making Molotov cocktails, Klepfisz set up an underground bomb factory in the Ghetto, while other members of the Jewish resistance smuggled in the necessary ingredients from the "Aryan side" (they had to be purchased from many unrelated suppliers so as not to raise suspicions). A major problem was how to test the explosives that he produced. Eventually Klepfisz bribed his landlord to let him test the home-made bombs in a deserted limekiln in a factory building owned by the man. Though the extent of Klepfisz's operation is unknown, in 1964, Polish workmen carrying out work on the site of the former factory unearthed 100,000 explosive-filled glass detonators for Molotov cocktails.
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