Resistance (10 page)

FIGURE 2.3
Adam Czerniakow, Jewish Council chairman, works in his office in the Warsaw ghetto. (U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Zydowski Instytut Historyczny imienia Emanuela Ringelbluma)

However, the Judenrat was by no means the sole focus of conflicts and dissension within the ghetto. The German occupation had made the ghetto into a community in which most traditional social orders were shattered and in which the new ones were, as historian Philip Friedman noted, kept in flux. “Social distinctions in the ghetto and survival depended on shrewdness, audacity, indifference
to the plight of others, physical strength, manual dexterity, and external factors such as direct access to German authorities.”
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The heterogeneity that was characteristic of the ghetto populations contributed to the conflicts among inmates. Large portions of ghetto inhabitants had come from the surrounding, generally smaller, communities. Also among the new arrivals were Jews who had converted to Catholicism and were known for their virulent anti-Semitism, and gypsies who shared with the Jews only a range of mutual suspicions. New arrivals also included Jews from Western Europe who looked upon Eastern European Jewry with contempt.
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In addition, the periodic removals of ghetto inmates to concentration camps, or for mass shootings, continually modified the composition of the ghetto populations and contributed to general instability.

This, of course, was the point. The German authorities knew that cohesive ghetto populations could try to unite against them. They also recognized that diversity of the populations, and the resulting distrust and hostility, prevented cooperative action. In the end, the Germans were hugely successful in the achievement of their goals. Nonetheless, Jewish underground opposition emerged in the ghettos, as did plans to escape into the Christian world. Some Jews, like Ephraim Bleichman, escaped to the forest, where they hoped to elude the Germans. The odds were stacked against escape, however. The Nazis had seen to it that ghettos were partly “led” by former Jewish leaders who were powerless, resigned, and ineffective. In general, the ghettos were ravaged by hunger, disease, and terror; they were sealed off communities, isolated from the world, and left to their own meager resources.

Merely being transferred into a ghetto involved a series of personal hardships. One teenage boy, Yitskhok Rudashevski, whom the Germans murdered after the liquidation of the Vilna ghetto, left behind his diary in which he described what a ghetto transfer entailed:

The streets are turbulent. A ghetto is being created for Vilna Jews. . . . The Lithuanians drive us on, they do not let us rest. I think of nothing: not what I am losing, not what I have just lost, not what is in store for me. I do not see the streets before me, the people passing by. I only feel that I am terribly weary, I feel that an insult, a hurt is burning inside me. Here is the ghetto gate.
I feel that I have been robbed; my freedom is being robbed from me. My home and the familiar Vilna streets I love so much are gone. I have been cut off from all that is dear and precious to me. People crowd at the gate. . . . We settle down in our place. Besides the four of us there are eleven persons in the room. The room is a dirty and a stuffy one. It is crowded. The first ghetto night [w]e lie three together on two doors. I do not sleep. In my ears resounds the lamentation of this day. I hear the restless breathing of people with whom I have been suddenly thrown together; people who just like me have suddenly been uprooted from their homes.
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Confined to crowded spaces, removed from gainful employment, forced into jobs that offered only meager food rations, Jewish men became despondent and unable to protect their families. Women's roles, although obviously affected by the war, were not subject to the same dramatic changes as the men's. In the uncertain environment of the ghetto, the ability to survive physically, to evade notice, and to keep their families fed—these mattered the most. Each required special efforts and called for special skills. Women's traditional roles as caregivers, housekeepers, and cooks remained essential. Deprivation and hunger made those who could procure and skillfully handle food particularly valuable. Women were well suited for fulfilling these roles. Thus, in the ghetto, unobtrusively yet consistently, women contributed significantly to survival.

This was especially true for women with families. Their contributions ranged from tangible help, such as the smuggling of food, to keeping up the spirit and the morale of those around them. Of the survivors I met with, especially those whose parents survived with them, most mentioned fathers who were broken by German oppression. At the same time, they described strong mothers who refused to capitulate and who kept the family going, often helping others whom they saw as more needy. Some of these women stepped into spaces created by the loss of their husbands. Others took over the roles of husbands, who were too despondent to act on behalf of their families.

Vladka Meed moved into the newly created Warsaw ghetto with her entire family. Initially reluctant to admit that men and women behaved differently, she soon changed her mind.

I have a feeling that women could withstand the difficult conditions more easily than men. The women were more practical, more of an
organizer, and able to take over what had to be done in those days. The men had a profession, an occupation, a business. But when these things were taken away then they were lost, they had nothing to cling to. More often than not the women were at home. They were among those who knew how to deal with the home and its needs and they worried about the entire family. It is also true that in many ghettos, most of those who were buying and selling were women. This was probably wise. If a German passed by he would more likely notice a man than a woman. . . . I am not so sure that I am right, but the devotion, the ability to sacrifice for others, were more strongly developed in the ghetto in the women than in the men . . . when a mother was hungry she could cope with this situation better than a man.

Again and again, Vladka talked about her father in the Warsaw ghetto, describing him as helpless, depressed, and malnourished. He eventually contracted pneumonia and died. She contrasts his passivity to her mother, who “was able to keep our house clean only with water and a strong will,” and in the process fighting disease, particularly typhoid fever. She was a woman of considerable willpower:

When my brother was almost thirteen, our mother, though starving—there was a swelling under her eyes from hunger—would save a slice of bread for the rabbi who came to teach my brother for his bar mitzvah. The bread she hid under her pillow. She had no money to buy extra bread, but in exchange for the bread the rabbi would give bar mitzvah lessons to my brother. A simple, uneducated woman, this mother refused to sell her husband's books for food.

The reason? She thought that sometime in the future “her children would learn from these books.” It seems significant that this woman, who in the past had been annoyed by her husband's devoting too much attention to his books, should now refuse to sell some of them even though his family was hungry. By refusing to part with her husband's books, she was showing her family's respect for the memory of their father and her husband.

Vladka's assessment is also reflected in Sara Zyskind's experience. In the Lodz ghetto, this teenager watched her mother supplement the family's income by selling hot coffee to ghetto inmates who,
early in the morning, had to pass close to their dwelling. At first this daughter was embarrassed by her mother's efforts. With time her attitude shifted to admiration. “It never occurred to this intelligent and gentle woman to turn up her nose at the lowest tasks, as long as she was able to help her family. Although selling coffee was not a profitable venture, it made it possible for us to buy an additional ration of bread for father, acquired at the black market, and buy an adequate supply of coal. Now our room was heated, greatly lessening the fear of the winter.” After a short time her mother died, leaving Sara and her father in a more deplorable situation.
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German directives were continuously pouring in. Severe punishment, usually death, followed disobedience to any of them. On October 15, 1941, a new law mandated the death sentence for any Jew caught outside of the ghetto and involved in “illegal” activities. A violation of this law led not only to the death of the Jew but also to the death of anyone who might have been somehow involved in this transgression.
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German authorities were serious about enforcements of this law. The laws and consequences of breaking them were widely publicized and discussed. Indeed, most German laws were propelled by the principle of collective responsibility.

Within these continuously evolving environments, most ghetto inmates were confronted by growing oppression. Despite the horrendous circumstances, some Jews engaged in mutual aid activities. Some devoted themselves to the establishment of soup kitchens; others to the building of orphanages; still others to the collection of money and goods for the sick and the helpless. In the ghettos, a large number of women, the young and the not-so-young, tried to take advantage of whatever opportunities they could find to make things better.

Still, few ghetto inmates could permanently escape the oppressive measures that the authorities imposed upon the Jews. Vladka Meed could not escape from the effects of chronic hunger. “In the ghetto I thought about myself mainly in relation to food. I did not want to be hungry. But I was always hungry.” One day, she was so swollen from hunger that she could not work. “Maybe this saved me, because one day I could not put on my shoes and could not go to work. And just that day there was a selection and all those who came to my working place were taken away.”

The Germans contributed to the tensions between diverse ghetto inmates by issuing documents that gave the right to live to
one inmate—at the expense of another. In the Vilna ghetto, Mark Dworzecki describes how he and his friend appealed for a life-saving pass: “Both of us sat in the dark office corridor . . . waiting for the judgment upon us. We talked to each other . . . at the same time we knew that a life voucher for one of us meant a death warrant for the other.” In the end he got the voucher and not his friend. “I was ashamed to raise my eyes but nonetheless I took the document.”
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Work assignments and appropriate documents did not necessarily translate into adequate food rations. Officially, in occupied Poland, ghetto inmates were entitled to fewer than 400 calories per day.
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Added to the effects of chronic hunger were severe problems caused by cramped living quarters. The absence of electricity, running water, and adequate toilet facilities led to hygiene problems and epidemics. Overcrowded hospitals lacked basic equipment and medications. The Jewish hospital staff was required to report all patients with chronic and contagious diseases. When identified to the authorities, such patients were immediately killed.
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Ghetto prohibitions extended to school attendance, to private instruction, and to religious observances. All these were a part of the established processes of humiliation and degradation.

Faced with these and other expanding assaults on freedom, dignity, and survival, many Judenrat leaders and others refused to submit. Collectively and individually they organized a variety of fund-raising events: lectures, theatrical performances, and contests. The leadership imposed taxes on the few ghetto inhabitants who still had money. With these funds they created soup kitchens and bought medications.

In some of the ghettos, young people of various political groups offered lessons to children and lectured to adult audiences, though this was illegal. One of them was the enterprising Vladka Meed. One of her most vivid recollections is of a lecture she gave about Boncze Szveig, a character in a novel by the Jewish writer Peretz. This lecture was just one of the many cultural evenings, an important part of the Warsaw ghetto life. In her case, it took place in a large room filled with older listeners. The windows were securely covered. A special watchman stood next to the gate of the building, in a secluded corner of the house. Vladka was younger than anyone in her attentive audience, but people were accustomed to these youthful and passionate lecturers. The air was filled with a tension that held until the very end of the presentation, which was followed by questions. Animated, eager to learn, to explore, audience and
lecturer were locked in an intense and heated exchange of ideas. This and other similar cultural events had the power to transport the participants away from the ghetto poverty, from hunger, from the devastation, and to inhabit briefly a more meaningful and dignified world. What happened in this and similar rooms was real, and perhaps even more real than that which inevitably greeted each Jew outside of the room.

In large ghettos in particular, certain morale-building activities also took place. Among them were special committees devoted to the establishment of theatrical presentations, libraries, and a variety of other educational pursuits. Illegal schools seemed to have flourished in the ghettos of Estonia, Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia.