The Plight of the Polish Jews

Abstract

After the German attack on the east and the occupation of the whole of Poland, about 2 500 000 Jews were within reach of German hands. They were all in danger, but, except for sporadic cases, mass murders had not yet started, although the Jews had to move into ghettos, which in the territory incorporated into the Reich were set up in the spring and in the General Gouvernement in the autumn of 1940. They were ordered to wear armbands with yellow stars; they were dismissed from work in public institutions; all their real estate and some of their movable possessions were confiscated, they were forced to do hard labour and deprived of the freedom of movement. But at the same time they were allowed to have a kind of self-government and in the ghettos they had their own Councils (Judenrats) and police. In this way the Germans secured the co-operation of the Jews, who, after so many centuries of experience, hoped that if they offered no resistance they would survive in spite of everything. This was above all the opinion of the older generation.