Holocaust Ghettos – Siedlce!

The Siedlce Ghetto

 

German Soldier poses behind an Elderly Jew in Siedlce

Siedlce was occupied by German troops on 10 October 1939. Before WW2 around 50% of the town’s 30,000 inhabitants were Jewish. A few days after the Nazis had occupied the city, on 15 November 1939, they began to arrest Jews.

 

After gathering them together in a prison, the following day they were marched to Wegrow. There, during the night, around 50 of those arrested managed to escape from the market square, including Hercel Kave and his father. The others were conducted to Ostroleka.

From the beginning of the occupation, the Germans turned their entire propaganda machinery on Polish society in order to justify their murdering of the Jews. For this purpose they made use of posters with texts such as “Typhus, spotted fever, is one of the most dangerous of diseases, often fatal. Typhus is very contagious and therefore it can spread quickly and easily into serious epidemics. In the Generalgouvernement it is widespread, particularly amongst the Jews.”

 

On Jewish holydays German soldiers entered synagogues, beat the Jews who were praying there, tore off their liturgical garments, and fired at those who tried to escape by jumping out of windows. Josef Rubin died thus, on the seventh day of Sukkot.

 

From the beginning of the occupation the Germans plundered Jewish shops and homes. At the end of November 1939, soldiers entered the synagogue and the Beit Hamidrash (House of Prayer), and threw out the Torah scrolls. In a frenzy of hatred they ripped them apart and trampled on them.

 

During the night of the 24 – 25 December 1939, the Nazis set fire to the synagogue, homeless Jewish refugees who were inside died in the fire.

 

At the end of November 1939, the Germans ordered the formation of a Jewish Council – the Judenrat. It included: Icchak Nachum Weintraub – chairman; Hersz Eisenberg – deputy-chairman; Herszl Tenenbaum – secretary, responsible for liaison with the Gestapo; Dr Henryk Loebel – health division; M. Czarnobroda – treasurer; M. Rotbejn – employment division; J. Landau, lawyer – social assistance; A. Altenberg – supplies division; L. Grinberg – legal assistance; R. Leiter – general matters.

 

Ogrodawa Street in Siedlce

There were 25 Judenrat members in all. “The members of the Jewish Council were, in general, recognized Jewish leaders, to whom the Nazis gave enormous power until the moment when they, too, were deported.”

 

The Council managed Jewish property and manpower, and drew up “transport lists” (lists of persons destined for extermination camps). A Jewish police force kept order, wearing as insignia caps of office, nightsticks, and special armbands with the inscription “Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst“. There were around 50 of them. Gewisser stood at their head. There was also the Sanitätsdienst – the Sanitation Service. Its purpose was to maintain cleanliness in the apartments, courtyards, and streets of the Jewish quarters.

 

After the closed ghetto was instituted, the functionaries of the Sanitation Service became part of the Health Division of the Jewish Council. In addition to their previous duties, its members were ordered to assign living quarters for Jews who moved to the already overcrowded ghetto. The Judenrat also had an employment office (Arbeitsamt), whose director was Izrael Friedman.

The chairman of the Siedlce Judenrat was a man of already advanced age: Weintraub who was a worthy local social and political activist. For many years he had been at the head of the Zionist movement and the religious community. He kept a diary in which he recorded the important events of the town, as well as stories, told to him by Jewish elders.

Blurred photo of German troops at Siedlce Station

Unfortunately nearly all these writings have been destroyed. What has been saved is only that which he had published in the press in the interwar period. The function of chairman of the Judenrat was filled not by Weintraub, but by Dr Henryk Loebel. Emil Karpinski remembers that “people fought each other, literally fought, gave bribes, and used every possible means to get a position in the Judenrat or the Jewish police.”

By December 1939, the Judenrat was already ordered to make a “contribution” of 20,000 zlotys. In 1940, from spring to winter, the Siedlce Jews were used for land reclamation work on the Liwiec River. Workers, divided into 15 person groups, worked under Polish direction.

 

The Germans had overall supervision of the labour, and the workers were supervised by SS-men, who controlled the progress of the work. Around 1,500 Jews left the ghetto every day and went to the jobs to which they had been assigned.

 

In April 1940, the Germans carried out the registration of all Jewish men between 16 and 60 years of age, and in November 1940 a census of Jewish people was conducted for those streets on which they were most numerous.

 

Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ghettos/siedlce.html

The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

http://www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009