THE BIAŁYSTOK and KIELCE GHETTOS: a COMPARATIVE STUDY Sara Bender

THE BIAŁYSTOK AND KIELCE GHETTOS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY Sara Bender During the past two decades, scholars have written research reports and monographs about several Jewish communities in Poland that were destroyed in the Holocaust. Archivists in the United States and Israel conducted a massive campaign to gather testimony from Holocaust survivors and some of the major World War II and Holocaust testimonials have been computerized. An invaluable aid to those engaged in studying the history of the Polish Jews during the period of the German occupation, these tools have enabled scholars to conduct comparative studies of the ghettos—for example, of two ghettos in Poland (Białystok and Kielce) to which Holocaust historians had previously accorded scant attention. FROM SOVIET TO GERMAN OCCUPATION In accordance with the terms of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Treaty between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, the Soviet Army entered eastern Poland on September 17, 1939, and, within a month, annexed this territory. One of the major cities annexed was Białystok (known for its textile industry), with a Jewish population of some 50,000. The remainder of Poland was divided into two parts: western and northern Poland, annexed by the Reich; and central Poland, which as of October 1939 became a single political administrative unit known as the Generalgouvernement; this unit was subdivided into four districts: Warsaw, Lublin, Kraków, and Radom. The city of Kielce, whose Jewish population in September 1939 numbered approximately 20,000, was located in the Radom district. The Soviets controlled Białystok for a little less than two years. On June 27, 1941, the Germans invaded Białystok and within a month imprisoned Jews in a ghetto. Thus the German occupation of Białystok began only in late June 1941, while the Jews of Kielce came under German occupation in early September 1939. Under the terms of an order issued by Reinhard Heydrich on September 21, 1939, Jews were to be concentrated in large cities.1 However, ghettos were set up in various parts of the Generalgouvernement in spring 1941, coinciding with Germany’s plans to invade the Soviet Union that summer. Until April 1941, when the ghettos in the three major cities of the Radom district (Kielce, Częstochwa, and Radom) were 86 • THE BIAŁYSTOK AND KIELCE GHETTOS sealed, Jews continued to live alongside their Polish neighbors as they had done before the war.2 KIELCE Jewish life in Kielce during the nineteen months between the German occupation and the establishment of the ghetto was characterized by the nationalization of businesses, shops, and personal property; the issuing of orders to many Jewish residents to evacuate their apartments, which were then expropriated by the new regime; the imposition of forced labor; the arrival of thousands of Jewish refugees from the western areas of Poland annexed by the Reich; a serious food shortage; the outbreak of epidemics due to poor hygienic conditions; the creation of a Jewish Council (Judenrat); and a lack of financial resources.3 In November 1939, two months after the occupation, the German civil administration established a Judenrat in Kielce. The person chosen to head the Judenrat was Dr. Moses Pelc, a physician fluent in German who had close ties to Kielce’s Polish intelligentsia. During the 1930s Pelc had served on the municipal council. His home had a strongly Polish character and his children attended Polish schools.4 It seemed a logical choice for the Poles, who knew that Pelc was a respected member of the Jewish community, to recommend to the Germans that they appoint him head of the Judenrat. During the few months following the occupation, the situation of the Jews of Kielce drastically deteriorated. Unemployment and hunger became widespread; the outbreak of disease reduced the number of Jews available for forced labor assignments and increased the number needing assistance from the Judenrat. Another factor was the arrival in Kielce of Jewish refugees from the Warthegau, Pomerania, and Upper Silesia districts, which by March 1940 increased Kielce’s Jewish population to 25,400. Three thousand Jewish refugees from Kalisz and Kraków arrived the following August and 1,000 Jews from Vienna arrived shortly thereafter. Although some refugees were subsequently transferred to towns in the vicinity of Kielce, at the time of the creation of the ghetto in April 1941, Kielce’s Jewish population numbered about 27,000. As a result of these deteriorating conditions, the Kielce Judenrat had unfamiliar problems with which to contend. According to available documentation, it is clear that Pelc lacked leadership ability, had no inclination for politics, and was unable to handle the rigorous demands as head of the Kielce Judenrat. In summer 1940, after serving for nine months, he took ill and asked to be relieved of his duties. He had likely concluded Sara Bender • 87 that he could not effectively serve the Jewish community and used his illness as a pretext to persuade the German officials to appoint his deputy in his stead. Sixty-year-old Hermann Levy had been an active figure in the Jewish community and was known by most Kielce Jews as an industrialist with connections and considerable influence. The occupation authorities did not object to Pelc’s proposal for Levy to become head of the Judenrat.5 After assuming leadership of the Judenrat in August 1940, Levy reorganized the council and saw to it that every segment of Kielce’s Jewish population—including the thousands of newly arrived refugees—was represented. The Judenrat established ten departments, including a financial department responsible for preparing the Judenrat’s overall budget, setting the taxes to be levied on the Jewish community, and registering all Jews so that their property and income could be assessed by the Judenrat. This latter function was of crucial importance since, under Pelc, the Judenrat’s coffers had been completely depleted. Within a few months, the Judenrat energetically set about reorganizing Jewish communal life in Kielce. But at the end of March 1941, the German governor of the city ordered the establishment of a ghetto and everything that the new Judenrat had begun to build fell apart. The Jews were required to move to the new “Jewish neighborhood” within five days and no Jew was allowed to reside outside the ghetto.6 The Germans chose the poorest, most rundown part of town—where most of the houses were single-story structures, lacked running water, and were not connected to a municipal sewage system—for the location of the ghetto. Nearly 27,000 Jews were crowded into some six hundred buildings in an area consisting of twenty-six city streets. The living conditions were intolerable and the lives of many were in peril. On April 5, 1941, the ghetto was surrounded by a fence. Signs that read “Closed zone – Entrance prohibited” in several languages were posted every few dozen meters, and beside the ghetto’s five gates the signs read “Jewish neighborhood.” Once physically shut off from the outside world, the ghetto was declared a zone“contaminated with infection” and no one was permitted to enter or leave the ghetto under any circumstances. The transfer of Kielce’s Jews to the ghetto led to a further deterioration in the living standards of the Jewish population. The gap between the minority of affluent Jews who possessed most of the available cash, and the thousands of Jews who were left without any visible means of support, was wide. A new war for survival had begun. 88 • THE BIAŁYSTOK AND KIELCE GHETTOS BIAŁYSTOK In late June 1941, when the Jews of Kielce had been under occupation for twenty-two months and isolated in the ghetto for three months, the Germans occupied Białystok. Within two weeks the Germans liquidated 7,000 of the 50,000 Jews living in the city. A Judenrat was organized in Białystok a few days after the Germans entered the city. The city’s chief rabbi, Rabbi Dr. Gedaliah Rosenmann, was appointed head of the Judenrat; however, the functions associated with this position were actually performed by Efraim Barasz, a professional engineer who served as acting Judenrat chairman until the ghetto was liquidated in August 1943.7 As the Judenrat’s effective head, Barasz realized that he would need to win the favor of the new rulers, while at the same time trying to create a bearable life for the ghetto’s residents and protect Białystok’s more than 40,000 Jews―for whose fate he felt personally responsible.8 Rabbi Rosenmann handed over the directorship of the Judenrat to Barasz not only because of the latter’s extensive prewar experience in public life, but also because the Rabbi had faith in Barasz’s ability to handle day-to-day contacts with the German authorities in Białystok. Barasz, a native of Wolkowysk, had moved to Białystok in 1934 to manage the administrative affairs of the local Jewish community. Owing to his impressive achievements in this position, he was subsequently appointed community president. Barasz and his wife were active in the Zionist movement and raised their three children to be proud Jews and proud Zionists.9 The ghetto in Białystok was established a month after the German occupation. When Barasz learned that it was to be located in the city’s poorer sections, he lobbied the Germans to relocate the ghetto to an area that contained Białystok’s factories, most of whose laborers were Jewish. Thanks to his persuasive efforts, the ghetto was established in a better part of town encompassing more land and with larger and newer houses. Barasz became the undisputed head of the Białystok ghetto by emphasizing a number of principles, the foremost of which was to save the Jews through productive work.

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