An incomprehensibly brave man has died. RIP

Simcha Rotem, a man few people have ever heard of but who was clearly one of the most heroic men you'll ever hear about, has died at the age of 94. People should note his passing:

The last surviving fighter from the doomed 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising by Jewish partisans against the Nazis died Saturday in Israel aged 94, President Reuven Rivlin said.

Simcha Rotem, who went by the nom-de-guerre Kazik, served in the Jewish Fighting Organization that staged the uprising as the Nazis conducted mass deportations of residents to the death camps.

Rotem was sent away from the ghetto by his parents months before the uprising so that he would have a chance to survive. He came back when he heard about how the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto were being rounded up and sent to death camps. He joined the small group of Jews who decided it was better to die on their feet than in gas chambers at death camps. Ultimately, they lost the battle in Warsaw, and most of them lost their lives. Rotem lived, and was around for the second great act of resistance against the Nazis:

Rotem said he and his comrades launched the uprising to "choose the kind of death" they wanted.
 "But to this very day I keep thinking whether we had the right to make the decision to start the uprising and by the same token to shorten the lives of many people by a week, a day or two," Rotem said.
 Thousands of Jews died in Europe's first urban anti-Nazi revolt, most of them burned alive, and nearly all the rest were then sent to Treblinka. Rotem survived by masterminding an escape through the drain system with dozens of comrades. Polish sewer workers guided them to the surface.
 He went on to participate in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising led by Polish resistance fighters against the Nazis.

I suspect you can count on your fingers the number of people who actively participated in the 1943 and the 1944 Warsaw uprisings to begin with. Maybe you would need your toes, but the number has to be small. The number fighters who survived both uprisings has to be close to one-hand territory. How many among us would join such an uprising today? If you had been sent to relative safety, would you come back to join a doubtlessly futile effort  of resistance? I can't say for sure I would, even though I'd like to believe I would. Rest in peace, Kazik.