Michael Smuss, a Holocaust survivor, painter, and fighter during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, has passed away at the age of 99. His death on October 21 was confirmed by his wife in Israel, with Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, announcing that his funeral would take place the following day.

Born in 1926 in Danzig, now known as Gdansk, Poland, Smuss later moved to Lodz and Warsaw. By 1940, he was one of the hundreds of thousands of Jews imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto, which initially housed around 380,000 people, with conditions deteriorating into rampant disease and starvation.

Joining the Jewish resistance, Smuss became involved with an underground group led by Mordechai Anielewicz. During his resistance efforts, he accessed materials to create Molotov cocktails, which were crucial for their fight against Nazi forces. Smuss described how they prepared bottles filled with flammable substances, anticipating the Nazi assault.

On April 19, 1943, when the Nazis attempted to demolish the ghetto, hundreds—Smuss included—fought back fiercely. He successfully resisted and was one of the few to survive what lasted almost a month before the ghetto was subdued. Although he was captured and en route to Treblinka, the Nazis redirected him back due to a labor shortage, leading Smuss to endure life in other camps.

After the war, Smuss emigrated to the United States, where he established a family before moving to Israel and embarking on his healing journey through art. He developed a passion for painting, utilizing it as a means to process his traumatic past. Throughout his life, he maintained an incredible sense of humor, much to the admiration of his family. Smuss’s legacy includes his dedication to educating future generations about the horrors he endured and survived.