Chajka Klinger

Chajka Klinger (; September 25, 1917 – April 18, 1958) was the leader of the Jewish Fighting Organization in Będzin Ghetto, interrogated under torture by the Gestapo, escaped and was the first of the ghetto fighters to arrive to Israel.

Biography Chajka Klinger was born on September 25, 1917, in the city of Będzin in the Zaglebie region of southwestern Poland.

Hashomer Hatzair Klinger tried to arrange immigration to Mandatory Palestine in September 1939, but the war changed her plans. Her effort to escape from Poland via Vilna with her boyfriend, Dawid Kozlowski, failed. In the spring of 1940 she was instructed by the Hashomer Hatzair leadership in Vilna to stay in Będzin and restore movement activity there. Klinger and Kozlowski, became the leading figures in the new branch of Hashomer Hatzair in Będzin.

Condemned to Live On August 1, 1943, at the beginning of the last deportation of the Będzin Jews, Chajka was in an underground bunker, planning to fight. The bunker was uncovered and a handgun was found in her purse. She was taken for interrogation and severely tortured by the Gestapo. She returned to her friends covered in dark bruises from the beatings she had received. The Germans listed her to be sent to Auschwitz. She said, “I will not go to Auschwitz,” and with the help of friends, she successfully fled from detention camp and found a hiding place in the village of Dąbrówka.

At the end of December 1943, Chajka and a few other survivors managed to cross the Slovak border. They were greeted by local underground activists under the leadership of Yaakov Rosenberg, a member of Hashomer Hatzair. Chajka and Yaakov eventually fell in love.

Land of Israel In March 1944, using one of the small number of immigration certificates that could be obtained in Hungary, she left legally to Mandatory Palestine. She crossed the Balkans, traveled through Istanbul, Syria and Lebanon, and finally arrived in Haifa.

Her writings were published in forms of journals and collections, and she was not satisfied with the way they edited, simplified and censored the whole story of her past life. In 1958, Chajka no longer had the strength to live more. She took her own life away on the fifteenth anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.