The threads that connect the horror and heroism of the Holocaust to our own time frayed last week with the death in Jerusalem of Simcha Rotem, age 94. Mr. Rotem, a Polish Jew born Szymon Rathajzer, was the last known surviving Jewish combatant from the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943.

The memory of that ill-fated revolt is indelible in the history of resistance to the Nazis and is emblematic of the will to survive which sustains the Jews and, in particular, the state of Israel where Rotem spent the bulk of his life. But Rotem, by his life and lifelong testimony, bore witness to a drama, to cruelty and sacrifice, to squalor and bravery, that are now a fading memory.