annihilating the Jews physically via hunger or disease was openly considered as
a serious option that was eventually rejected overwhelmingly on grounds of
expediency.
In the summer of 1940 responsibility for enforced labour in the General
Government passed from the SS, who had failed in this area, to the civilian
administration, which began to regulate the Jewish workers centrally. The main
focus of Jewish forced labour in the General Government gradually became the
district of Lublin, where Jews (including those from other districts) were assigned
by preference to major projects and given rough and ready accommodation and
wholly inadequate subsistence. 117 The path of Jewish forced labour took a particular turn in eastern Upper Silesia, where Himmler appointed the Breslau Police
Commander Albrecht Schmelt as Director of an office to oversee ‘the registration
and direction of workforces composed of foreign peoples’. Schmelt systematically
set about collecting the Jews ‘concentrated’ in certain towns in the eastern part of
eastern Upper Silesia and deploying them in forced labour groups for road-
building and industrial manufacture. In occupied Poland forced labourers’
wages were usually either wholly withheld or paid only in very small part; across
the camps conditions were appalling, accommodation, food, and medical care
were catastrophically bad, and the camp authorities deployed rigid means of
repression. 118
Life in the Ghettos
The situation in the closed ghettos and those areas of towns specially assigned to
Jews was characterized by extreme congestion (in the Warsaw ghetto, for example,
according to German estimates, using an ‘occupancy’ figure of 6 to 7 persons per
room, 119 there were between 410,000 and 590,000 people living in a little more than 4 square kilometres), by disastrously bad hygiene, wholly inadequate supplies
of foodstuffs, by disease, and therefore by a high death rate. 120 For these reasons approximately a quarter of the populations of the two largest Polish ghettos,
Warsaw and Lodz, died of ‘natural’ causes. 121 Raul Hilberg estimates that the total of Polish Jews killed prior to and during the period of ghettoization before
the violent ghetto clearances began was approximately 500,000. 122
The Jewish minority of Poland that was penned into the ghettos in this manner
was neither an amorphous mass nor a homogeneous community. The great social
differences that existed in the pre-war period, the diverse political trends and the
differences in attitudes to religion amongst Jews were maintained under ghetto
conditions and even intensified. However, a sociology of ghetto society highlights
new phenomena, including the rise of a social class of newly rich and privileged
people, the rapid degradation of the intelligentsia, the reduction of the Jewish
middle class to an army of slave workers and the tense relationship between the
original inhabitants of the ghettos and the newcomers forced to enter them. 123
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The Persecution of the Jews, 1939–1941
The lives of those locked in the ghettos was completely dominated by the daily
struggle for survival, which was above all the problem of somehow finding
something to eat. Hunger was the leitmotif of ghetto life. Hunger changed both
individual and collective behaviour and forced people to cross the boundaries of
dignity and to transgress moral norms.
There were various attempts made by the inhabitants of the ghettos to resist the
rapid erosion of the standards of civilization. Jewish social self-help organizations
were active across a broad range of areas, 124 and religious, educational, and cultural activities offered the possibility of retaining a vestige of human dignity
and self-respect. There is evidence of activities such as these, to various degrees, in
a series of ghettos; they were partly organized officially by Jewish councils and
tolerated by the Germans, but to a large extent they took place ‘underground’
despite being forbidden by the authorities. 125
Whatever efforts the Jewish councils and individual inhabitants of the ghettos
made to make their lives a little more tolerable, however, they were made within
the context of a dyamic of power that consisted of near-omnipotence on the
German side and total impotence on the Jewish side. The German authorities
nonetheless succeeded to a certain extent both in concealing the reality of this
dynamic by forming the Jewish councils as organs of an (in reality non-existent)
autonomous administration and in maintaining the illusion of some room for
manoeuvre on the Jewish side.
The decisive factor in internal relationships in the ghettos was the omnipotence
of the German side, which decided on the extent to which the ghettos were
supplied with food and essentials in exchange for goods, objects of value, and
money, but which ensured that the conflicts emerging from the inadequate con-
ditions there were resolved by the inhabitants themselves. The German occupying
power usually left it to the Jewish councils to distribute the deliveries of foodstuffs,
always too small and usually of poor quality. Distribution took place in different
ways: ration cards were introduced, free market trade was permitted or meals were
served in canteens, the latter often with the support of Jewish self-help organiza-
tions. However it was organized, the result was always to privilege those groups
that the Jewish councils considered of particular importance for the continuing
survival of the ghettos. These included the members of the extensive bureaucratic
apparatus created by the Jewish councils but also, and increasingly as time went
on, the workforces involved in manufacturing the goods to be supplied to the
Germans. In most of the Polish ghettos 1941 marked the point where most of the
inhabitants had exchanged virtually all the goods and objects of value they had
brought into the ghetto for foodstuffs and other essentials and when more and
more people were attempting to survive by working in the ghetto workshops, the
so-called ‘shops’ that produced goods for the Germans. 126 The Jewish councils began to support these plans to make the ghettos ‘productive’, especially as the shift
of emphasis towards work in the ghettos seemed advantageous in comparison with
Deportations
169
the appalling conditions in the forced labour camps—a contrast sharpened as
the occupying power began a new work initiative in spring 1941.127 It appears that it was not least the initiatives of the Jewish councils that attracted the attention of the Germans to the idea of making the Jews ‘productive’, in contrast to the
Nazi stereotype, according to which Jews were essentially always ‘parasitical’ and
‘unproductive’.
Additional essential supplements to the provisions within the ghettos were
obtained via smuggling and the black market, on which the last goods and chattels
of the Jews were exchanged for foodstuffs. These methods were officially pros-
ecuted by the Jewish councils, under pressure from the Germans, but in reality
were frequently ignored. Despite their merciless persecution of smugglers, the
Germans were to some extent forced to accept the existence of the phenomenon in
the interests of maintaining the ghetto ec
onomy itself. However, smuggling
and the black market both eventually contributed to an increased distortion in
the equality of distribution for essential goods within the ghettos and thus to
sharpening the tensions between ghetto inhabitants themselves. 128
The diaries and memoirs of ghetto inhabitants129 show that the decisive factors for survival—access to work, the distribution of living space and of provisions—
were part of a complex network of links, contacts, and privileges in which
corruption often played a significant role. Lack of transparency in the division
of vital resources and the fact that the procedures of the Jewish councils were often
seen as arbitrary, unjust, and self-seeking led in many instances to feelings of
mistrust, even hatred towards the councils on the part of the ghetto populations. 130
There is no doubt that the often tense relationships between councils and popu-
lation made the job of the Germans’ relatively small administrative apparatus
considerably easier.
Initially the Jewish councils attempted to encourage the Germans towards
moderation, with the help of petitions, personal meetings, and offers to negotiate—
even on occasion using gifts and bribery. 131 Given the extraordinary imbalance in the influence of the occupying power and the Jewish councils there was no alternative to
these tactics, but they were bound to remain fruitless in the long run and ultimately
only led to the postponement of repressive measures by the Germans. Because
they could not resist the demands of the German side the Jewish councils gradually
reached the conclusion that it was their task to increase the chances of survival of
at least a part of the population of the ghettos by following German orders and
acquiescing in the wishes of the occupying powers, and in particular by encouraging
the workforce to be as productive as possible. For this reason the councils tended
to discipline the population of the ghettos in their own interests—as they believed.
The Jewish police therefore often proceeded rigorously in order to preserve the
authority of the councils. 132
It would be too simplistic to derive from this account an image of a Jewish elite
that was anxious to conform at all costs. After a detailed examination of the Jewish
170
The Persecution of the Jews, 1939–1941
councils in the General Government and Upper Silesia Aharon Weiss has come to
the conclusion that of the 146 Jewish elders originally nominated by the Germans
57 lost their positions because they were not willing to meet the demands that were
placed upon them by the Germans: 11 resigned their posts, 26 were replaced, 18
were liquidated and 2 committed suicide. In the light of this it was not so much the
individual compliance of those holding these positions that ultimately guaranteed
the successful implementation of the Germans’ policies as a willingness on the
German side to force the institution of the Jewish councils into submission, if
necessary using the most brutal of methods. The relatively frequent changes in the
occupancy of the council posts had as a further consequence the effect of gradually
replacing the members of local elites, who had initially dominated the Jewish
councils, with newcomers and outsiders, who had less intimate connections with
the local population and therefore tended to reinforce the alienation that was
growing between the councils and the population of the ghettos. 133
If the institution of the Jewish councils tended to bow to the demands of the
Germans and was in particular prepared to treat different sectors of the popula-
tion of the ghettos in a differentiated manner—corresponding to their presumed
usefulness to the German occupying power—this was because the Jewish occu-
pants of council posts were guided by the idea that the Germans were pursuing a
rationally comprehensible goal and that their behaviour was ultimately calculable
or predictable. However, the fact that the policies of the occupying power were
based on ideologically racist premises to which all utilitarian perspectives were
subordinated was a phenomenon that must have been wholly incomprehensible
to the Jewish councils. The reality of a thoroughgoing racist occupation was
something without historical precedent. 134
From the perspective of the persecutors the system established in the ghettos
was remarkably efficient. The minimum of effort was needed to facilitate the total
exploitation and the near perfect dominance of the ghetto populations. The
occupiers could always rely on their instructions being carried out by the Jewish
councils, with a different membership if necessary. The ‘management’ of the
ghettos by the Jewish councils guaranteed in almost all cases the resolution of
conflict within the ghettos themselves, without bothering the occupying powers
with any serious need to intervene.
In the years 1940 and 1941 underground action within the ghettos was
restricted to social aid, cultural activities, illegal political meetings, and the
production of pamphlets. There was no real basis for any far-reaching organized
passive resistance, let alone any active measures. 135 Resistance from the ghettos was not a factor that would cause the German side any serious trouble in 1940–1.
On the contrary, the Jewish councils developed a routine of following German
instructions, which became fatally habitual: with the intention of preventing
the worst, the Jewish councils themselves became the instruments of German
anti-Jewish policy.
Deportations
171
It would be completely futile to try to analyse the conditions in the ghettos
without always remembering and bearing in mind at every stage of the analysis
that the ghettos were institutions conceived, realized, and rigorously controlled by
the Germans. The slightest degree of insubordination on the part of the Jewish
councils was met with the most draconian of punishments. 136 The autonomy of these Jewish councils within the ghettos, which was in any case only vestigial, and
the illusions of the inhabitants that derived from the appearance of autonomy,
were important components of the perfidious system of control that the Germans
employed. From the perspective of the historiography of the perpetrators any
judgement of the behaviour of the Jewish councils that does not take into account
the true power relations is entirely pointless.
However, turning the ghettos into productive enterprises and increasing the
deployment of Jews in forced labour projects within the General Government
after spring
137
1941
led to the increased differentiation of the Jewish population
according to their ‘capacity for work’. This distinction was an important precursor
of the concept developed by the SS from autumn 1941: ‘annihilation through
work’.
Deportations Phase III: The Consequences of
the Madagascar Plan
The Madagascar Plan also had a direct effect on ‘Jewish policy’ in the area of the
Reich. In mid-July 1940 the Gauleiter of Berlin, Goebbels, informed leading
officials in the Propaganda Ministry that immediately after the end of the war
he would have the more than 60,000 remaining Jews
of Berlin ‘transported to
Poland’ within no longer than eight weeks. Then the ‘other Jew cities (Breslau,
etc.)’ would have their turn. In early September 1940 the official responsible for
‘Jewish affairs’, Hans Hinkel, once more confirmed that it was the authorities’
intention to deport all the Jews of Berlin immediately after the end of the war. 138
And indeed it was in October 1940 that deportations on the largest scale so far
were to take place: the expulsion of the Jewish minorities from Baden and the
Saar-Palatinate, who were deported to southern France following the expulsion of
Jews and other ‘undesirables’ from Alsace and Lorraine, which had been ear-
marked for annexation. By summer 1940 there had been protests in the Gaus of
the Palatinate and Baden when the population that had been evacuated from the
border zones at the outbreak of war began to return and the Jews also wished to
resettle in their former homes; in Breisach and Kehl local Party authorities had on
their own initiative driven the returning Jews into the occupied Alsatian zone,
although they were allowed to return from there a few weeks later after an
intervention from Berlin. 139
172
The Persecution of the Jews, 1939–1941
From July onwards, and in especially large numbers in August and September,
tens of thousands of ‘undesirable persons’ (including almost the entire Jewish
population of some 3,000) had been transported from Alsace and Lorraine into
the unoccupied areas of France. 140 On 28 September Hitler demanded of Gauleiter Josef Bürckel of the Palatinate and Gauleiter Robert Wagner of Baden (who as
heads of the civilian administration were simultaneously responsible for Lorraine
and Alsace) that in ten years they should be able to report these French areas as
‘German, furthermore as purely German’; he said he would not ask ‘what methods
they had applied’. 141
The policy of organized deportations also encompassed the regions within the
area of the Reich over which these two Gauleiters had authority. On 22 and 23
October all the Jews from Baden and the Saar-Palatinate, approximately 7,000
people, were taken in twelve transports to southern France where the French
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