Yehuda Konski

Born in Siedlce, the only son of his father, a tailor, who was pious and had dreamed about the Land of Israel all his life. Yehuda was a handsome, black-eyed, and with curly hair. From childhood, he absorbed stories from his parents about the heroes of Tel Hai and the Galilee. At the “Tarbut” school, where he studied, he showed special skills in painting and singing, and also excelled in organizing artistic events and cultural evenings. He was one of the most active members in the nest “Gordonia” in Siedlce, in the drama program he founded and directed. He would always have the lead roles, both in school and in the movement. He was a good man to socialize and had many friends around him.

Yehuda did not break the close ties with “Gordonia” in Siedlce, even when in 1939, close to the outbreak of the war, his family moved to Warsaw. He soon became the center of cultural events in the local “nest,”. His big ambition was to immigrate to Eretz-Israel, together with his guide Henia Goldberg, who later settled in Kiryat-Anavim. And when she immigrated to Israel, Yehuda asked her to write him letters, until the day came, and he too would immigrate to Israel.

When the moment came when fighting the Nazis, Yehuda wholeheartedly devoted himself to activity, and was a member of the militant group “Gordonia”, and its leader, for a while. As an agile, enterprising, adventurous man, he could be relied upon to fulfill any task. A month before the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, in March 1943, while negotiating the purchase of arms, Yehuda was caught with his friend Shimon Lebental. Apparently, this was a trap set by the Gestapo, and the middleman in the deal was a German agent. The meeting with the middleman was set in the factory area on Nobolifia Street, in the area of the ghetto, and there the two were arrested. During the Gestapo interrogation Yehuda was brutally tortured by the infamous sadist, Brand, but he could not break the spirit of the Jewish hero and he did not reveal anything.

Yehuda Konski died under torture; he was 20 years old when his body was removed from the torture chamber, all black and bleeding, and his fingers crushed. His name is among the names of those who fell in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The list also contains the name of his girlfriend, Leah Koren. His parents and sister were murdered in Warsaw.

 

 

Written by Fishel Dromi (Popowski) in the Yizkor book, based on the book “Uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto” by m. Neustadt.
Translated from Hebrew by Mr. Yuval Romano