Resistance (13 page)

On the eve of the Polish invasion, the German high command received many orders directly from Hitler. According to a report of the meeting, Hitler said, "I have placed my deathhead formations in readiness—with orders to send to death mercilessly and without compassion, men, women, and children of Polish derivation and language." During the days preceding the invasion of Poland, Hitler was not especially concerned with the Jews. Frank's diary during the first months of his rule are full of anti-Polish declarations. On November 4, 1939, following consultations with Frank, Hitler confirmed his decision to destroy the royal palace in Warsaw and not to repair the damage in the city from the bombing of the first days of the war. On December 2, 1939, Frank declared that the major directive of the General Government was Hitler's desire "that this area should be the first colonial possession of the German nation." At a conference of government department heads on January 19, 1940, Frank held forth on the status of the General Government, its relationship to the Poles, and the fusion of the area into the ruling German structure, saying that "although the final destiny of the General Government was still in abeyance, one could be certain of one thing ... no part of the area under German rule would be freed."

Frank later recounted that on September 15, 1939, he had received orders to take under his wing the civilian administration of the eastern occupied areas, and to exploit the areas without restraint, turning them into heaps of ruins
(Trümmerhaufen)
economically, culturally, socially, and politically. He boasted that after two months the General Government had become a worthy component of a unified German territory. Polish labor was exploited for the sake of the war effort. But if these changing tactics toward the Poles were not matched by the anticipated results in production, Frank said, "he would have no hesitation in using the most drastic means."

Nevertheless, the invasion of Poland brought 2 million Jews under German rule. It outdid in one month the efforts of six years within Germany (and eighteen months within annexed Austria and the Protectorate) to be rid of the Jews. There was no consistent policy toward the Jews during the initial months of the war. Some German officials wanted to remove the Jews; others felt that the continuing presence of Jews was essential to economic stability. A memorandum issued in November 1939 by the SS Department for Racial Matters recommended that antipathy between Poles and Jews be encouraged and exploited to German advantage. Frank was intensely involved with the issue of evacuation of the Jews from the western districts annexed by the Reich into the General Government. He complained of disturbances on the part of Jewish speculators as a threat to the stabilization of the Polish currency. However, Ludwig Fischer, governor of the Warsaw district (one of four districts of the General Government), pointed out that in certain commercial areas controlled by Jews, such as textiles, leather, and the slaughtering and provisioning of meat, no replacements were available and the Jews had to be returned to their occupations temporarily.

However, major decisions regarding the Jewish policy were not made locally but came directly from Berlin, apparently from Hitler. Whatever the Führer said was accepted as a directive and implemented. Still, it would be a mistake to view German policy as a seamless whole. Bureaucratic and personal rivalries continued among central factions of the party and the General Government administration over key positions and influence on many issues. Jews were just one of these issues. The principal competing factions in the General Government were the police and the SS, backed by Himmler, and Frank and his official machinery, supported by Goring. Each faction tried to anticipate the other in implementing Hitler's directives. In July 1940 Frank announced that Hitler "ordered that Jews should no longer be transferred to the General Government. Moreover, those Jews who were already in the General Government would be handled as a unit in the form of a separate, basic plan, so that in the foreseeable future the General Government would be free of Jews (
Judenfrei
). For some time a project of concentration of the Jews in a reservation was considered and experimented with. Later Frank claimed that when movement on the high seas would permit the shipment of Jews, "they will be transferred one by one, man after man, woman after woman, and maiden after maiden." Clearly, as late as July 1940, Frank viewed the solution to the Jewish problem in terms of their transfer to Madagascar. There were two ways to rid Poland of Jews: expulsion or annihiliation. Expulsion required a destination; annihilation required an infrastructure for killing. Until the "final solution" was set in place, officials assumed that the Jews would be evacuated. Madagascar, an island off the southeast coast of Africa, was the contemplated destination, since other countries were unwilling to accept Jews. Nine months later, in March 1941, Frank told a conference of government administrators, "Not long ago, General Goring said: 'It is more important to win this war than to pursue a racial policy.' We can now be happy with every Pole working in a workshop. If the Poles or the Jews do as we wish, it is not important now." In November 1941, five months after the mass murder of Jews had begun in the German-occupied territories of the Soviet Union, Frank told students at the University of Berlin:

 

Not all these Jews are parasites from our point of view. Surprisingly there are Jews of a different category—I have seen this for myself. It is hard to believe but there are really Jews who work and are employed in factories as transport workers or building workers or skilled tailors, shoemakers and others. With the help of the Jewish artisans, Jewish workshops were set up in which, in exchange for food and other basic necessities, their production went far towards lightening the load of German industry.

 

The Jews were unaware of the political power struggle among the Germans. They did not know about the lack of clarity from above on matters of principle, and the diverse responsibilities and motivations of local officials. They viewed German authorities as unified and following one well-defined blueprint for Jewish policy and thus could not understand the conflicting signals they received. Through contact with local police and the SS on the one hand, and with Frank's administration on the other, the tension was dispelled and at times reversed, especially regarding the issue of Jewish work.

Daily life in the ghetto was filled with humiliations and dangers. Wehrmacht soldiers insulted, attacked, robbed, and injured the Jews. Jews had to doff their hats to a passing German in uniform. Many were beaten for failing to do so, while those who complied might be beaten because the German claimed that he did not know the passing Jew and had no reason to greet him. In diaries and memoirs, such acts were described as evidence of sadistic impulses by German soldiers. But it seems illogical to assume that sadism was common to an entire generation of Germans. Rather, racial and ideological brainwashing had succeeded in dehumanizing Jews to young Germans, as well as eroding humane inclinations. The story was told among the Jews of Warsaw that a Jewish girl had said that she would rather be a dog than a Jewess, for Germans loved dogs and would not kill them. Professor Ludwik Hirschfeld wrote in his biography:

 

Every nation has its games. The English have football, the Spaniards have the bull-fight, and this generation of Germans are skilled antisémites, in order to get rid of the sense of pity and conscience and their corresponding human reactions before conquering the world. I assume this is the major source of German antisemitism—to learn to ridicule and hate. These teachings have gone down well.

 

While orders and directives generally came from Berlin, the ghettoization of the Jews emerged at the initiative of cities and local leaders. In a November 1939 discussion with Frank and administration heads in Cracow, Ludwig Fischer stated that in Warsaw "a separate ghetto must be set up for Jews, and his excellency, the Governor General endorses this step." Three days earlier, on November 3, Dr. Rudolf Batz, an officer of the SS and one of the local Gestapo personnel, appeared in the Judenrat offices and informed those present that according to the orders of General Karl von Neumann—Neurode, military commander of the city, a ghetto had to be established in Warsaw within three days. A map of the intended ghetto was shown to the members of the Judenrat, and some of them were taken as hostages to ensure the execution of this order.

This news came as a bolt from the blue to the Judenrat, whose members were in a state of shock and despair. A population of some 150,000 was to move to the intended ghetto within three days—a decree more extreme than any previously imposed and an order that could not possibly be carried out in time. The Judenrat decided to take a risky step. Contrary to their common practice and perhaps even in contradiction to their own expectations, the members decided to play one authority against the other. Well aware that Batz was a Gestapo officer responsible for Jewish affairs, and that General von Neumann—Neurode commanded the Wehrmacht, the Jews dared to circumvent Batz by sending a delegation to the general to appeal the order. The delegation, which included Czerniakow, Hartglas, and Abraham Weiss, was received by von Neumann—Neurode, who had no knowledge of the order purportedly issued by him. During subsequent days of discussion between von Neumann—Neurode and the Gestapo, it was not clear whether the establishment of the ghetto would be postponed, its layout changed, or the decree annulled. On November 14, the Judenrat hostages were freed, and Czerniakow noted in his diary, "I was at the SS. Th£ matter of the evacuation is not actual at the moment."

The threat of the ghetto, however, was merely delayed. Unbeknownst to the Jews, the plan for the ghetto was brought up by the central authority of the district and was endorsed by Frank himself. By March 1940, signposts were erected at the entrance of streets densely populated by Jews, bearing the message that anyone entering these streets was entering an "Infected Area." During the the same month, the Judenrat received a map of the "infected area" and was told to build a brick wall around it. The area consisted of some 4 percent of the city of Warsaw.

Czerniakow tried to convince the authorities to cancel this decree, but his efforts were in vain. In August 1940 the Germans officially announced that the city would be divided into three sectors: German, Polish, and Jewish. Jews were evacuated from houses in central streets in the Polish quarter; apartments and their contents were being requisitioned, a new euphemism for stealing. Jewish owners tried to save something of their property, but faced the crudest challenge in seeking a place to live in the crowded Jewish quarter.

Fischer assigned responsibility for planning and establishing the ghetto to Waldemar Schön, head of the department for the movement and evacuation of population in the district. Various possibilities were examined, such as the expulsion of Jews from the center of town and the creation of a ghetto in its more remote suburbs. But such proposals aroused Polish opposition. Poles did not take kindly to the fact that the Germans were doing what they pleased with the city and making complex changes. Other delays stemmed from the hope that a Jewish reservation would be set up in the neighborhood of Lublin, or that there would be a mass emigration to Madagascar, alternatives that would make the ghetto unnecessary.

At the end of August 1940, creation of a ghetto began in earnest. Transferring masses of Jews from outside the Jewish quarter would take months, so it was decided to turn the existing Jewish quarter into a ghetto. On Yom Kippur, October iz, 1940, the loudspeakers placed in the city's squares notified the Jews of Warsaw that a ghetto was being established and that movement to and from the ghetto area would continue only until the end of October. Czerniakow wrote in his diary with marked sarcasm, "Schön informed us that in the name of humanity, by order of the commander, the general commander, and according to instructions from above, a ghetto would be set up."

Entire streets and parts of streets were included in the ghetto. There was no uniformity. Until the day the decree was activated, no one knew its ultimate boundaries. The Germans were careful not to use the word
ghetto,
writing and speaking instead of the "Jewish Residential Quarter of Warsaw," and demanding that the Jews use the same term. Yet, except for official notices published by the Judenrat, this was never done. The announcement of the ghetto set off a whirlwind of activities; people seeking apartments, changing apartments, and making deals continued until the date the borders closed. Poles who lived on the edge of the Jewish quarter had to move to other parts of Warsaw, while the Jews who lived in other areas of the city had to move to the intended ghetto area. For many, the move meant a significant change in lifestyle. Wealthier and more assimilated Jews who owned spacious apartments lived throughout the city. The Poles forced to move from the Jewish quarter were the poorer elements of the population. They left behind small and old apartments, most of them lacking modern sanitary facilities.