by The Destruction of the European Jews, Vol. 1-3 (Third Edition) Yale University Press (2003) (pdf)
Generalstabes, October 15, 1942, NOKW-132.
233. Haider diary, February 5, 1940, and February 24, 1940, NOKW-3140.
252
POLAND
In the course of further planning the Himmler line was trimmed a
bit. The ditch was confined to the Bug-San gap, a stretch of territory
without a river to hold up a Red advance. The project required the
employment not of millions of Jews, as originally envisaged, but only
of a few thousand. Labor camps were set up at Bettec, Ptaszdw and a
few other locations. By October 1940 the project was nearing its end.““
However, the Himmler line was only the beginning. The Lublin
district administration launched a major river-regulation and canalization project that used 10,000 Jews in forty-five camps (overall director, Regierungsbaurat
Haller).“5
In
the
Warsaw
district
a
similar
land-
restoration program was started in 1941. About 25,000 Jews were required for that project.25* In the incorporated territories labor camps dotted the landscape of Upper Silesia. The largest Silesian camp was
Markstadt. It had 3,000 Jewish inmates.227 The Warthegau too had big
plans for the “outside employment” (Ausseneinsatz) of Jews, and in
1940 camps were set up in Pabianice and Lowenstadt.iJ!
At first the inmates of camps were used only in outdoor projects
such as digging antitank ditches, canalization and river regulation, road
and railroad construction, and so on. Later on, industrial enterprises
moved into some of the camps, and camps were built near major
plants. Camp labor thus became a permanent institution, no longer
dependent
on
projects.
What
effect
the
industrialization
of
Jewish
labor had on the deportations will be discussed in a following chapter.
Like the labor columns, Jewish camp workers were recruited by
the Judenrate.2” The camp groups were furnished complete with Jewish
“supervisors”
(Aufseher)
and
"group
leaders”
(Judengruppen-
fiihrer). Furthermore, the proper behavior of the forced laborer was
insured by keeping a record of the family members he left behind. In 234 * 236 237 238 239
234,
Gouverneur of Lubtin/lnterior Division/Population and Welfare to Generalgouvernement Main Division Interior/Population and Welfare (attention Dr. Föhl), October 21, 1940. Dokumenty i materiaty, vol. l,pp. 220-21.
23J. Krakauer Zeitung, December 17, 1940. Generalgouvernement page. These
Jews were working eight to ten hours a day, standing without boots up to their knees in
water infested by leeches. Report by Warsaw Judenrat/Referat Arbeitslager, end of 1940,
in Jüdisches Historisches Institut, Faschismus-Gelto-Massenmord, pp. 218-20. Warsaw
Jews were sent to Lublin.
236. Krakauer Zeitung, April 18, 1941, p. 5.
237. Affidavit by Rudolf Schönberg (Jewish survivor), July 21, 1946, PS-4071.
238. Office of the Regierungspräsident in L6di (signed Regierungsrat von Herder)
to Gettoverwaltung in L6di, October 28, 1940, enclosing summary of conference held
under chairmanship of Moser on October 18. 1940. Dokumenty i materiaty. vol. 3, pp.
102-4.
239. Entries by Czemiakdw, September 6 and 28, 1940, in Hilberg, Staron, and
Kermisz, eds., Warsaw Diary, pp. 194, 202.
253
CONCENTRATION
conformity
with
this
hostage
policy,
the
German
administration
in
L6d2 decided that “out-employment” would be reserved primarily for
heads of families.240 241 242 243 244 Consequently it was not necessary to divert large
police forces for the guarding of the camps and of the Jewish work
parties. The meager SS and Police regulars were supplemented by
ethnic German police auxiliaries,241 hired guards of the Wach- und
Schliessgesellschaft
(Watchmen’s
Association),242
SA
men,
army
men,
members of the Organisation Todt (the Reich agency in charge of construction),245 and Polish work foremen.244
The cost of the labor camps was very low. Their sanitary facilities
were
“naturally
quite
primitive"
(natürlich
ziemlich
primitiv l-245
Men
slept in crowded quarters on hard floors. No clothes were issued. Food
in some camps was supplied by the nearest Judenrat and in other camps
by the civil administration, but the chief ingredients of the workers’
diet
were
only
bread, watery
soup,
potatoes,
margarine,
and meat
leftovers.246 247 Working from dawn to dusk seven days a week, the Jews
were driven to collapse. A survivor reports that even small camps,
with no more than 400 to 500 inmates, had approximately twelve dead
every day.242
The financial aspects of the camps were not very complicated.
Reich agencies were not required to pay any wages, and public employers were therefore free to exploit their Jewish workers without limit. Private enterprises were not “entitled” to Jewish labor. In the
240. Von Herder to Gettoverwaltung, October 28, 1940, enclosing conference summary of October 18,1940. Dokumenly i materiaty, vol. 3, pp. 102-4. The conference was attended by Regierungsvizepräsident Dr. Moser, Regierungsrat Baur, Polizeipräsident
Albert, Bürgermeister Dr. Marder, Dr. Moldenhauer, Chief of Gettoverwaltung Biebow
and Regierungsrat von Herder.
241. Krakauer Zeiiung, December 17, 1940. Generalgouvernement page. Ethnic
German auxiliaries in the Generalgouvemment were organized into the Selbstschutz
(self-defense force), placed under the command of the BdO (Order Police), and the
Sonderdienst (Special Service), originally controlled by the Kreishauptmänner but later
taken overby the commander of the Order Police, ibid., May 21, 1940, August 16, 1940,
April 9, 1941, Generalgouvernement page; Frank diary, PS-2233. The Himmler line project was guarded in part by the Sonderkommando Dirlewanger, a special SS unit composed of unreliables. Globocnik to Berger. August 5, 1941, NO-2921.
242. Labor Ministry memorandum, May 9, 1941, NG-1368.
243. Affidavit by Schönberg (survivor), July 21, 1946, PS-4071.
244. Krakauer Zeitung, December 17, 1940, Generalgouvernement page.
245. Report for August 1940 by Kreishauptmann Weihenmaier of ZamoSC (Lublin
district), September 10, 1940, Yad Vashem microfilm JM 814.
246. Report of inspection trip to Betzec by Major Braune-Krikau (Oberfeldkommandantur 379), September 23, 1940, T 501, roll 213. The food supplier in this camp was the Judenrat of Lublin.
247. Affidavit by Schönberg, July 21, 1946, PS-4071.
254
POLAND
Generalgouvernement private firms did not enter into the labor camps
before 1942. In the incorporated territories the Reich Labor Trustees
(one in each Reichsgau) directed the enterp
rises to pay wages, at rates
considerably lower than prevailing wages for German workers. However, not even the reduced wage was paid wholly to the Jewish camp inmate; the bulk of the money was kept by the regional offices of the
Reich for the “upkeep” of the camps. As a rule, the Reichsstatthalter
and Oberprasident could make a profit in the transaction.’“
Because camp labor was so cheap, it did not always occur to the
bureaucracy to return Jewish workers to their ghettos at the conclusion
of a project. Many a Jewish camp laborer never saw his community
again. When he was no longer needed in one camp, he was simply
shifted to another. A report by a local Lublin official revealed the
attitude of the bureaucracy toward Jewish camp labor. In October 1940
the Betzec labor camp was broken up. Thousands of Jews were to be
sent elsewhere. One train left with 920 Jews for the town of Hrubies-
zdw, but the official who reported the matter did not even know
whether the guards were SS men or members of the ethnic German
auxiliary, the Selbstschutz. When the train arrived in Hrubieszdw, only
500 Jews were aboard; the other 400 were missing. “Since they could
not very well have been shot in such large numbers,” wrote this
official, "I have heard suspicions that perhaps these Jews had been
released against payment of some kind of money.” The second train,
carrying another 900 Jews, he continued, had arrived in Radom intact.
Many of the Jews on the second train were Lublin residents. It would
be very difficult, he concluded, to get them back.’*’
The labor exploitation regime in Poland consisted of three parts;
(1) the forced labor columns, which were only a makeshift device but
which persisted because of their low cost; (2) the labor camps, which
were an offshoot of the labor columns but which soon overshadowed
the columns in importance; and (3) the ghetto labor system.
Essentially, there were two kinds of ghetto labor utilization; the
municipal
workshop
system
and
employment
by
private
enterprises.
Municipal workshops, the prevalent form of ghetto employment, were
actually run by the Judenrate under the close supervision of the control
organs. The
largest
workshop ghetto, in
L6di, maintained its own
railroad station at Radegast, from which seventy to ninety loaded cars 248 249
248. For detailed regulations by the labor trustees, see the Labor Ministry
memorandum of May 9, 1941, NO-1368.
249. Gouvemeur of Lublin/Interior Division/Population and Welfare to General-
gouvemement, Main Division Interior/Population and Welfare, attention Dr. F6hl, October 21. 1940, Dokumenty i maUriafy. vol. 1, pp. 220-21.
255
CONCENTRATION
were dispatched every day.2” Cheap fabrication of every sort (billige
Fertigung jeder Art) was being obtained there in exchange for a prison
diet
and
the
simplest
conceivable
life
style
(denkbar
einfachsten
Lebensführung). On this basis the ghetto was earning its keep and
returning to the city a profit that was “not to be underestimated” (einen
nicht zu unterschätzenden wirtschaftlichen Gewinn) by the end of
1941.
Private
enterprises
wishing
to
avail
themselves
of
ghetto
labor
could also expect their production costs to be greatly reduced. In fact,
as the director of the Warsaw Transferstelle Bischof noted in one of his
monthly reports, wages were of “minor significance” (geringer Bedeutung).211 German firms did not, however, rush into the ghettos. The history of the industrialization of the Warsaw ghetto reveals a slow
development, beginning from ground zero and accelerating only in the
spring and summer of 1942. The effort to increase manufacturing in the
ghetto was hampered by a variety of recurring problems, including
interruptions in the flow of electricity, relocations due to boundary
changes, or requisitions by the Armament Command in Warsaw—not
to speak of the hunger of the work force, which Bischof attempted to
alleviate (in the case of armament firms and important export enterprises) by allotments of additional rations in the factories.“5 Bischof avidly
recruited
German
and
ethnic
German
firms,
among
them
Walther
Többens,
Schultz
&
Co.,
Waldemar
Schmidt,
and
Astra
Werke, and evidently realizing the limit of his success, he also encouraged Jewish capitalism. Jewish tax delinquencies were forgiven,"*
and funds for investment were released from blocked accounts,“5 with
the result that the volume of production of Jewish companies was
ultimately much larger than the output of German shops.250 251 252 253 254 255 256 Much to his
chagrin, however, Jewish enterprises were trading with Polish firms on
250. Memorandum by Technischer KriegsverwaJtungsiniendam Merkel on conversation with Biebow, March 18, 1941, Wi/ID 1.40.
251. Report by RQstungsinspektion XXI, covering October 1, 1940, to December
31, 1941, pt. 2, pp. 33-34 Wi/ID 1.20. The first deportations from tddi began in January
1942, but the ghetto continued until the summer of 1944.
252. Report by Bischof to Auerswald for April 1942, dated May S, 1942, Yad
Vashem microfilm JM 1112.
253. See Bischof's monthly reports in JM 1112.
254. See Bischof's report for November 1941, JM 1112.
255. Proclamation by the Kommissar für den jüdischen Wohnbezirk (signed Auerswald). August I. 1941, Amtlicher Anzeiger für das Generalgouvernement. 1941,p. 1329.
Private Jewish firms operated not only in the Warsaw ghetto. See letter by Jewish
Kultusgemeinde/Office of the President In Sosnowlec, Upper Silesia, to David Passermann Füllfeder-Reparaturwerkstatt Sosnowitz, March 21. 1941, in Natan Eliasz Sztemfinkel, Zagtada Zyddw Sosnowca (Katowice, 1946), pp. 63-64.
256. See Bischofs monthly reports for July and August 1942, Yad Vashem
microfilm JM 1112.
256
POLAND
the black market. Bischof attempted to remove the incentives for this
traffic by urging the price control office to agree to “sensible" (vernünftige)—that is to say, higher—prices,“’ but the Warsaw price supervisor, Dr. Meisen, decided after pondering the question not to make concessions.
Proposed
prices
in
contracts
were
really
“indefensible”
(unvertretbar), Meisen reported, and therefore had to be voided. Although he could recognize the interest of German agencies “in the smoothest and least financially burdensome maintenance of the Jewish
district until its possible liquidation,” he had to consider the political
importance of upholding the price structure.“* Bischof did not curb the
black market, and therefore he
could not harness the total production
of the ghetto, as the Gettoverwaltung in L6dl had done, for the maximization of German gains, but like his colleagues in L6 di he could always neglect to send enough food and fuel into the ghetto, thus
constraining his costs. To the Jewish population suffering from this
officially imposed privation, the black market offered little salvation.
Dealers in smuggled goods are rarely philanthropists.
Given a mixture of legal and illegal transactions, there was but one
overall measure of economic activity: the number of employees. When
Bischof arrived in Warsaw, he heard Auerswald admit to Gouverneur
Fischer that only 170 Jews were working on outside contracts (öffentliche Aufträge).1” In September 1941, barely 34,000 persons were “economically active” (9,000 of them as clerks for the community or its affiliated organizations),*“ but by July 11, 1942, the work force had
risen to 95,000,“' an employment rate that was nearing 50 percent. To
be sure, this figure, which represented the theoretical subsistence level
envisaged by the Generalgouvernement economists, was attained only
during
the
month
that
the
deportation
of
the
ghetto’s
population
began.
Labor utilization in the workshop ghettos was more stringent than
in the free enterprise atmosphere of Warsaw. In L6di, for example, the
“Eldest of the Jews,” Rumkowski, was empowered to “recruit all Jews
for unpaid labor."“2 In Opole regimentation was carried so far that the 257 258 259 260 261 262
257. See Bischofs report for December 1941 and January 7, 1942, JM 1112.
258. Meisen (Warsaw district Ami für Preisverwaitung) to Oberregiemngsrat Dr.
Schulte·Wissermann (Ami für Preisbildung) in Staatssekretariat, Generalgouvernement,
April 4, 1942, enclosing report for March, JM 1112.
259. Memorandum by Bischof on meeting with Fischer, May 8, 1941, JM 1112.
260. Table in Emanuel Ringelblum, Polish-Jewish Relations During the Second
World War, ed. Josef Kermisz and Shmuel Krakowski (New York, 1976), footnote on pp.
71-72.
261. Czemiaköw’s entry for that date, in Hilberg, Staron, and Kermisz, eds„ Warsaw Diary, p. 378.
262. Office of the Oberbürgermeister (signed Schiffer) to Rumkowski, April 30,
1940, Dokumenty i maleriafy, vol. 3, pp. 74-75.
257
CONCENTRATION
entire
Jewish
population
was
divided
into
labor-oriented