104-year-old Warsaw Ghetto survivor in Australia gives vivid testimony of uprising
Some 35,000 survivors made their way down under post-WWII. Berysz Aurbach is a rare firsthand witness of the Jews’ revolt against their Nazi oppressors on Passover of 1943
MELBOURNE, Australia — At 104 years old, Berysz Aurbach is one of the last surviving Jews who witnessed the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Smuggled out just before the uprising began on Passover of 1943, Aurbach can still describe in detail the acrid smell of the burning ghetto while sitting in Caulfield, a quiet suburb in Melbourne, Australia.
Despite his age, Aurbach’s memory is razor sharp. He was born in Biala Podlaska, Poland, to a middle-class family with close ties to the grand rabbi of the Gerrer Hasidic dynasty. His mother died when he was just 3 months old.
“I can talk for six months and I wouldn’t tell you everything I want to tell you,” Aurbach told The Times of Israel, reflecting on his survival.
He had three older brothers, a sister, and, later, a half-brother from his father’s second marriage. His early life was stable and his family were considered upper middle class. He still recalls, word-for-word, the prayers and Torah verses he learned in his local religious school in Poland.
When World War II broke out, Aurbach was just 14 years old. In the Warsaw Ghetto, he worked in a factory, while surrounded by death and despair. Around 90,000 Jews in the ghetto died from starvation and disease; over 300,000 were deported to extermination camps. Thousands more were killed during the April 1943 uprising, when the Nazis torched buildings and reduced the ghetto to rubble.
Just before the uprising, Aurbach’s older brother Mordechai, who was part of the underground resistance and a member of the Zionist HaNoar Hatzioni youth movement, arranged for him to escape. Mordechai secured false papers and a Polish police uniform, allowing Aurbach to walk out of the ghetto undetected.
“My elder brother Mordechai, together with other ghetto leaders, went to rich people in Warsaw to obtain money for arms. Rich people gave him and other leaders money after my brother convinced them to fund resistance in the ghetto,” he said.
After slipping out, Aurbach spent the rest of the war hiding in safe houses run by the Polish underground. He has never forgotten the horrors he left behind. His father and brothers were not as lucky.
“My brother had arranged for himself a place… but he couldn’t arrange a place for [the rest of the family]. He didn’t have all the say; it was a committee. After a lot of arguments they managed to find a place for me, [but] the committee said they did too much for his brother,” he said.
Although Mordechai survived the initial ghetto uprising, he was later betrayed by Polish informants and executed by the Gestapo.
“I don’t know where he is buried,” Aurbach said. A photo of Mordechai still sits on the mantle of Aurbachs’ home.
Safe harbor in far-away Australia
After the war, Aurbach had only one surviving sister, Esther, who had emigrated to what was then British Mandate Palestine before the war. Aurbach chose to move to Australia, joining the roughly 35,000 Holocaust survivors who settled there by the 1960s. Of those, approximately 2,000 were from Warsaw. He still resides in the same home where he has lived for decades, together with his son Moshe.
“Australia wanted immigrants. I knew I had an uncle in Australia, so I came,” Aurbach said.
Dr. Simon Holloway, manager of community and corporate programs at Melbourne’s Holocaust Museum, noted that while there is no complete list of those who witnessed the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, “Berysz Aurbach is one of those, given that he was in hiding on the Aryan side.”
Within the Melbourne Holocaust Museum’s archive, there are only 43 firsthand testimonies of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The USC Shoah Foundation lists just 13. As time passes, voices like Aurbach’s are becoming increasingly rare.
Melbourne became a major destination for Holocaust survivors, thanks to earlier waves of Polish-Jewish migration after World War I.
“Some had already established Jewish organizations and spoke Yiddish,” said Holloway. “They wanted to sponsor relatives who had survived to get them as far from Europe as possible.”
Unless a survivor had relatives in Sydney, Melbourne was the preferred destination, with its strong Polish and Yiddish-speaking community.
The first ‘Oneg Shabbat’ archive cache is recovered from the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto in Warsaw, Poland, September 1946. (public domain)
Aurbach’s story is now part of a new exhibition at Melbourne’s Holocaust Museum focusing on the lives of Warsaw Ghetto survivors. His account appears alongside material from the Oneg Shabbat archive, a secret project led by historian Emanuel Ringelblum inside the ghetto. Buried in milk cans and tin boxes, the archive documented daily life under Nazi occupation. Diaries, essays, and testimonies were hidden to ensure future generations would know the truth.
By placing Aurbach’s voice in this context, the museum ensures his story becomes part of a larger legacy, one of both resistance and remembrance.
Berysz Aurbach with his wife Tova in an undated photo. (Courtesy of Moshe Aurbach)
Though Aurbach’s wife Tova died years ago, his two children and four grandchildren live close by. When he feels up to it, he still makes his way to his beloved synagogue, Caulfield Bet Midrash, where for many years he served as president.
“My father is grateful that he has a family, and that his brain is still working,” said his son Moshe.
On the eve of Yom HaShoah, Israel’s national Holocaust Remembrance Day, Aurbach retained his sense of humor and optimism. While sharing some concern about rising antisemitism in Australia, he remained grateful to the country that gave him a second chance.
“My private opinion is most Australian people are not antisemitic,” he said. “They are meshuggah [crazy] regarding football. I don’t personally think they are thinking much about antisemitism.” PJC
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