Raul Hilberg
Page 40
Warsaw, were cut off from suppliers and customers alike. Jobs that had 157 158
157. Remarks by Emmerich, Gate, and Schön in conference of April 3, 1941, ibid..
pp. 343-45. On May 5, 1941, Gale talked to Czemiaköw in the ghetto. Hilberg, Staron,
and Kermisz, eds., Warsaw Diary, p, 229. On the following day. Palfinger of the "Ibansfer-
stelle asked Czemiaköw what Gate had been doing there. Czemiaköw's entry of May 6,
1941, ibid., p. 230. Czemiaköw writes “Gater."
158. Memorandum by Bischof, April 30. 1941, Yad Vashem microfilm JM 1112.
Fischer, encouraging him, promised subsidies if needed.
23«
POLAND
still been held outside the ghetto boundaries were lost. The ghetto
economy had to be built from the bottom up.
The
hypothetical
production
discussed
by
Generalgouvernement
economists in conferences was not within reach overnight, and hardly
any ghetto had any immediate prospect of supporting itself, even theoretically, by means of exports alone. This was going to be the case regardless of whether all shipments would have to be sent out through
official channels or whether some could be directed, for higher prices,
to the black market. At the outset the ghetto inhabitants were therefore
forced to use their private assets (in the main, leftover past earnings
consisting of cash, valuables, furnishings, or clothes) for essential purchases. These resources were finite—once used up or sold, they were gone. Thus the survival of the ghetto was predicated in the first instance on the ability of the organizers of production to replace diminishing personal reserves in time, a precarious proposition for sustaining an export-import balance.
The ghetto was facing not only the necessity of external payments;
it had internal problems as well. There were people with a few possessions and there were those without means, some with work and many more who were unemployed. Unredressed, this imbalance had ominous implications for a large part of the ghetto population, but any method of redistribution or equalization was going to be difficult. The
charitable effort was inherently limited, and the raising of taxes was
confounded, particularly in Warsaw, by the many black-market transactions that, in their very nature, were unrecorded. In general, taxes could be levied only at the point at which money was surfacing in
nonillicit payments. Revenue was consequently made up of a mix that
typically included most of the following:1”
Payroll taxes
Head taxes
Taxes on rationed bread
Payments by persons exempted from forced labor
Rental taxes
Cemetery taxes
Postal surcharges
Fees for drugs
Registration fees
In Warsaw, where the bread tax was important, the revenue structure
had the appearance of exactions from the poor to keep alive the destitute. For this reason, Czemiakdw also attempted to obtain contribu- 159
159. Trunk, Judenrai, pp. 236-58, 282-83.
237
CONCENTRATION
tions from Jewish entrepreneurs, by strong-arm methods if need be.'60
In the business sector of the ghetto, his tactic gave rise to the complaint
that he was ruining the capital market.160 161 162 163 164
The chronic deficiency of funds in ghetto treasuries resulted in
such “borrowing” as nonpayment of employees’ wages.1“ Given the
sheer number of ghetto employees who did not have much to do and
whose main reason for clinging to their positions was eligibility for
greater food rations and other privileges, much of this free labor was
not really labor and not really free. Even so, Czemiakdw was concerned that his Order Service was not being paid,1“ for he wanted it to be a professional force.
The Germans on their part understood the limited capacity of the
ghetto economy, and they were aware of the role of the councils as
stabilizers in a situation of massive, abject poverty. To the extent that
German agencies had to maintain a ghetto, they had to reinforce the
power of its council to deal with elementary needs, lest it become
incapable of carrying out German demands and directives altogether.
From time to time, German officials would therefore make "concessions” to the councils, allowing them to borrow sums from sequestered Jewish funds,166 or considering a rebate to a Jewish charitable organization of social welfare taxes paid by Jews to Polish municipalities that no longer helped the Jewish poor,165 or supporting requests by the councils
to raise new revenues from the Jewish population. When Czemiakdw
asked for permission to levy a variety of such taxes and fees, the
deputy
chief
of
the
Resettlement
Division,
Mohns,
backing
Czer-
niakdw’s proposal, stated that "it lies in the interest of the difficult
administration of the Jewish district that the authority of the Jewish
160. Czemiakdw’s entries of January 31 and February 2, 1942, in Hilberg, Staron,
and Kermisz, eds., Warsaw Diary, pp. 320-21. See also Aleksander Ivanka, Wspom-
nienia skarbowca 1927-1945 (Warsaw, 1964), p. 536. Ivanka was treasurer in the Polish
city administration and occasionally talked to Czemiakiw.
161. File note by Auerswald, March 4, 1942, Yad Vashem microfilm JM 1112.
162. Statistical bulletin No. 3 of the Jewish Council, June 2, 1940, containing
financial report for January-April 1940, in Szymon Datner, “Dziatalno£d warszawskiej
'Gminy Wyznaniowej Zydowskiej' w dokumentach podziemnego archiwum getta Wars-
zawskiego CRingelblum ID,” Biuieryn Zydowskiego Institutu Historycwego No. 74
(April-June, 1970): 103-5.
163. Czemiakdw’s entry of October 2, 1941, in Hilberg, Staron, and Kermisz, eds.,
Warsaw Diary, p. 291. Order Service men engaged in special tasks would sometimes
receive special pay.
164. An emergency measure prior to ghettoization in Warsaw. See Czemiakdw's
entries of February 16 and 20, 1940, ibid., pp. 117,119-20.
165. Report by Kreishauptmann of Petrikau (Radom district), March 7, 1941, Yad
Vashem microfilm JM 814. See also Czemiakdw’s entry on May 8, 1941, in Hilberg,
Staron, and Kermisz, eds., Warsaw Diary, p. 231.
238
POLAND
Council be upheld and strengthened under all circumstances.”166 167 168 This
line of reasoning was enunciated even more explicitly by the Warsaw
ghetto Kommissar, Auerswald, a few months later. “When deficiencies
occur,” he wrote, ’’the Jews direct their resentment against the Jewish
administration and not against the German supervision.”'67
Even though these German supervisors had a vital interest in assuring a basic orderly life behind the walls, they did not refrain from implementing
measures
against
the
Jewish
population
that
seriously
weakened the ghetto’s viability. The three principal means by which
German agencies added to deprivation were (1) confiscatory acts eroding the ghetto’s ability to export products through legal or illegal channels, (2) labor exploitation, whereby outside employers could increase their profits at the expense of Jewish wages, and (3) food embargoes,
which made it impossibl
e for the ghettos to convert the proceeds of
exports into effective purchasing power for the acquisition of bread,
thereby forcing many individual Jews to buy black-market food at
much higher prices.
The Jewish councils on their part attempted to surmount every
reversal, but they were playing a determined game in that the German
agencies, which had originally created the problem, were ultimately in
control of the solutions. The councils were thus enmeshed in a dilemma from which they could no longer extricate themselves: they could not serve the Jewish people without automatically enforcing the
German will. Jewry, without weapons, clung only to hope. “The Jews,”
said Auerswald, “are waiting for the end of the war and in the meantime conduct themselves quietly. There has been no sign of any resistance spirit to date.”16*
CONFISCATIONS
In the Reich-Protektorat area the expropriations preceded the concentration process. Insofar as any sequence of steps is recognizable, the bureaucracy thought first of expropriations and only later of ghettoization measures. The opposite was true in Poland. The destruction process
was
introduced
into
Poland
with
the
elaborate
Heydrich
166. Czemiakôw to Transferstelle, January 8, 1941, and Mohns to Leisl, January
II, 1941, Yad Vashem microfilm JM 1113. In his letter Czemiakôw mentioned a daily
income of twenty thousand zloty and daily expenses of forty to fifty thousand zloty. The
total debt was two million zloty.
167. Auerswald to Deputy of the Plenipotentiary of the Generalgouvemeur, Dr. von
Medeazza, in Berlin, November 24, 1941, Yad Vashem microfilm JM 1112.
168. Ibid.
239
CONCENTRATION
concentration plan. This plan became the focal point of anti-Jewish
action in the Polish territories, and expropriatory measures were conceived and carried out in terms of the ghettoization process. They were a part of the institution of the ghetto.
The confiscation
of
property,
conscription of
labor, and deprivation of food were administrative operations on an elaborate scale.
In Germany the gains from property expropriations far outweighed the
proceeds from labor and food measures, for the Jewish community in
Germany had a great deal of capital but relatively few people. In Poland the situation was reversed. The Polish Jewish community had little wealth, but its acquisition was not going to be neglected. In fact,
the confiscatory process caused jurisdictional disputes among agencies
interested not only in the property but also in the preservation or
aggrandizement of their powers.
The first
problem
arose
when
Goring
decided to
do
all the
confiscating in Poland. For this purpose he set up the Main Trusteeship
Office East (Haupttreuhandstelle Ost), which had its headquarters in
Berlin, in the Office of the Four-Year Plan.169 The Main Trusteeship Office
East immediately set up branches in Danzig (Reichsgau Danzig-West
Prussia),
Poznan
(Wartheland),
Ciechandw
(East
Prussia),
Katowice
(Silesia), and Krakdw (GeneraJgouvemement). The head of the Main
Trusteeship office was the retired Burgermeister Max Winkler.1™
The creation of an office with headquarters in Berlin and competence in the Generalgouvemement was a violation of Frank’s sacred rule of the unity of administration. It was an act of hineinregieren
(“reigning into” his territorial sphere) and therefore intolerable. Accordingly, Frank countered the Gdring move by setting up his own trusteeship
office
under
Ministerialrat
Dr.
Plodeck.'’'
Goring
decided
not to make an issue of the matter.1™ Henceforth there were two
trusteeship offices in Poland: one under Winkler, with jurisdiction in
the incorporated territories; the other under Plodeck, with functions in
the Generalgouvemement. It goes without saying that neither of these
offices bought anything. The trusteeship offices confiscated property
169. Announcement (signed Goring), November 1, 1939, Deutscher Reichsanzeiger und Preussischer Staatsanzeiger, No. 260.
170. Ibid. Winkler had previously been the Reich's Chief Trustee. Affidavit by
Winkler, September 9,1947, Nl-10727.
171. The office was set up on November 15, two weeks after the establishment of
the Main Trusteeship Office East. See Plodeck, "Die Tteuhandverwaltung im Generalgouvemement," in du Prel. ed.. Das Generalgouvemement (Würzburg, 1942), pp. 110— 172
172. Testimony by Buhler (Staatssekretär, Generalgouvemement), in Trial of the
Major War Criminals. XII, 67.
240
POLAND
and sold it to interested buyers in accordance with certain priority
criteria. The proceeds from such sales in the incorporated territories
accrued to the Reich, while the profit in the Generalgouvernement was
retained by the Kraköw administration.
To pave the way for smooth and efficient confiscations, both offices
took certain preliminary steps. In the incorporated territories only one
such measure was enacted: the decree of September 17, 1940, signed
by Goring, for the sequestration of Jewish property. The object of that
decree was to prohibit the owners of sequestered property to dispose
of it in any way.1’*
The administration of the Generalgouvernement was more elaborate in its preparatory work. By November 1939 the chief of the Foreign Currency and Trade Division of the Generalgouvernement had
ordered all Jewish deposits and accounts in banks to be blocked. The
Jewish depositor was permitted to withdraw only 250 zloty (RM 125, or
$50) weekly, or a larger amount if needed for the upkeep of his business. At the same time, Jews had to deposit all cash reserves in excess of 2,000 zloty (RM 1,000, or $400), while debtors of Jews had to make
all payments in excess of 500 zloty (RM 250, or $100) into the blocked
account.1’* Needless to say, this measure discouraged the sale of Jewish
property. The discouragement was turned into a prohibition with the
sequestration decree of January 24, 1940, signed by Generalgouverneur Frank.'” On the same day the Generalgouvernement administration enacted a registration
decree. This
measure,
unlike the Reich
decree of April 26, 1938, required the registration of all kinds of property, including even clothes, cooking utensils, furniture, and jewelry.
Moreover, no allowances were made for small amounts.1”
The actual confiscatory process was divided into three phases. At
first, the confiscations were confined to skimming off the cream. It was
during this phase that the trusteeship offices and some of their unauthorized
competitors
plundered
warehouses
and
requisitioned
fine
homes.'” The second phase, which was pivotal and crucial, was tied to
ghettoization.
As the Jews moved into the ghetto, they left most of their property
behind. This “abandoned" property was
confiscated. It can readily be 173 174 175 176 177
173. RGBl 1, 1270. The decree was a trifle late.
174. Krakauer Zeitung. November 26-27, 1939, Wirtschafts-Kurier page. See also
draft directive by OKH/GenQu/Z(W), mid-September, 1939, Wi/1.121.
175. Verordnungsblatt des Generalgouverneurs I, 1940, p. 23.
176. Ibid., p. 31.
177. For unauthorized competition, see letter by Brigadefllhrer Schäfer to L6d2
press, January 17,1940, Dokumente i materialy, vol. 3, pp. 63-64. Schäfer authorized the
Jews to demand official papers from requisitioners and to call the police if necessary.
241
CONCENTRATION
understood now that the choice of the ghetto location was of utmost
importance to the success of the operation. As a rule, the preferred
ghetto site was a slum, for in that way the better houses, apartments,
and furniture were left behind. But this solution also had its difficulties,
because the slums were often filled with warehouses and factories.
Thus it was discovered during the formation of the L6d2 ghetto that the
largest textile warehouses lay within the proposed ghetto boundaries.
Naturally, the local merchants were disturbed. “It could hardly have
been intended," wrote one of these commercial men, “to leave these
enormous values in the ghetto district. So far as at all possible, these
things will have to be seized and stored in yards outside the ghetto.”178 179 180
Almost equally important were the sudden and precise (schlagariige)
moving schedules, which were designed to stun the Jews into leaving
most of their movables behind. The Jews were given no time to prepare
for the transport of all their possessions into the ghetto, and they did
not have time to find adequate storage space in the overcrowded ghetto
districts.175
During the third phase of the confiscations, the trusteeship offices
reached into the ghettos to administer property or to haul out valuables.
This
phase
was
not
very
productive,
because
the
agencies
looked upon the ghettos as transitory institutions. It was obviously
easier to seize everything upon the liquidation of the ghettos than to
search them for hidden property. That is why we shall have to say
something more about the confiscations in the deportation chapter.1*
Undoubtedly, the most interesting part of the confiscatory process