Adam Czerniakow was inextricably linked to the Warsaw Ghetto. His tragic suicide in anticipation of the Holocaust was an expression of protest against the criminal policy of the German occupiers in the General Government. Less is said about his dynamic pre-war activity.
He was born on 30 November 1880 in Warsaw. He came from a middle-class Jewish family who were involved in trade, including butter. The Czerniakows lived on Zimna Street, which was on the border of two worlds with the Jewish quarter and the part of Warsaw inhabited mainly by Poles. He was educated as a chemical engineer in Dresden, where he learned the German language and culture. From 1913, he began to become involved in the Jewish craftsmen’s organisations, writing for the trade journal Handel un Meloche. A few years later, he became the head of the Central Craftsmen’s Association.
After Poland regained its independence, he joined in its reconstruction working at the Ministry of Public Works as a manager in the Statistical Office at the Reconstruction Section. At the same time, Adam was active as a scientist – in 1919 he was awarded a prize in a competition for a scientific dissertation for a study entitled. “Explosive engines”. During this time, he was also interested in the lumber industry in Poland, then in baking and confectionery.
In 1921, Czerniakow applied the experience he had gained from the ministry to another job, being employed by the Amcerican Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (Joint). There he dealt with similar issues as in the Polish ministry. When the institution ceased operations in Poland, he moved to the associated Bank for Co-operatives.
In parallel, he developed and strengthened the self-organisation of Jewish craftsmen. In 1925, he succeeded in uniting the splintered craftsmen’s movement into a single organisation. It was called the Central Union of Jewish Craftsmen in Poland (CZRŻ). At the unification congress, a joint Polish-Jewish craft declaration was signed, and later, thanks to Czerniakow’s initiative and experience, the Bank of Associated Craftsmen was established as a form of defence against the unfavourable provisions of the Industrial Law of 1927. This activity strengthened Czerniakow’s role as the leader of the Jewish craftsmen’s community.
Despite his successes, Czerniakow withdrew from the leadership of the CZRŻ in 1929. During this period, he even considered leaving for Geneva, perhaps influenced by his unsuccessful investment in a factory producing berets. In the end, he did not leave Poland, concentrating on his activities in the Central Committee for Aid to the Jews of the City of Warsaw, whose task was to provide support to those in a difficult financial situation as a result of the economic crisis of 1929.
Czerniaków also never shied away from strictly political activity, although he was not spectacularly successful in this field. In 1928 he ran for parliament, but failed to gain a seat, while in May 1930, although he won the senate by-election, he failed to cross the threshold of parliament because President Ignacy Moscicki dissolved parliament before Czerniakow was sworn in. In addition to his great political aspirations, the future president of the Judenrat ran for the City Council of the City of Warsaw and the Jewish Religious Community.
From the 1930s, he supported himself by working for the Polish Compensatory Trade Association (“Zahan”), which promoted Polish exports. During this period, an event took place that permanently determined the fate of Czerniakow. In 1936, the Sanation government decided to put the Jewish Community in Warsaw under temporary administration. Although the Jewish population received the move of the Polish authorities reluctantly, Czerniakow agreed to join the group of commissioned administrators, dealing mainly with educational matters in the Community.
After the outbreak of the Second World War, when the country was in chaos and Maurycy Majzel, the chairman of the Commune, left Warsaw on the orders of the Polish authorities, Czerniakow became and remained its undisputed leader during the German occupation.
The activities in the Warsaw Judenrat set up by the Germans are known today from the diary that Czerniakow kept while he was its chairman. In it, he meticulously recorded the conduct of the Germans towards the Jews, discussing many matters relating to the activities of the office he represented.
When German demands in July 1942 came to an order for Judenrat officials to participate in an extermination action against the Jews, which the German occupiers called ‘deportation’, Czerniakow refused to sign an order to that effect, although he tried to negotiate with the Germans to the very end. In the late afternoon of 23 July, the chairman of the Judenrat committed suicide by taking cyanide after finishing his work. He left one or two farewell letters. The first was addressed to his wife Felicia. In it he wrote: “They demand that I kill the children of my people with my own hands. There is nothing left for me to do but die”.
A modest funeral for Czerniakow took place the following day. His wife Felicja ordered a tombstone to be engraved with two fragments of Cyprian Kamil Norwid’s poem: “What have you done to Athens, Socrates”. The piece addresses the issue of the misunderstanding of eminent individuals by the common people. The sentences referred to criticisms of Czerniakow’s activities in the Judenrat.
Today we know that, while serving as chairman of the Judenrat, he behaved very decently in the extremely difficult conditions of the German occupation. However, it took many years after the end of the war for this person to be reliably described.