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Ghetto Schools Jewish Education in Nazi-Occupied Poland

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Ghetto Schools Jewish Education in Nazi-Occupied Poland Ghetto Schools Jewish Education in Nazi-Occupied Poland Dissertation zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades der Doktorin der Philosophie Vorgelegt der Fakultät für Geisteswissenschaften der Universität Hamburg von Hanna Schmidt Holländer aus Hamburg 2014 Gutachter/innen Prof. Dr. Frank Golczewski Prof. Dr. Deborah Dwork Prof. Dr. Monica Rüthers Disputation 15.07.2015 TABLE OF CONTENTS DISSERTATION ABSTRACT 1 ABBREVIATIONS 3 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 4 A. CONTEXT OF THIS STUDY 4 B. RESEARCH QUESTION AND SCOPE 7 C. LITERATURE REVIEW 8 D. SOURCES 13 E. SPELLING OF NAMES AND PLACES 16 CHAPTER 2: JEWISH EDUCATION IN POLAND 1918–1939 18 A. INTRODUCTION 18 B. THE SITUATION OF THE JEWISH MINORITY IN THE SECOND POLISH REPUBLIC 19 C. JEWISH SCHOOL LANDSCAPE IN POLAND 23 Secular Jewish Schools 25 Religious Jewish Schools 29 D. JEWISH CHILDREN IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND IN JEWISH PRIVATE SCHOOLS 33 CHAPTER 3: GHETTOIZATION AND GHETTO SOCIETIES 38 A. GERMAN GHETTOIZATION POLICY AND PRACTICE 38 First Phase 38 Second Phase 44 B. GHETTO SOCIETIES 47 Concentration 49 Consolidation 51 Exploitation 55 Death 58 C. CONCLUSION 59 CHAPTER 4: REINSTATING NORMALITY — THE STABILIZING FUNCTION OF SCHOOL 62 A. WHEN CHAOS BROKE IN: THE CHILDREN’S PLIGHT IN THE GHETTOS 62 B. CHILDHOOD VERSUS GHETTO REALITY 63 C. EDUCATION AND SOCIETY 66 D. SCHOOLS IN THE GHETTOS 68 E. FOCUS ON WORK: FACTORY SCHOOLS 70 F. NO TIME TO LOSE: URGENCY TO LEARN 73 G. A PLACE TO GO TO: SCHOOL AS AN INSTITUTION FOR CHILDREN 75 H. CONCLUSION 81 CHAPTER 5: JEWISH INTEGRATION — EDUCATION AGAINST ASSIMILATION 83 A. INTRODUCTION 83 B. INTEGRATION DIFFICULTIES 86 C. EDUCATION CAMPAIGNS 89 Religious Education 90 Linguistic and Cultural Education 95 D. THE SCHOOL PROGRAM OF THE LODZ GHETTO SCHOOLS 107 E. CONCLUSION 115 CHAPTER 6: CHANGING SOCIETY 119 A. INTRODUCTION 119 B. CLASS CONFLICTS IN THE GHETTOS 121 C. EDUCATION CAMPAIGNS FOR SOCIAL CHANGE 131 D. CONCLUSION 134 CHAPTER 7: APPEASEMENT AND RESISTANCE — AFFIRMATIVE AND SUBVERSIVE APPROACHES TO GHETTO EDUCATION 136 A. INTRODUCTION 136 B. AFFIRMATIVE EDUCATION 139 C. SUBVERSIVE EDUCATION 146 D. CONCLUSION 154 CHAPTER 8: CONCLUSION 157 UNPUBLISHED SOURCES 162 PUBLISHED SOURCES AND LITERATURE 165 PUBLICATIONS DERIVED FROM THIS DISSERTATION 176 DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Drawing on education theory and sociology, this dissertation titled “Ghetto Schools — Jewish Education in Nazi-Occupied Poland” understands education in the ghettos as social action and analyzes the functions of institutionalized education for ghetto societies. The study shows the rationale and motive of educational efforts in the ghettos and how education was used to regulate social relations among the ghetto populations of Lodz, Warsaw, and Vilna. While harsh ghetto circumstances meant that children had to take on adult responsibilities, education was used as a mechanism to regulate inter-generational relationships, allowing a return to accustomed social patterns. Furthermore, education was used by the political elites to promote their ideas of Jewish belonging through an increase in Jewish subjects and agricultural training. The analysis of the relations of individuals to the Jewish leadership and the German oppressor shows a split discourse on education between the establishment and youth organizations. While the establishment favored an education that asked students to abide by the principles of calm and work they hoped would appease the Germans, youth organizations began to question this attitude and left the schools to educate themselves. They used education as a tool to subvert Jewish leadership and German oppression with the aim of preparing for resistance. 1 Diese Dissertation mit dem Titel “Ghetto Schools — Jewish Education in Nazi- Occupied Poland”, versteht Erziehung und Bildung in den Ghettos basierend auf Erziehungsstheorie und Soziologie als soziales Handeln und analysiert die Funktionen institutionalisierter Erziehung für die Ghettogesellschaften. Die Studie zeigt die Motive und Gründe für Erziehung und Bildung in den Ghettos auf und analysiert, wie Erziehung zur Regulierung sozialer Beziehungen in den Ghettogesellschaften von Lodz, Warschau, und Vilna eingesetzt wurde. Als die Ghettoisierung die Idee von Kindheit bedrohte, regulierte Schule die Beziehungen der Generationen untereinander und ermöglichte es, zurück zu den "normalen" sozialen Mustern zu kehren. Weiterhin diente Erziehung den politischen Eliten im Ghetto dazu, ihre Definition von jüdischer Zugehörigkeit durch ein vermehrtes Unterrichten von jüdischen Fächern und Landwirtschaft zu verbreiten. Die Analyse der Beziehungen zwischen Individuum und jüdischer Führung beziehungsweise deutschem Unterdrücker zeigt einen zweigeteilten Diskurs über Erziehung. Auf der einen Seite propagierte die jüdische Führungsschicht eine Erziehung, die auf den Prinzipien von Arbeit und Ruhe im Ghetto beruhte, mit denen sie hofften, die Deutschen von der Produktivität des Ghettos überzeugen zu können, auf der anderen Seite begann die Jugend diese Einstellung zu hinterfragen und verließ die Schulen, um sich in Eigenregie selbst politisch zu bilden. So richtete sich ihre Kritik zuerst gegen die jüdische Führung, um sich dann im Widerstand gegen die deutschen Besatzer zu richten. 2 ABBREVIATIONS APŁ Archiwum Państwowe w Łodzi (State Archive Lodz) AŻIH Archiwum Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego (Archive of the Jewish Historical Institute), Warsaw Centos Centrala Opieki nad Sierotami (Federation of Associations for the Care of Orphans) FPO Fareynikte Partizaner Organizatsye (United Partisan Organization), Vilna GFH Archive of Beit Lohamei Ha’Getaot (Ghetto Fighters House), Kibbutz Lohamei Ha’Getaot LBI Leo Baeck Institute, New York, NY ORT Obshchestvo Remeslennago i Zemledelecheskago Truda Sredi Evreev v Rossii (Society for Handicraft and Agricultural Work among the Jews of Russia) PSŻ Przełożony Starszeństwa Żydów Getta Łódzkiego (Elder of the Jews of Lodz Ghetto) RG Record Group RING Ringelblum Archive, parts I and II, Underground Archive of the Oyneg Shabes, Warsaw USHMM United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC ToPoRol Towarzystwo Popierania Rolnictwa (Society for Promoting Agriculture) YIVO Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut (Jewish Scientific Institute), New York, NY ŻOB Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa (Jewish Fighting Organization) ŻSS Żydowska Samopomoc Społeczna (Jewish Social Self Help) 3 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION A. Context of this Study Why should one study at all, when uncertain of the day and the moment, with no prospect of tomorrow, not knowing where one shall be, whether one shall eat and what? – How can one, in these circumstances, think of educating children or providing them with occupational training? And yet, in spite of it all, there is a universal, primordial, unquenchable drive for learning, contrary to all logic and braving obstacles. How can this be explained? Let’s try to analyze what propels youth to schools, courses and learning, and bids parents to squeeze out the last penny in order to provide their children with some education, not bread alone.1 These words stem from a report on schools in the Warsaw Ghetto. They were written by an unknown contributor to the Oyneg Shabes (Joy of the Sabbath), a clandestine archive created by historian Emanuel Ringelblum, whose mission it was to preserve as much information about everyday life and culture in the ghetto as possible for future historians. The question the reporter posed still puzzles us today: Whence did people in the ghettos take the strength, resources, and determination to teach and study? Why did they engage in an activity that does not seem to have an immediate purpose in a world where providing for daily necessities and planning for a future are impossible challenges. When we read descriptions about the conditions in the ghettos, it is hard to imagine that there were any time, resources, or energy left to engage in education and partake in cultural pursuits. And yet they existed. Many engaged in various forms of learning — youngsters and adults attended a wide range of schools, study groups, reading circles, and lectures. The ghetto dwellers organized kindergartens, as well as university courses, nursing, metal work and farming classes. In a few lines, the author communicates the urgency with which students and parents pursued education in the ghetto and the utter astonishment about this urgency. 1 AŻIH 669 Ring I 74, English translation in: Joseph Kermish, ed., To Live with Honor and Die with Honor!... Selected Documents from the Warsaw Ghetto Underground Archives “O.S.” (“Oneg Shabbath”) (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1986), 501. 4 Focusing on the individual, we can merely wonder about the motivation for serious intellectual work and its costs. When we change the perspective from the individual to the collective, however, patterns begin to emerge that help us to see motive outside of personal decisions. Education is a phenomenon that exists and draws its motivations, contents, and forms from beyond the individual that engages in it. While education is experienced as highly personal, it is set in a societal and historical context. Those who engage in education, the educated and the educator, as well as the specific act of education itself, are always influenced by the people around and before them. In the context of education in the ghettos, this means that all educational activities took place in a society that pursued current interests with educating its youth while employing passed down ideas and procedures from its educational and cultural
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