The Story of Warsaw Ghetto and Holocaust Survivor—Lt. Col. (Res.) Jerzy Rabiner

“This was my childhood and we only got one childhood. It was the best childhood. It’s absurd

that this was my childhood.”—Lt. Col. (Res.) Jerzy Rabine

Lt. Col. (Res.) Jerzy Rabiner was born as an only child in Warsaw, Poland in 1936. His father was an engineer and his mother was a teacher. Throughout his childhood, his mother taught him several languages including French and Polish. 

One of his first childhood memories was on September 1, 1939, when his father was drafted to the Polish army as an engineer officer. In the Spring of 1940, together with thousands of Polish officers, his father was executed by Joseph Stalin in the city of Katyn, U.S.S.R. due to their intelligence, which acted as a threat to their invasion of eastern Poland.

By 1940, German SS officers began forcing Jews into the Jewish burrow of the Warsaw Ghetto. 

In January 1943, Jerzy and his mother were forced into the Warsaw Ghetto. However his mother knew that their time in the ghetto was limited as she and a friend were planning Jerzy’s escape. 

On a freezing winter morning, Jerzy’s mother dressed him in multiple layers of clothing and fed him. The plan was for the mothers friend to bring him on his way to work outside of the ghetto. By 5 AM, the two were lined up at the crossing, waiting for the German’s to count that everyone was present. At the right moment, the friend gave the signal and Jerzy took off. He never looked back, but still remembers the sounds of gunshots. He ran all the way to the meeting point, Kierbedź Bridge. At 4 PM, Jerzy’s uncle’s Christian girlfriend picked him up and took him to the Aryan side where she had planned to hide him. 

Three weeks later his mother escaped the ghetto and joined Jerzy, his uncle and the girlfriend in the apartment. 

A few weeks later it was decided that Jerzy’s mother would go hide in another apartment due to overcrowding. From that moment on, Jerzy never saw his mother again. 

A few weeks later, Jerzy’s hiding place was discovered by German S.S. Officers, who were planning on taking them to the extermination camps. In response, Jerzy’s uncle fought two of the Germans and fled. Jerzy and his uncle's girlfriend lined up against the wall awaiting their fate. The girlfriend was able to convince the officers to take an expensive coat in exchange for killing them. 

Jerzy continued to hide in different apartments until 1944, when he moved into a Polish family’s house on the outskirts of Warsaw until the end of the war. Following liberation, he was then sent to a boarding school near Zatrzebie, Poland. By 1946 he traveled to France and stayed there for two years with family until later making aliyah to Israel in October 1948. 

Post graduation from high school, he was immediately drafted to the Israel Defense Forces and in July 1957, he successfully finished the IAF Navigators Course. During his time in the Israeli Air Force, he served as a navigator, training instructor, commander and in staff positions. His final position before being released was commander of the IAF Ofir Base.

Despite all odds, Jerzy never gave up and continued to push forward. He is truly an inspiration to us all.