This is an amazing book. Bernard Goldstein was a humanist, a socialist, and an internationalist. He was a leading member of the social-democratic Jewish Bund party in Warsaw and was responsible for self-defense units of that organization. After WWII started, Goldstein escaped Warsaw, but, like some other leading Bund activists, went back to the city to participate in its defense and remained since the party wished some of its leading activists to assist with organizing the Jewish population in the hard times of the occupation. Goldstein spent the war in the Warsaw ghetto, doing his best to assist others and to ensure the party operations there. He was one of the organizers of the uprising, though had to escape the ghetto before it started in order to acquire weapons, and was not able to join the fighters. He did much to assist the survivors after the rebellion. Later, he took part in the Warsaw rebellion.
As a Bund member, Goldstein worked with Polish socialists and did his best to gain their help for the ghetto. For him, they are his comrades in struggle. Thus he emphasized their heroism in trying to help the Jews, while also his bitter disappointment when they were reluctant to do so. While his conduct was unquestioningly heroic, he experienced a survival guilt and sadness due to inability to revive the Jewish life in Poland after the war due to both antisemitism and the imposition of a Soviet-style regime.
Beyond anything else, Goldstein tells a story of everyday heroism of his comrades, who retained their commitment to their principles and tried to help the population even while life became impossible. There was something hard and stubborn about these people which prevented them from giving up or concentrating on their own survival. I suppose this is the only way to fight for humanist principles - this stubborn refusal to give up, no matter what.