Zivia Lubetkin-Zuckerman Dead at 64

Funeral services will be held tomorrow at Kibbutz Lohamei Hagetaot (Ghetto Fighters) for Zivia Lubetkin-Zuckerman who was, together with her husband, Itzhak Zuckerman, a commander of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. She died last night at the age of 64 after a prolonged illness.

Born in Poland, Mrs. Lubetkin-Zuckerman was a prominent figure in the pre-war Hechalutz movement. Although she left Poland before the outbreak of World War ll, she was a delegate to the Zionist Congress in Geneva in 1939 and returned to her native land in 1940 to become a leading personality in the Jewish underground of the Warsaw Ghetto. A member of the Underground High Command, Zivia’s name was used in the entire underground correspondence of the period as the code word for Poland.

After her arrival in Palestine in 1946, she participated in the founding of the Ghetto Fighters Kibbutz and was among the initiators and curators of the Ghetto Fighters Museum located at the kibbutz, north of Haifa.

Mrs. Lubetkin-Zuckernman was a member of the Jewish Agency Executive in the early 1960s and headed its Absorption Department. During the Eichmann trial, she was among the principal witnesses giving evidence on the destruction and systematic annihilation of Polish Jewry. She also served as secretary of the Kibbutz Hameuchad Movement for several years. She became ill several years ago, but her condition had deteriorated recently. The efforts of physicians could not save her life.

(In New York, Benjamin Mead, president, and Hirsh Altusky, executive secretary of the Warsaw Ghetto Resistance Organization, said in a statement: "Members of WAGRO, survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto, deeply mourn the death of the beloved "mother" of the Ghetto Fighters, a member of the heroic leadership of the Ghetto Uprising. She was a pillar of strength in those dark and hopeless days during the Holocaust. She will remain in our memory forever."