page_title: Adam Czerniaków
section_title: The Warsaw Ghetto deportations
hierarchical_section_title: Adam Czerniaków / Life and career / The Warsaw Ghetto deportations
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Kamienica pod Zegarem przy ul. Chłodnej 20 w Warszawie (377-A z 23.02.2005)English: Under the Clock tenement house at 20 Chłodna Street in Warsaw (listed in the Register of Historic Monuments on 23.02.2005, reference no. 377-A)
context_page_description: Adam Czerniaków was a Polish engineer and senator who was head of the Warsaw Ghetto Jewish Council during World War II. He committed suicide on 23 July 1942 by swallowing a cyanide pill, a day after the commencement of mass extermination of Jews known as the Grossaktion Warsaw.
context_section_description: As the German authorities began preparing for mass deportations of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to the newly built Treblinka extermination camp in July 1942, the Jewish Council was ordered to provide lists of Jews and maps of their residences. On 22 July 1942, the Judenrat received instructions from the SS that all Warsaw Jews were to be "resettled" to the East. Exceptions were made for Jews working in Nazi German factories, Jewish hospital staff, members of the Council and the Jewish Ghetto Police with their families. Over the course of the day Czerniaków obtained exemptions for a handful of individuals, including sanitation workers, husbands of women working in factories, and some vocational students. Despite pleading he was unable to obtain an exemption for the children in Janusz Korczak's orphanage or other ghetto orphanages. The orders stated that deportations would begin immediately at the rate of 6,000 people per day, to be supplied by the Jewish Council and the Ghetto Police. Failure would result in the execution of 100 hostages, including Council employees and Czerniaków's wife.
  Realizing that deportation meant death, Czerniaków went to plead for the orphans. When he failed, he returned to his office at 26/28 Grzybowska Street and killed himself by taking a cyanide capsule. He left a suicide note to his wife, reading “They demand me to kill children of my nation with my own hands. I have nothing to do but to die,” and one to his fellow members of the Council, explaining: "I can no longer bear all this. My act will prove to everyone what is the right thing to do." He was succeeded by his deputy Marek Lichtenbaum.
caption: Tenement house at 20 Chłodna Street in Warsaw, home to Adam Czerników from 13 December 1941 till his death.
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D5100", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "ViewNX 2.1 W", "Image DateTime": "2012:09:07 06:37:14", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "2362", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 3, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "5048", "Image XPKeywords": "[87, 0, 97, 0, 114, 0, 115, 0, 122, 0, 97, 0, 119, 0, 97, 0, 32, 0, 57, 0, 32, 0, 107, 0, 119, 0, 105, 0, 101, 0, 116, 0, 110, 0, 105, 0, 97, 0, 32, 0, 50, 0, 48, 0, 49, 0, 50, 0, 0, 0]", "Image Padding": "[]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "300", "Thumbnail YResolution": "300", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "16640", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4150", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/400", "EXIF FNumber": "10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Unidentified", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:04:09 12:15:17", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:04:09 12:15:17", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "4", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "26", "EXIF SubSecTime": "30", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "30", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "30", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2984", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3657", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "39", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF Padding": "[]", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "4138"}