Szmul Zygielbojm’s farewell letter, May 11, 1943

But as I was unable to do anything during my life, perhaps by my death I shall contribute to the breaking of the indifference of those who are able and should act in order to save now, maybe in the last moment, this handful of Polish Jews, who are still alive, from certain annihilation. My life belongs to the Jewish people in Poland, and therefore, I give it to them. I wish that this handful which remained from several millions of Polish Jews, could live to see, with the Polish masses, the liberation, that it could breathe in Poland, and in a world of freedom and in the justice of socialism, for all its tortures and inhuman sufferings. And I believe that such a Poland will arise and that such a world will come. I trust that the President and the Prime Minister will direct these my words to all those for whom they are destined, and that the Polish Government will immediately begin an appropriate action in the diplomatic and propaganda fields in order to save yet from extermination the remains of the Polish Jews who are still alive. I bid farewell to all and everything dear to me and loved by me. (-) S. Zygielbojm