When the International Brigade leadership created the Jewish “Naftali Botwin” Company, no one doubted Karl Gutman, the 26-year-old weaver from Bialystok, one of the Dombrowski Brigade’s best military leaders and fighters, was going to be its first commander.
Gutman had both military ability and compassion. He had the organizational skills necessary to manage people and an abiding love for them. Gutman exercised military discipline but was also concerned about the fate of the individual. He combined the rare character traits of inner strength and purpose with a hero’s modesty.
I first met him in the Aragon bunkers at the birth of the Naftali Botwin Company. He was calm, unassuming, and spoke little about himself or his past. When he did speak, it was about the Botwin Company. His love and enthusiasm for the Company was palpable. When Gutman issued orders to his fighters, it was as an equal to an equal, without arrogance or exaggerated authority–his words and gestures conveyed confidence and knowledge. Only an experienced and proven officer had the confidence to lead like this.
The Botwin Company occupied a long length of the frontline, and Gutman was familiar with every inch. He knew where each one of his subordinates was stationed and the relative strengths and weaknesses of their positions. Everything was orderly under his command: discipline, food supplies, political education, and brotherhood among his troops.
When people asked him about the historical responsibility that the Botwin Company had assumed [by becoming the first Jewish Company in centuries to be led by a Jewish commander], his eyes lit up. His slim, boyish body became even more confident. His entire being seemed to say: Be assured, we Botwinists will not shame the Jewish masses.
I ran into him once again when he and the Brigade were returning from the front. A truck transporting a cargo of Botwinists had taken a sharp curve too fast and overturned, flipping the truck and the Botwinists inside. Several of the men were severely injured and were transported to the hospital. That evening, when Gutman learned of the accident, he immediately begged the battalion commander, Tkatshav, for permission to visit his hospitalized men immediately. It was late. Gutman had worked all day transferring the Company and settling it in its new position. Tkatshav advised him to wait until the following morning, but Gutman didn’t want to hear of it. He said he wasn’t tired; his men were injured, and he wouldn’t rest until he could see them.
There was so much love and concern in his eyes and on his face that Tkatshav, smiling, agreed to let him go. Gutman found his men and got them groceries, fresh underwear, and everything they needed. It wasn’t until late that night that he returned to base camp, exhausted.
When I saw him the following morning, he told me with pride how his Botwinists had reacted to the accident. Although hurt and injured, they climbed into the nearby pool of water to gather the grenades and guns that had spilled out of the truck. It was only after they had finished gathering the materiel, Gutman added with a smile, that one boy finally “found the time” to faint from the pain.
Before I left the Brigade, Gutman and I discussed the Botwin Company’s future. He was eager for the recruits to arrive and hoped for good, dedicated fighters. He was concerned about uniforms for the Botwinists; they needed warm clothing and blankets, and he hoped for more aid from foreign Jewish communities. A Botwin Company battle hymn was on his mind, and he was focused on obtaining more provisions and ammunition, more military training for his men, and … which Yiddish songs the Company should sing on New Year’s Eve.
Karl Gutman’s signature was the first to appear under the manifesto written to the Jewish masses by the Jewish volunteers in Spain, calling for a broad, democratic front: “In the name of the common blood that our fallen heroes shed, we call upon you, the Jewish people: Strengthen the unity of all antifascists.”
On the night of February 16, 1938, Karl Gutman was mortally wounded. He died of those wounds the following morning in the hospital, not living to see Fascism’s defeat. His blood and the blood of his comrades call to us. From the distant Extremadura plains, the fallen heroes cry out their last words: Unify all anti-fascists! In distant Bialystok, under the heel of Polish Fascism, Gutman’s family and those comrades with whom he fought will always mourn him.
[This account of Gutman’s death contradicts Ephraim Wuzak’s account in Zikhroynes Fun a Botvinist [A Botwinist’s Memoir], (Warsaw, Poland: Yiddish Bukh, 1964). In it, Wuzek states that Gutman died in battle and was buried in an unmarked grave on February 16, 1938. The Botvin newspaper, November 3, 1938, Issue No. 5, Page 32, agrees, but that may be because it was repeating Wuzek’s account.
Excerpted from Der Hamer, “Der Heldisher Shturm Ongrif fun der Botvin Companie” [“The Heroic Assault of the Botwin Company”], by G. Bogen, November 1938, Page 17).