Józef Szeryński

Józef Andrzej Szeryński (1892 – c. January 18, 1943) was a Polish-Jewish police-colonel inspector for the Lublin district and a commander of the Jewish Ghetto Police during the Second World War. Born Józef Szenkman to a Jewish family, he changed his name and developed an anti-Semitic attitude, becoming a collaborator with the Nazis following the invasion of Poland. In August 1942, Szeryński survived being shot twice in an assassination attempt carried out by a member of the Jewish police, Yisrael Kanal (known as "Akiba"), who was working on behalf of the underground Jewish Combat Organization.

On January 18, 1943, the Nazis began their second deportation of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, which led to an armed Jewish uprising. Two Jewish resistance organizations, the Jewish Military Union and the Jewish Combat Organization, took control of the ghetto, building dozens of fighting posts and executing Jews they considered to be Nazi collaborators. To avoid capture and execution, Szeryński committed suicide by ingesting cyanide.