Michael Smuss on Yom HaShoa 2024: testimony from the last Ghetto Fighter

On Yom HaShoa – the day of the commemoration of the victims of the Shoah – Michael Smuss was asked by Steffen Seibert, Germany’s ambassador to Israel, to speak about his heroic fight in the Warsaw Ghetto against the Nazis – and about his improbable survival of the death camps and marches afterwards.

Watch the videos:

#Zikaronbasalon at our home. Nobody who was there will ever forget Michael Smuss, 98 years old, the last survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, stand up in the middle of his testimony and tell what happened on the train to Treblinka. Michael, we cannot thank you enough. pic.twitter.com/5DdlqyIXjh

— Steffen Seibert (@GerAmbTLV) May 10, 2024

Michael Smuss, 98, last survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, came to our home and told his story to young🇮🇱 football players and representatives of 🇩🇪 clubs on a solidarity visit to Israel. He gave us a lesson in humanity and heroism. We gave him our promise to #neverforget. pic.twitter.com/njyATC2YRC

— Steffen Seibert (@GerAmbTLV) May 10, 2024

Michael Smuss is the last survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Born in 1926, Michael risked his life hundreds of time to smuggle letters out and weapons into the Ghetto.

The Nazis finally captured him and put him on a train to Treblinka and his certain death. A simple twist of fate – the train broke down – gave him a lease on life.

And Michael did survive – ghettos, concentration camps and slave labor.

To become a highly-regarded artist and one of the most cherished Zeitzeugen – witnesses of the Holocaust.

I am deeply honored – as is Gunter Demnig, the creator of the Stolpersteine, and his entire organization – to receive such praise from a person of such undying courage and determination.

Kol hakavod, Michael Smuss!