Children…

Bendzin, 1942. SS Captain Franz Polter from Breslau gathers Jewish
children around him and yells: “You wanted the war!” Puzzled,
we look at him. A six-year-old dares to step forward. “No, uncle
S.S. man. We don’t want the war. We want some bread.”
ELLA-LIEBERMANN-SHIBER
dren, while in Warsaw, a children’s choir briefly existed.
Concerts and other performances were put on in the
ghettos until the musicians and actors were deported
to the death camps. Such cultural activities have been
characterised by some historians as a form of resistance.
At the same time, there were those who understood
that it was vital for the future to record what was happening
to the Jews. Some people kept diaries while
others organised groups that systematically collected
testimonials and evidence about life in the ghettos. German
policies and individual atrocities were documented.
These people included historians like Emmanuel
Ringelblum and teacher Chaim Kaplan in Warsaw, and
the lawyer Avraham Tory in Kovno (Kaunas).
The Germans used ghetto inhabitants as cheap
slave labour, and many ghettos played an important
part in supplying the German army with goods and
services. For example, work in the ghettos of Warsaw,
Lódz, Bialystok and Sosnowiec was almost exclusively
directed to war production. The fact that individual
Germans exploited Jewish labour for their own profit
and pleasure caused many Jews to believe that working
gave them a chance to survive. However, in the end, the
Nazis’ desire to annihilate the Jews would always take
precedence over whatever advantage they could gain
from using Jewish labour.
The impossible choices
A key element of Nazi policy was to make the Jews
administer their own internal affairs in the ghettos.This
gave rise to the Judenräte, or Jewish Councils.The men
on the councils were forced to comply with the German
instructions on pain of death.
The Jewish Councils had to draw up lists of names
of people who were to be deported, and Jewish “police
forces” often rounded up the condemned fellow Jews
and marched them to the trains and trucks.
The question of resistance was always considered,
but the German policy of cruel collective punishment
made such choices very difficult. In some ghettos, Jewish
council leaders actually did everything they could
to stop attempts at resistance. One example can be seen
in the speech given to resistance leaders by Jacob Gens,
council chairman in the Vilnius ghetto in Lithuania, on
15 May 1943.He explained that the Gestapo had seized
a Jew who had bought a revolver. He warned: “I don’t
yet know how this case will end. The last case ended
fortunately for the ghetto. But I can tell you that if it
happens again we shall be severely punished. Perhaps
they will take away those people over 60, or children…
Now consider whether that is worth-while!!! There can
be only one answer for those who think soundly and
maturely: It is not worth-while!!!”
In other ghettos, some council leaders co-operated
with the resistance. In the long run, however, it didn’t
matter to the majority of the ghetto inhabitants which
decision their leaders made. The Jews were utterly isolated
and exposed,German superiority was overwhelming.Whether
the Jews chose appeasement or resistance,
the result was still the same.All were condemned to die.
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