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The
Chairman, Rabbi Dr. Rosenman, opens the meeting and gives the
floor to Engineer Barash to present his report.
Engineer
Barash: ...We have called the meeting today specially to
deal with the following matter. The ghetto is becoming larger
through people coming in from the small towns and particularly
because of those coming back from Pruzany.* Anyone who is
familiar with the protocols of our meetings can see that we
pointed regularly with great anxiety to the growth of the
ghetto. We have now been warned by the Gestapo, and the
position is dangerous. In Lida the arrival of refugees from
Vilna and other places caused great tragedies. We are doing
everything possible to keep punishment from the ghetto, but,
after all, there is a relatively large population in
Bialystok, and it can end in tragedy. We will have to take
steps.
Engineer
Barash asks Mr. Bergman, who was one of those present, how
many persons had registered since October and receives the
reply: about 800. Engineer Barash continues: The Gestapo
states that Jews may not move [from place to place] without an
official permit. In future we therefore cannot register
anybody without the permission of the Gestapo. The authorities
have demanded a list of all persons registered since February
1 of this year.
Mr.
Y. Lifschitz expresses the opinion that the administration
in the ghetto was too weak. "We have done nothing against
the undesired new arrivals. The danger is so great that one
must pick up a group of people and send them back to Pruzany;
this will have an effect on others, that [people] should not
come back any longer. The others who have come should have
been told that they could use Bialystok only as a transit
station." Mr. Lifschitz proposed the election of a
committee that should, by tomorrow, work out a series of
disciplinary rules for new arrivals....
*
Mr.
Markus (speaking Polish): More than eight months have
already passed since the fence made a special
"kingdom" for us, the Jewish ghetto. In this
"kingdom" the Judenrat carries out the duties of a
"government," and we, the Jewish police, must carry
out the difficult task of keeping order and maintaining quiet
in the ghetto. I asked Engineer Barash several times to
arrange talks with the population of the ghetto. The thing is
this: the regulations of the authorities are not being
properly observed. Perhaps I am at fault myself, I am too soft
and moderate, and our people do not take into account that we
are Jews. The evening curfew is not observed punctually: one
must go to bed at 9 o'clock, one is not allowed to be in the
street. Not keeping the regulations may cause somebody to be
shot; and Jews often take a walk after the curfew hour. The
[yellow] badge is not worn properly, one [man] forgets it in
front, and the next forgets it at the back. The same happens
about the black-out. There have been cases of whole houses lit
up like for a celebration. There has already been a tragic
case in the ghetto: a woman was shot in her home when the room
was badly blacked out. The Jews are a stiff-necked people.
Street-trading never stops, especially on Kupiecka Street, and
all our efforts do not help. That shows the need for a firm
hand. There are telephone calls from the 4th [Police] Station
outside the ghetto that Jewish children have been caught
without yellow badges and without papers and that can cause a
tragedy on some occasion. Parading up and down the street with
children in colored baby carriages could also cause much
annoyance. Let the mothers stop doing it. Groups of Jews
gather around the gates of the ghetto and don't go away even
when the Germans chase them off, and the Jews might even be
shot. Cleanliness is not satisfactory either. Thousands are
spent on cleaning, and it is dirty again by the next morning;
people don't take care, they don't want to know that that is a
danger. And again, thousands of Jews go to work, work in the
sweat of their brows, and at the same time many others avoid
work in various ways. The house committees are obliged to hand
over such cases so that the members of the Jewish Police need
not catch passers-by in the street and start fighting with
Jews. That brings no credit either to the population or to the
Jewish Police. If things go on like this for much longer,
there is likely to be a catastrophe, for anyone who wants to
live must work!...
Blumenthal,
pp. 156, 166.
*
The reference is to Jews from Bialystok who were deported to
Pruzany in September and October 1941, and in the course of
time many of them returned. |
