No Song for Birds in Flight: The Life and Afterlife of Suicide in the Warsaw Ghetto

Abstract

This article is an exploration of how individuals in the Warsaw Ghetto discussed and remembered wartime suicide, as well as the ways in which these events were translated into legend by subsequent generations. First-person sources show how witnesses understood and evaluated suicide as one of the few choices available to Jews under Nazi occupation; Their reactions ranged from admiration or yearning to disapproval, disgust, and indifference. Although death and violence became part of daily life, suicide was not: in fact, the suicide rate in the ghetto was over a third lower than what it was in prewar Warsaw (Lindenthal, 2014). The goal of this study is not to condemn, glorify, or even understand events of suicide in the Warsaw Ghetto. Rather, the study of suicide in the context of the Holocaust presents an opportunity to rigorously question preconceived notions of agency, survivorship, and testimony. The Warsaw Ghetto existed in the physical space of the city for just three years, but its legacy of violence has endured for decades. This research builds not only on the historiography of the Holocaust in Poland, but also adds to the broader fields of the history of psychology and memory in the midst of genocide.