W cieniu zagłady i „czarnej ziemi”: Henryk Strasman, ambasador A.J. Biddle a podziemna organizacja palestyńska Irgun Cwai Leumi

In his new bestseller, Black Earth, Thimoty Snyder spotlights the covert relationship at the end 1930s between the Polish Government and the Irgun Zvai Leumi, the Jewish underground formation in Palestine affiliated with Vladimir Jabotinsky’s New Zionist Organization. One of the most important figures in that affair was the Irgun representative in Poland, Henryk Strasman, a Warsaw assistant public prosecutor who was later murdered by the NKVD in Kharkov in April 1940, together with other Polish officers in Soviet captivity. Ably aided by his wife, Alicja Strasman (née Friedberg), and in close cooperation with the shadowy Abraham Stern, he sought to acquire arms and ammunition and to secure the training of the Irgun cadres by the Polish army. Strasman was also involved in the establishment of a militant Polish- -language bi-weekly (Jerozolima Wyzwolone) and another paper (Di Tat) in Yiddish to popularize the cause of the insurgency in Palestine among the Jewish public in Poland. In December 1938, Strasman briefed the American ambassador to Poland, A.J. Biddle, on his undertakings. Biddle’s report to Secretary of State Cordell Hull about that meeting adds to our knowledge of clandestine Zionist activity in Poland and illuminates Strasman’s tragic and little-known story.