Michael Smuss

Michael Smuss (15 April 1926 – 21 October 2025) was a Polish survivor of the Holocaust and an artist. Smuss was the last surviving resistance fighter of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Michael Smuss
מייקל סמוס‎
Michael Smuss, Hbf IN/BY (before 2000)
Born	(1926-04-15)15 April 1926 Free City of Danzig
Died	21 October 2025(2025-10-21) (aged 99)
Known for	Participation in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising; art
Awards	German Federal Cross of Merit

Early life

Smuss was born in the Free City of Danzig on 15 April 1926, to David and Margaret Ruth. When Smuss was 6 years old, Nazi Germany took over the city. The Nazis then outlawed Jewish children in the public school system, after which Smuss was removed from his school for being an “enemy of the people.” Smuss's father homeschooled Smuss until they moved to Lodz when Smuss was 12.^[1][2]

In 1939, after the Nazis took over Poland, the Nazis started taking Jews to bring to the Warsaw Ghetto. Due to a misunderstanding of Ruth's passport, Polish authorities assumed she was a German citizen, which allowed her and Smuss's sister, Frida, to find work. Smuss and his father was deported to the Warsaw Ghetto.^[1]

Holocaust

Warsaw Ghetto

Main article: Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

See also: Jewish ghettos established by Nazi Germany and Ghetto uprisings

The arrest of the forced laborers of the Brauer armaments company.

Smuss's father had connections that allowed him to open a shop in the ghetto. In the three years he spent at the ghetto, Smuss associated himself with Jewish underground movements, especially Hashomer Hatza’ir. Smuss had been working at the Hermann Brauer factory on Nalewki street repairing military helmets, and stealing paint thinner so the resistance movement could make Molotov cocktails. Smuss also collected guns dropped by the British into a nearby woods.^[1][2]

On 19 April 1943, the order was given to liquidate the remaining Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto. The Jews managed to push the Ukrainian soldiers sent to do the liquidation out for a few days. After the Nazis sent Jürgen Stroop and his troops, they managed to smoke the approximately 700 resistance fighters out, which took them a month. Smuss and his father were part of a group of resistance fighters not killed, which were meant to be shown off to foreign media at the Treblinka death camp. During the train ride, Smuss had translated an argument between German officers regarding the train stealing the airport's workers to make the trip to the death camp more cost efficient. After a back and forth, the train returned the workers.^[1][2][3]

Concentration camps and death march

German labour contractors went onto the train to request machinery workers, which Smuss volunteered his friends, father, and himself for. They were all transferred to the Budzyń concentration camp. One night in the camp the head of the camp, Reinhold Feix, shot Smuss's father after he tried to escape. Smuss was then told he was at risk, due to Feix liking to shoot the family members of the people he kills. Smuss was told to request a meeting with Feix, ask for his dead father's coat, and seem generally disinterested in his father's death. Feix granted Smuss's request, but threatened to kill him if he ever saw Smuss not wearing the coat. The coat was used to smuggle food.^[1]

In July 1944, Smuss and his friends were sent to the Messerschmitt aircraft factory. They made a brief stop at the Auschwitz concentration camp in August, before arriving at the Flossenbürg concentration camp. He was given the number 60109 before being sent off to work. Smuss purposely missaid his name when the Germans were putting his name in what he heard was an IBM Computer, so the Germans thought his name was "Sohece Smuss". Smuss was in Flossenbürg until April 1945.^[1]

An ambulance was sent by members of the Swedish Red Cross, who gave all the Jews a loaf of bread. They were then told they were being exchanged for German soldiers captured by the Americans, which was a lie meant to trick them. Some of the Jews were then put on a train sent to the Dachau concentration camp but was bombed by the Americans, who mistook the train for one carrying German soldiers, Jewish inmates, including Smuss then carried the bodies back to the crematorium. After the bombing, a death march to Dachau began. As Americans came closer, Germans fled. This allowed Smuss and his friend to escape to a barn house in Stamsried. After this a farmer came out with a gun and told them to get out, but he eventually gave them milk and called an American ambulance.^[1][2] Smuss was then taken to the Idar-Oberstein hospital.^[1]

Post-Holocaust

After leaving the hospital, Smuss found his mother and sister in Lodz. Fearing retaliation from Polish people who were unwelcoming to Jews, Smuss and his family moved to a refugee camp in the American zone in Germany. Smuss later emigrated to the United States on a Liberty ship, moving to went to New York City.^[1]

In 1956, Smuss obtained a high school diploma and got a degree in bookkeeping and taxation law from the City College of New York. Smuss was brought to a clinic for survivors because of his PTSD; the drugs they gave Smuss only made him worse. He emigrated to Israel in 1979. Smuss worked in a hotel in Tel Aviv, and also began painting.^[1] As of today, the Florida Holocaust Museum has 38 of his paintings in his “Reflections of a Survivor” collection,^[4] which the The Times of Israel called "highly-regarded".^[2]

Smuss met his wife, Ruthy, at the spa in Arad. Smuss also joined March of the Living around this time. A musical film named To Paint the Earth was made after Smuss.^[1] Smuss was the last living survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.^[2]

In September 2025, Smuss was awarded the German Federal Cross of Merit.^[5] Smuss died on 21 October 2025, at the age of 99.^[6] Both the Polish and German Embassies wrote responses to his death.^[5]