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Until
the entry of the Germans into Warsaw the Jews suffered equally
with the Poles. There were dead and injured from among both
peoples. From the day the war broke out people escaped, panic
stricken. Tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands escaped. Main
roads and side roads were crowded with refugees. Men and
women, old men and youths, all escaped, most of them on foot,
because it was impossible to obtain a cart, to say nothing of
an automobile. In the confusion wives were separated from
their husbands and children from their parents. To add to the
panic German airplanes continuously fired on the refugees at
all times and on all the roads. Tens of thousands died on the
roads. Of course most of these were Jews, as most of the
refugees came from the cities, and the villagers remained in
their homes....
The
Council of Elders
On
October 4, 1939, the Gestapo disbanded the Jewish Community
Council and appointed in its place a Council of Elders. This
was composed of 24 members presided over by the Engineer
Czerniakow. It was not the duty of this council to manage the
affairs of the Community but as was set out in the document
appointing the members to carry out Gestapo orders. It was
thus not a body representing the Jews, but one carrying out
Gestapo [orders] with regard to Jews. This Supreme Council
does not represent the community and cannot supply the needs
of the Jews. Nor was it in a position to carry out any serious
action. The Jewish schools had been closed, and there were no
means available to the Council to provide social welfare for
the Jewish population.
In
general the Council was not permitted to do anything. Every
time it began some action, the Gestapo came and interfered. As
soon as it was set up it received an order to hold a census of
the Jewish population, and the whole Council had to busy
itself with the census; when the census was finished, at the
end of October, and the Council started to do something, there
was the business of the ghetto, and again the Council could do
nothing but attend to this matter; when the business of the
ghetto was finished on November 10** − and then there
was the question of the Contribution [forced levy]; when the
matter of the Contribution was finished came the matter of the
Jewish hospital, then the business of the epidemic. And that
is how it was in other cities too, and in the small towns....
One
of the most troubling economic measures was this: the picking
up of people in the streets, or in their homes, for forced
labor. This situation robbed the Jews of all opportunity of
carrying on any kind of activity; no business, no office run
by Jews can operate, because neither the owner nor the
employees can be sure that they will get to their place of
work. Even the employees of the Jewish Council are picked up
while they are on their way to work....
B.
Mintz and I. Klausner, eds., Sefer ha-Zevaot ("Book
of Abominations"), I, Jerusalem, 1945, pp. 1-2.
*
The report was written by apolinary Hartglas, one of the
leaders of Polish Jewry, whose evidence was recorded in Israel
in 1940.
**
The Warsaw ghetto was not set up in November 1939, but only in
November 1940. |
