| Original caption: “Mit Waffen gefangene Weiber der Haluzzenbewegung (‘Hehalutz women captured with weapons’). Page 26 of the Stroop Report, the documentation of the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto in April 1943. SS-Gruppenführer und Generalleutnant der Polizei Jürgen Stroop (September 26, 1895 – March 6, 1952) directed the reduction of the Warsaw Ghetto over 4 weeks during the largest act of resistance by Jews during the Holocaust. 3 copies of the Stroop Report were made: 1 for Stroop, 1 for Höheren SS- und Polizeiführer Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger (May 8, 1894 – May 10, 1945) and 1 for Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler (October 7, 1900 – May 23, 1945). 3 HeHalutz (“Pioneer”) women were captured in a bunker on Włobowa Street with a weapons cache. The photo was taken on Nalbeki Street. They were beaten and the 1 in the center, Bluma Wyszogrodzka (1921 – April 1943) was shot dead. Her sister, Rachela Wyszogrodzka (???? – 1944), extreme left with her face off camera, along with Malka Zdrojewicz, née Hornstein, (March 25, 1924 – ????) were marched to the Umschlagplatz (“Collection Point”), right, and deported to various Konzentrationslager (“Concentration Camp”). Only Zdrojewicz survived the KZ system. When her family arrived at the Warsaw Ghetto, Zdrojewicz supported the Hornstein Family with embroidery, a trade she learned before the war. Rachela and Bluma Wyszogrodzka’s family ran a meat market outside Warsaw before the war. Zdrojewicz was able to avoid Nazi German Aktions because of her skills, but her family was taken while she was at work. The 3 girls worked as forced labor at the Taz brush factory in the Warsaw Ghetto, but they smuggled weapons and learned to shoot in the basement of the factory. She hid guns under her bed. During the uprising they hid in the underground tunnels and threw “Molotov” cocktails at the Nazis. Another Jew told the Schutzstaffel about the bunker. The women were pulled out and severely beaten. Zdrojewicz was beaten about the head which left her 75 percent disabled later in life. After the war, sitting in the Mokotow prison in Warsaw, Stroop told his Polish friend about the fighting of Jewish women in the Warsaw Ghetto: “Agile as acrobats, they fired guns with both hands…Dangerous in face-to-face contact…When such a girl was caught, she seemed to be afraid as a rabbit, completely desperate, and suddenly, when the group of our people approached her, she reached out with a grenade hidden in a skirt or pants and cast it on our people with vigorous curses until death on her lips…In these cases, we incurred losses, so I ordered that they not return to other girls, not to let them get close and eliminate them with sub-machine guns. Bluma was summarily executed, but the other 2 women were taken to the Umschlagplatz and Bluma was sent to Majdanek; Zdrojewicz was sent to Majdanek, Auschwitz – where she met SS-Hauptsturmführer Doktor Josef Mengele (March 16, 1911 – February 7, 1979), who passed her over for selektion but Bluma was gassed and cremated – Ravensbrück and then Malhof as forced labor, where an explosion amputated 2 of her fingers when she sabotaged a machine. After the war, Zdrojewicz was taken to Linköping, Sweden by the Red Cross. She didn’t believe that she was safe and attempted to scratch the American helping her, wounding his face with her nails. After a year she immigrated to Palestine. Zdrojewicz married David Zdrojewicz (July 2, 1914 – June 30, 1955) in 1949, a Haganah fighter who illegally brought Jews into Palestine during the United Kingdom mandate. He died prematurely of heart disease. She had 3 children with him. She remarried Shlomo Goldberg (???? – ????) the next year and had another child with him. Plagued by epilepsy due to the beatings from the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, she lost her 1st child with Goldberg and had to have brain surgery. She suffered memory loss and blood clots remained in her head. The Stroop Report was used as evidence in the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0757.jpg |
| Image Size | 813.11 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2146 x 2949 |
| Photographer | Jürgen Stroop |
| Photographer Title | Stroop Report |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | April 19, 1943 |
| Location | |
| City | Warsaw |
| State or Province | Warsaw |
| Country | Poland |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | HD1-461490957 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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