Józef Andrzej Szeryński (born Josef Szynkman, 8 November 1893 or 1892 – 24 January 1943) was a police-

colonel Colonel (abbreviated as Col., Col or COL) is a senior military officer rank used in many countries. It is also used in some police forces and paramilitary organizations. In the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, a colonel was typically in charge of ...

in interwar Poland, inspector for the

Lublin Lublin is the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the center of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin is the largest Polish city east of t ...

district and later – in German-occupied Poland during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

– the commander of the Jewish Ghetto Police in the Warsaw Ghetto. Szeryński was viewed as a collaborator and traitor by the Jewish underground in the Warsaw Ghetto. The chairman of the Warsaw Ghetto's Jewish Council

Adam Czerniaków Adam Czerniaków (30 November 1880 – 23 July 1942) was a Polish engineer and senator who was head of the Warsaw Ghetto Jewish Council (''Judenrat'') during World War II. He committed suicide on 23 July 1942 by swallowing a cyanide pill, a day a ...

selected Szeryński to create the Jewish Ghetto Police in 1940. Szeryński was arrested by the German

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...

on May 1, 1942, for smuggling furs out of the Warsaw Ghetto for personal gain. He was released on the condition of leading the deportation action to Treblinka extermination camp in July 1942. The very next month Jewish underground attempted to assassinate him, unsuccessfully. He remained at the helm of the Ghetto Police until the end of the '' Grossaktion Warsaw'' which claimed the lives of over 254,000 ghetto inmates, men, women and children. He committed suicide right after the next wave of deportations in January 1943.

Life

Józef Szynkman (often misspelled as Szenkman) was born to a Jewish family. He changed his name from Szynkman to Szeryński in the 1920s, joined the police reaching the rank of colonel, and soon developed an

anti-Semitic Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism. Antis ...

self-hating attitude, labeling Jews as “animals” and "cows". Following the German invasion of Poland he was briefly arrested by the Germans. After his release, Szynkman moved from Lublin to Warsaw with his family and settled in the Warsaw Ghetto. On 9 November 1940, Szeryński was entrusted by

with organizing the Jewish Ghetto Police force collaborating with the Germans. The Jewish Police under Szeryński's command was responsible for beatings and persecution of ghetto inhabitants, participated in searches and arrests and gathering of deportees in the

Umschlagplatz ''Umschlagplatz'' (german: collection point or reloading point) was the term used during The Holocaust to denote the holding areas adjacent to railway stations in occupied Poland where Jews from ghettos were assembled for deportation to Nazi dea ...

before they were sent to extermination camps. Under Szeryński's orders the Jewish Police made sure that children and the sick were first to be deported as they were the weakest. As the Jewish Police commander, Szeryński was a privileged inhabitant of the ghetto and was even exempt from the requirement of wearing an armband with the Star of David. He was widely regarded as corrupt and engaging in black market activities. He was known for an explosive temper and aggression toward the Jewish ghetto policemen under his command. On 1 May 1942, the Germans arrested Szeryński accusing him of theft of fur coats confiscated from the ghetto population. His deputy

Jakub Lejkin Jakub Lejkin (1906 – 29 October 1942) was a Polish lawyer, deputy commander subordinate to the Germans at the Warsaw Ghetto. He was the administrator from May to July 1942 (after the temporary arrest by the Gestapo of Józef Szeryński). Lejki ...

temporarily took his place as the Jewish Police commander. However, Szeryński was released on 26 July 1942 as the Germans realized that they needed his services to organize the massive deportations of ghetto Jews to Treblinka extermination camp which were carried out between 23 July and 21 September 1942.

Death

On 21 August 1942, Szeryński was shot in an assassination attempt carried out by Izrael Kanal, a member of the Jewish police working on behalf of the underground

Jewish Combat Organization The Jewish Combat Organization ( pl, Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa, ŻOB; yi, ''Yidishe Kamf Organizatsie''; often translated to English as the Jewish Fighting Organization) was a World War II resistance movement in occupied Poland, which wa ...

. Szeryński was severely wounded with two bullets but survived. On 18 January 1943, the German forces entered the ghetto to carry out the second massive deportation operation and eventually sent all the remaining ghetto inhabitants to the extermination camps. A few days after the deportations resumed, Szeryński committed suicide by ingesting

cyanide Cyanide is a naturally occurring, rapidly acting, toxic chemical that can exist in many different forms. In chemistry, a cyanide () is a chemical compound that contains a functional group. This group, known as the cyano group, consists of ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Szerynzski, Jozef 1893 births 1943 suicides 1943 deaths People who died in the Warsaw Ghetto Holocaust perpetrators in Poland Jewish collaborators with Nazi Germany Polish collaborators with Nazi Germany Polish war criminals Suicides in Poland Suicides by cyanide poisoning Polish police officers Shooting survivors