Skip to main content

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
  • Site
    • English home page
    • المصادر بالعربية
    • Πηγές στα Ελληνικά
    • Recursos en español
    • منابع موجود به زبان فارسی
    • Ressources en français
    • Gyűjtemény és tudástár magyar nyelven
    • Sumber Bahasa Indonesia
    • Materiali e risorse in italiano
    • 日本語のリソース
    • 한국어 자료
    • Recursos em Português (do Brasil)
    • Материалы на русском языке
    • Türkçe Kaynaklar
    • اُردو ری سورسز
    • 中文参考资料
  • Events
  • Plan Your Visit
  • Support the Museum
  • Connect
  • Donate
  • Learn About The Holocaust
  • Remember Survivors and Victims
  • Confront Genocide and Antisemitism

  • Home
  • Museum Information
  • Exhibitions and Collections
  • Online Features
  • Collections Highlights

Personal Histories

  • Contents
  • Aftermath
  • Camps
  • Children
  • Deportations
  • Ghettos
  • Hiding
  • Individuals
  • Liberation
  • Refugees
  • Rescue
  • Resistance
  • Survival

individuals

Back to Individuals theme

Vladka (Fagele) Peltel Meed

Born: 1921, Warsaw, Poland

Describes participating in activities of the Bundist underground [Interview: 1991]

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video

— US Holocaust Memorial Museum - Collections

Transcript

One of our illegal Bundist meetings we, of the youth, they called it, and they asked also me to join it. And all kind of work was distributed, the illegal work, and I didn't have any part in anything and I was in a little bit depressed. I was singled out in the negative way, not to get anything to do. But then the leader of this particular get-together, Abrasha Blum, came over to me and told me that "you have a Polish document and you look Polish and you will go out on the Aryan side, on the Polish side, on the outside of the ghetto, the other side of the ghetto." And I was really at that moment elevated. I, I felt that after all something important is going to happen to me, and mine features are working for me. So they uh gave me a mission, and they told me that in a few weeks, somebody will look...come to your place and give you all other informations. So this was the most...the high point of mine remaining in the ghetto after the family was taken. It was not a question of being afraid. It was just the opposite. It, it was the feeling of being something which means that I can do something, it...a challenge which I, I would...I was eager to take. And this was how the underground really singled me out on the other side to be the courier. I didn't pick it by myself. I was only proud and happy to...to be chosen.

Vladka belonged to the Zukunft youth movement of the Bund (the Jewish Socialist party). She was active in the Warsaw ghetto underground as a member of the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB). In December 1942, she was smuggled out to the Aryan, Polish side of Warsaw to try to obtain arms and to find hiding places for children and adults. She became an active courier for the Jewish underground and for Jews in camps, forests, and other ghettos.

  •  
  • Next

Copyright © United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC

Museum Information

  • Today at the Museum
  • Plan Your Visit
  • Exhibitions and Collections
  • Traveling Exhibitions

Resources for Academics and Research

  • Ask a Research Question
  • Research in Collections
  • Research about Survivors and Victims
  • Academic Programs

Resources for Educators

  • Teaching about the Holocaust
  • Programs for Teachers
  • Teaching Materials
  • Holocaust Encyclopedia

Resources for Professionals and Student Leaders

  • Law Enforcement
  • Military
  • Judiciary
  • Faith and Interfaith Communities
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW
Washington, DC 20024-2126
Main telephone: 202.488.0400
TTY: 202.488.0406

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google Plus
  • Youtube
  • Pinterest
  • Instagram
  • About the Museum
  • Contact the Museum
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy
  • Accessibility
  • Legal
×

#USHMM #AskWhy

FirstPerson

Conversations with Survivors
of the Holocaust

Watch Now

Join us right now to watch a live interview with a survivor, followed by a question-and-answer session.