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[Page 691]
After we had brought the memoirs and the eye-witness accounts of those who went through the dark Nazi hell; after the research work about the Hitlerist bestiality, we found it to be both proper and important to include an array of documents, which complement even further, and more starkly this dark time. |
The Leader of the ‘Judenrat’ Tells…
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The following detailed account was written by Mieczyslaw Garfinkel. He completed it, as we see at the end of this work, in December 1947.This wide-ranging account, consisting of 46 typewritten pages in Polish, with a supplement of 6 pages about the ‘Jewish Help Committee,’ was sent to us from the archive of the Yiddish Scientific Institute – YIVO, in New York.
There exists an entire range of writing about the character of the former ‘Judenrat Leader’ M. Garfinkel, by former residents in the Zamość ghetto, and after living through a variety of experiences in camps and other places of torture, he remained alive. Our assessment is, that as a former head of a ‘Judenrat,’ that M. Garfinkel has whitewashed his testimony a great deal, especially concerning those details which have a direct bearing on the activity of the ‘Judenrat’ in general, and to his role in particular.
The testimony has, however, data and facts that are important beyond measure, about the time of the Nazi hegemony in Zamość; about the general condition of the Jewish community there, and the circumstances of their lives. We have before us, an especially stark portrait of the Zamość community up to the time it was cut down. We provide the testimony verbatim, as it was written, without abbreviation.
That which Memek Garfinkel chooses to remain silent about in his testimony, is dealt with in the testimony of those who survived in this, or another manner. Their writings are found elsewhere in this Pinkas.
Garfinkel Mieczyslaw
Born 11 May 1898 in Zamość .
Lawyer.
In the time of the (German) Occupation, Leader of the Jewish Help Committee in the Zamość Powiat, from December 13, 1939. Also Leader of the ‘Judenrat’ in Zamość from February 1940.
A widower – his wife was killed in Oswiecim on 24 January 1944.
On September 1, 1939, Zamość counted approximately 12,000 Jews [in its midst]. The composition of the Jewish population, more or less, was like that in the usual Polish district city. In Zamość , several tens of Jewish intellectuals could be found: physicians, lawyers, teachers (there was a Jewish Gymnasium in the city), and there were a few large-scale merchants and industrialists, a significantly visible number of Jewish manual tradespeople; – the majority, however, were of a small business element, so called ‘luftmenschen,’ there was also a not-so-large number of proletarians.
Zamość was taken by the Germans on Wednesday, September 13, 1939. Before the Germans entered the city, there were two air attacks, during which somewhat less than 30 demolition bombs were dropped, but a rather large number of incendiary bombs were dropped. The bombs fell in the neighborhood which was inhabited by the poorer Jewish element. There was, at that time, up to about 500 victims among the Jewish populace.
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The Germans then remained in Zamość until September 26, 1939. On that day, on the strength of the understanding with the Soviet Union, they drew back to the rear of Lublin. Zamość went over to the Russians. This time (the first Nazi occupation) went by without any specific anti-Semitic actions. The Germans made an effort to take a large number of hostages, Poles as well as Jews, approximately 1500 men. The hostages were tortured and beaten, but all remained alive. With the entry of the Russians, the Jews breathed more freely. However, by the end of September, it became known that the Russians were withdrawing to the other side of the Bug, and Zamość, once again, would go over to the Germans.
This specific news elicited a greatly panicked reaction among the Jewish populace. Anticipating the later misfortunes, the Jews, en masse, began to prepare themselves to leave the city, together with the Russians. This is especially so, in light of the fact that the Soviet military authorities were willing to offer assistance those who wanted to leave Zamość, providing their transport resources. Approximately seven to eight thousand Jews then left Zamość along with the Russians. Regrettably, the majority of them stopped in the territory of the so-called Western Ukraine, and later, when the war (between Germany and the Soviet Union) broke out later in the year 1941, and these territories were taken in by Germany, they shared in the same fate as the local Jewish populace. A small fraction of these 7000-8000 Jews saved themselves, and only those who either voluntarily, or by being forced, found themselves in distant areas of the Soviet Union.
The Germans entered Zamość for the second time in October 7, 1939. Approximately one third of the Jewish population remained in the city. These Jewish live through awesome terror, anticipating excesses from the underworld, who intended, and had the means to perpetrate during the transition time from one authority to the other. It was related from a variety of circles, that ‘something’ was being prepared for the Jews; that an accounting would be made because of the fact that they fled with the ‘Soviets.’ The situation was very bad, also because of the fact that the municipal government categorically rejected the proposal of a variety of Jewish circles, that a mixed Jewish-Polish militia should be established for the interregnum period. The municipal government's motivation (for rejection) was motivated by the fact that the Germans, who were slated to take over the city, would not react positively to such an initiative. Fortunately, the fear turned out to be groundless, and the transition of the city from Soviet hands to the Germans took place peacefully. Despite this, from the first moment on, the Jews began to feel what it means to be under German occupation.
Immediately after the city was taken, the seizure of Jews for labor began. This seizure had a mass character to it, and was done in an unorganized fashion, such that the Jews did not show themselves in the streets, and hid themselves in their houses. At the same time, pogroms began against Jewish businesses. German soldiers did this – Polish youth indicated which of the businesses were Jewish, who then utilized this opportunity for their purposes of plunder. Seeing no Jews in the streets, the German soldiers began to break into the Jewish houses, and would drag the Jews out for a variety of labor , or to serve them. The circumstances that were created elicited the thought among a portion of the prominent members of the Jewish community, that the (German) military commander of the city should be approached, with the proposal about normalizing the current relationships. What emerged was, that the Jewish community took on the obligation to provide the necessary number of workers – this entailed several tens of workers – under the condition that seizure by soldiers would cease. An order going out, that prohibited the robbing of Jewish businesses, was also achieved.
After a set period of time, approximately in the beginning of November 1930,[1] The German civilian authority and the Gestapo arrived in Zamość. Shortly thereafter, 8 Jews, myself among them, as one of the remaining intellectuals in the city, were summoned to the Burgomaster of the city, who declared to us that in accordance with the order from the Gestapo, we will be the Council of Elders for the Jews of Zamość.
This Council of Elders must represent the Jewish interests to the German authorities, and first and foremost, must pay attention to assure that the Jews fulfil all the demands and orders that the German authorities will issue. All my pleas and attempts to get myself out of this [obligation] were of no avail.
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It was in this fashion, more or less, that we began our positions in the house of the Jewish community, apart from the day-to-day obligation of providing Jewish workers (for the Germans), the number of which continuously grew, reaching the level of between 500-600 workers daily, and began to demand of us continuously newer and newer taxes.
First came the official letter from the military commandant, Major Harm, with the demand to pay to his hand ten thousand zlotys as a partial cover for the losses incurred by the war, which was provoked by the Jews. Regrettably, this specific letter, which was under guard among other documents in the community house, was lost. This sum was collected by the Council of Elders from among themselves, with the help of a number of other Jews with means, not throwing this burden on the rest of the Jewish population.
In a few days later, we were summoned to the German City Elder, a certain Weichenmeyer, born in Stuttgart. This character, after berating us in the foulest language, and yelling at us, finally demanded that we pay the treasury of the Zamość city administration the sum of 75 thousand zlotys. As I later learned, this idea had been submitted (to the Germans) by the onetime Burgomaster of the city, Mikhl Wasowski. This sum was supposed to go towards the assistance of Polish repatriates, who coursed through Zamość en masse. These repatriated individuals went over to the Germans from the Soviet zone. We were compelled to raise this sum from among the widest circles of the Jewish populace. Almost this entire sum (73 thousand zlotys), I personally paid into the treasury of the Magistrate of Zamość, from which I obtained a receipt.
Apart from this, we were continuously pressed fro a variety of demands, also other locations, which were designated by the German employees, for German officers. We also had to provision these locations with beds, bed appurtenances, linens, furniture, etc.
In 2-3 days after the payment was made to the Magistrate in the previously mentioned amount, we were called to the Gestapo for the first time.
The Chief of the Gestapo was then the Sturmbannfuhrer Block, from Vienna. After his transfer from Zamość, he became Chief of the Gestapo in Borislav.
The previously mentioned Block in the presence of an interpreter, a certain Bernardt (who came from Silesia), red to us a complete listing of Jewish sins and crimes – the greatest accusation was, that we were the ones who caused the war. Afterwards, he gave us a prepared protocol to endorse, where the ‘good relationship’ of the controlling German powers towards the Jews of Zamość is specifically established, and where it is specifically established that the Jews of Zamość have not yet paid any contributions at all to this date.
Ending this so-called official part of the audience, and after extracting signatures from us by force, he declared:
‘Listen with care to what I will say at the end, and this is even more important (that the signed protocol). You Jews must carry out everything that we demand of you; provide us with everything that we will request, and you will live as long as we do and as long as it is good for us.’
In this time, the population of the city increased, because the Jews from the surrounding towns and villages began to arrive in Zamość en masse. Conditions there were even worse. Already, in the time before centralized ghettoes were being organized, the larger Jewish centers, drew to themselves like a magnet, that Jewish populace, which was scattered and spread out among the smaller settlements. In concert with this, the problem of employing and providing for a large number of the impoverished Jews surfaced. These people obtained employment at the German works, and thereby, from the first minute, it was established that it was the Jewish community that paid for this work. The financial means to do so were obtained in the following manner. We implemented compulsory labor for the entire Jewish population from 14-60 years of age, without regard to gender – 2 days a week. The better-situated Jews, the traders or those who were occupied in their crafts, could pay to the community treasury a sum equivalent to the daily tariff for a worker. With these (buyout) funds we could pay those Jewish workers who, having no other means of making a living, would willingly present themselves to work for the Germans.
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The Germans paid nothing for the work. In time, specific work places crystallized themselves, where the Jews worked willingly, especially for the ‘Wehrmacht’ (The military troops). Relatively speaking, there was a more human treatment there, and also there, from time-to-time, one could get small gifts of food.
The one who followed up for the previously mentioned commandant Harm, was Captain Paul Wagner, and older man, a manufacturer from Chemnitz, a quiet man and by comparison, steady. It was arranged with him, that every day, the German military workplaces who needed workers, were to provide him with the requisite lists. He would then send those lists to the community. His two subordinate officers engaged in escorting the work groups, as well as the member of the ‘Senior Council’ Azriel Sheps, a tailor by trade, a community activist in the pre-war years. This (escorting to work) would take place each day at 6 o'clock in the morning, in front of the building of the ‘Oberkomendatur,’ From that time on, the Jews could peaceably show themselves in the city, and occupy themselves with their means of livelihood, because the seizures ceased.
This situation persisted until May 1940, when the matter of the provisioning of workers and allocation of Jewish workers was taken over by the local division of the SS with its leader, the Sturmbannfuhrer Major Fritz in command:
At the end of November, or the beginning of December 1939, the Gestapo in Zamość ordered that the entire Jewish population from 12 years of age and up, should put on a band of yellow color on their right arms, with a Magen David of blue color. The armbands were required to be 10 centimeters wide.
In several weeks later, this order was modified – the armbands were required to be white ones.
With the donning of the armbands, a new sort of trouble began: the Germans would detain the Jews in the streets, and beat them on the pretense that they did not show them proper respect, or having doffed their hats too late. Along with the compulsion to wear armbands, an order was also issued that the Jews needed to take off their hats for each German. Thanks to the strenuous efforts of the ‘Eldest Council’ the order requiring that hats be taken off, was removed by the military commandant Wagner, after consultations that were held with the Landart – the German Senior in the Gestapo, who was against annulling the order from the outset.
At the beginning of December 1939. I was called to the German City Elder, who declared to me, that a transport of Jews had to arrive in Zamość who are being evacuated from Warthegau.[2] In connection with this, he demanded of me that I form a Help Committee, which should undertake the settlement of these people. He send to me, the local chief of the NSV – (National-Socialistische Volkswohlvert) – a specific party-designate Schultz. This individual declared to me that the Help Committee which will be created will have to be subordinate to him; that he will have to provide monthly accountings of its activities. At my request and demand, he promised me help in connection with this issue. And, in fact, initially he provided us with a field kitchen. I thought that the first mission would have to be to provide a means to feed all those who would be arriving.
On December 18, 1939, at night. I received a representation from the German City Elder, that tomorrow, a transport of Jews was arriving from Wloclawek. Together with the organized Help Committee, we were at the train station already before dawn, where indeed, the transport of Jews arrived in sealed freight cars. These were, indeed, Jews from Wloclawek in the amount of 500 persons, who had been traveling for approximately a week's time, without sustenance, and we had to immediately step up to arrange for these people coming off the train wagons, giving them first of all, some sustenance, and first of all water to drink, which they did not have for the entire journey.
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The German official authority overseeing the station did not permit us to help the arrivals, at the outset, they didn't even want us to approach the wagons.
As it later became evident, the City Elder did not want to receive this transport of Jews at all, in (his) city. And had the idea of sending them to the Russian border, in order to forcibly drive the Jews to the opposite side.
After strenuous efforts, it became possible for us to ‘receive’ the womenfolk, children and the elderly. From among the able-bodied men – approximately 150 – the first Jewish camp of Zamość was organized. These men were billeted in the Synagogue, where they were under guard by the SS.
After locating all of the women and children in vacant houses, which remained empty after Jews [had left], we took to organizing help for this first camp. The men remained in the sealed Synagogue for approximately 4 weeks. After extensive attempts, again it was made possible for us to get them released, but under the condition that they not remain in Zamość , but rather take up residence in the neighboring town of Szczebrzeszyn, 20 kilometers from Zamość .
I personally escorted these people on January 15, 1940 to that place. I asked them, that for at least a few days, not to show themselves in Zamość , because according to the announcement of the Germans, they could be threatened wit being shot for that. I offered that at the very least, in this location they had the freedom to move about, to possibly reach Warsaw, or other cities. All my efforts to show the Germans the absurdity of the order to divide up families, the women and children [separated] from their husbands and fathers, had no effect whatsoever. Their prohibition against their taking up residence in Zamość was a categorical one.
Ignoring this, despite the fact that it was visible, immediately on the following morning, after being escorted to Szczebrzeszyn, (where I also organized a local Help Committee), they began to sneak back into Zamość.
The road from Szczebrzeszyn to Zamość went right by the barracks, where divisions of the SS were billeted, who were under the command of the Fritz that we had previously mentioned. It is necessary to remark that this ‘lovely man’ after a certain period of time, became the commandant of Oswiecim.
Taking note of the stealthy means that the Jews employed along the road, the SS troops seized 17 of them, and after several days of bestial torture, killed them all. As it later became possible for me to discover, these people were stripped naked, in a 30 degree frost; they were drenched in cold water, making frozen ice statues out of them. This was the manner in which they were frozen to death. Among those who were tortured in this way were the following Jews from Wloclawek, to the extent that I can recall: Ber Charney, a mill owner; Blass, Proshkier, a merchant; Stupai, a young man, a student, son of a Gymnasium teacher.
Ignoring the previous chicaneries and the instances of the disappearance of a number of Jews, without leaving a trace, this was the first tragic upset that the Jews of Zamość suffered.
The Jewish Region and its AdministrationAs I have already mentioned, the Germans set up a so-called ‘Eldest Council’ of 8 people, immediately after they took over the city. Apart from myself, the following were appointed to this Council:
Azriel Sheps, a tailor, an old community activist, a member of the community leadership;
Eliyahu Epstein, a merchant;
Viktor Inlander, a merchant;
Stanislaw Hernhaut, owner of a printing shop;
Sholom Tischberg, an old community activist, a merchant;
Shmuel Cahan, an industrialist.
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During this time, I was especially busy with the organization of the Help Committee, and directing its activities, which specifically focused on settling and helping the continuously arriving evacuation transports, Jews from Kolo, Konin, Wloclawek, as well as Jews from Warsaw and Lodz, who were looking for a placid location. In Zamość, one did not yet feel a shortage of housing, and the provisioning situation had not changed a great deal from the pre-war situation.
Approximately in January 1940, the so called ‘Judenrat’ was called into existence at the order of the German authorities, which appeared in the orders of the Governor Frank. This order had just then arrived in Zamość.
Utilizing the lack of clarity in the details of this order, where it is stated, that the cities that have ‘more than ten thousand residents,’ but it does not say if these means only Jews of the general population, the ‘Judenrat’ must consist of 24 people, the Zamość ‘Judenrat’ organized the setup comprised of 24 people.
I was at that time to be found in Warsaw, in connection with an intervention with the ‘Joint,’ about a subsidy for the Help Committee. When I returned, I was told that I was selected by consent of the ‘Judenrat’ to be its Leader. All the efforts that I made to rid myself of this obligation did not yield any positive results. All the members of the ‘Judenrat’ demanded of me that I should accept the appointment as Leader. I was also summoned by the Burgomaster, and that individual, at the order of the City Elder, demanded of me that I take on the leadership position of the ‘Judenrat.’
Without disrupting the ongoing work, we began to organized the internal organizations of the newly projected institution. In advance, the following divisions were organized:
Seeing that the order that forbade the Jews from living in the same community with Aryans came out quickly, and that it was forbidden for Jews to occupy any sort of position, German or Polish, we began to manage our own books concerning civil affairs. We managed the recording of deaths and births; issuing marriage licenses, as well as personal documents needed at specific times. The population office was headed by the lawyer Julian Goldstein, the son of I. L. Peretz's sister.
Apart from this, we were compelled to dispose of all Jewish issues using our won employees in the general offices, especially in matters of taxes and licenses.
The ideal regarding dwellings did not last very long with us. The Germans implemented an identification card system for the entire population rather quickly, and because of this, the Jewish population was allocated the smallest norm for living space. The matter of provisioning was arranged for the Jews in such a manner, that the ‘Judenrat’ obtained the
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entire sum of foodstuffs for the Jewish population, and it had to divide up this produce based on a card system of its own.
The allocation Division, at whose head stood Sholom Tischberg and Adam Gallis, members of the Council, had increasingly more and more work to do, as time went by, thanks to specific circumstances which will appropriately come out later and be recalled, and played an important role up to the end of the existence of the Jewish settlement in Zamość.
By May 1, 1941, the Jews occupied all of their former dwellings in the city, not counting the sporadic instances of throwing Jews out of specific homes, specifically the better ones, which the Germans would appropriate, or the Poles, as a replacement for their own homes, that the Germans had taken away.
At the beginning of April 1941, the ‘Judenrat’ received a demand that all of the Jews without any differentiation, had to leave their homes in the Altstadt, and were to move into the Neustadt.
The last day of the expulsion was set for May 1, 1941.
Several days after the issuance of this order, the Germans offered that I, along with other members of the ‘Judenrat’ that I would designate, would be allowed to remain living in the Altstadt in two special houses designated for this purpose, on Zamenhof Gasse. Those skilled Jews, who worked exclusively for the German civil and military offices, especially for the Gestapo, were also supposed to live in that house. A group of young Jewish boys and girls were also supposed to live there, who were employed in a variety of servant positions for the Gestapo, security police, and the local commander.
I declared that neither I, nor any members of the Council will remain in the city, because our obligation is to be together with the entire Jewish population. At the same time, as the Leader of the Council, I issued the appropriate orders in connection with the relocation to the Neustadt.
We transferred ourselves even before the first of May to the Neustadt.
The portion, of the above mentioned skilled workers and servants, remained in the city.
At the end of April, when a part of the Jewish population was still in the Altstadt, the ‘Judenrat’ was suddenly told that the order to relocate the Jews had been drawn back, and those Jews who up till now had not relocated, may remain undisturbed and secure in the Altstadt. Having a premonition that this is certainly a trick, I made sure to transfer the remaining Jews from the city to the Neustadt.
And in truth – on the 1st of May, at 5 in the morning, I was awakened. The entire ‘Judenrat’ was ordered to appear in the city.
The Neustadt, to which the Jews had relocated, is a suburb that lies along the Lemberg Gasse, approximately two kilometers from the city, which consisted mainly of small, wooden houses, a part of which had small gardens. In the time of the relocation, the better houses were taken over by the Poles. For us, the Jews, all that was left were wrecked structures, and ramshackle dwellings, left behind when the Jews (several thousand) in their time, had left Zamość with the Soviet Army. Taking into account the fact that these houses were left behind by Jewish poor people, who up until 1939 had lived in the worst living and sanitary-hygienic conditions, it will become understandable as to how large the problem was of locating Jews from the Altstadt there.
The Housing Division, which was created for this reason, in order to organize this ‘evacuation,’ did everything as far as possible to safeguard an equitable distribution of the housing stock. It became necessary to house Jews in places of business as well, and in former factory halls. There were no water or sanitation facilities there. Water was taken from open streams.
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Later, when a portion of the Polish population moved over from the Neustadt into the Altstadt, utilizing the Jewish residences that had been made vacant, it became a little easier. The need of domicile became strongly worse with the arrival of the first transports from out of the country.
Regrettably the forced liquidations, the so called ‘evacuations out’ which began in April 1942, ‘lightened’ the situation for those temporarily who remained; there housing situation improved.
Despite the fact that the obligation of prohibiting Jewish relationships with Aryans, and it was forbidden to live together as well as conducting trade, it was not possible to enforce this because of the fact that we lived together in the same quarter. This prohibition had to remain not more than a plain piece of paper.
The relationship of the local Polish people, who had lived with Jews for a long time, was in general a satisfactory one, despite the fact that there were numerous instances of predation from this or that side. Regrettably, it is not possible to conceal that the fact of hostile attitude towards the Jews, as well as explicit cooperation with the Germans in following the aktionen against the Jews, were more numerous than the instances of disinterested or willing help for the Jews. In excuse for the refusal to help the unfortunate Jews, a ritual reply was offered – fear of repression from the Germans. It appeared to the eye, that the Polish populace had licked up the German propaganda, that they, the Aryans, will come to enjoy the abandoned Jewish property, Jewish assets, and it is necessary to remark, that those who were especially attracted by this propaganda, and waited for this ‘fat bite,’ were the Poles, who had been relocated from the so-called Warthegau.[3]
When, on the eve of the expulsion, I paused regarding the fate of the synagogues and other visibly Jewish buildings, which were located in the area of the Altstadt, which immediately after our departure would have certainly been wrecked and destroyed, I came to a specific thought. I got in touch with a certain Zygmunt Zyfcer, a local industrialist (as I also later became aware, he helped Poles and Jews during the time of the occupation, without anyone knowing) he deployed furniture manufacturing carpenters in the synagogues and other obviously Jewish buildings: thanks to him, these buildings were saved from being burned and destroyed. Which was their fate in other cities of Poland, among others, in Warsaw and Lublin. It was in this fashion, that buildings of rather large material value, and other also, of special cultural continuity and historical significance, such as the Old Synagogue in the city, which reaches in age back to the genesis of Zamość, remained whole to this day.
Apart from the Great Synagogue, the Mikva, the Old Age Home and the Gymnasium were spared, as well as others.
In passing, we have to recall that in this company, whose management was found in the former Jewish Community Building, employed an array of Jews, who thanks to this, lived on for a longer time, already after the Jewish community of Zamość had been cut down.
I return to May 1, 1941 at 5 o'clock in the morning.
It became apparent, that in the Altstadt, the entire city leadership and fire-fighters were mobilized, as well as a certain number of the so-called German and Polish ‘Granatower’ Police. As it was explained to me, all the Jews who had not relocated themselves to the Neustadt by this date, will be driven to Komarow, a town 20 kilometers from Zamość.
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The officials that had come together, the police, were divided up into groups of 3-4 people, and they were ordered to search through the entire city, and to chase out those Jews they found to the ‘Rynek,’ from where they, indeed, were driven onwards further.
This aktion, and the entire deception, was carried out by the representative of the City Elder, Karol Foss, born in Nana Osnabrück.
Thanks to our forethought and energetic action in transferring the Jews to the Neustadt, this provocation in its sum total, was not successful. In total, 250 Jews were discovered in the city, and not thousands, as the Germans had expected. Because of this failure, Foss was extremely agitated, and made embittered remarks to me.
Several days later, this same Foss , in the company of several Gestapo staff and police, gathered together several hundred Jews in the Neustadt, and drove them to the neighboring town of Krasnobrod. In the process, he shot several immediately with his own hand.
From May 1941 until November 1942 the Jews in the Neustadt lived together with Aryans, who had remained there. From the outset, there were no sort of delimiters in relating to the Jews from the Altstadt. Later on, however, the order for such a prohibition was issued. This prohibition, in fact, only had a symbolic character, because a truly significant number of Jews worked in the Altstadt area, as well as in various important operations outside of the city. All of these people had the right, on the basis of an understanding with the Germans, to move freely throughout Zamość, with an authorization that had been issued from the ‘Judenrat.’
It was only first on November 1, 1942, that the Jewish population, severely diminished by liquidations and ‘evacuations out,’ was required to relocate into a part of the Neustadt, in which the Aryans had previously been sidelined. In this fashion, more or less, a typical Jewish Quarter was created, not yet locked up and closed off.
Then, in order to carry out an orderly liquidation of our settlement, as was done with neighboring towns, we exerted ourselves in trying to reconstruct our settlement in the form of a ‘Juden-Lager.’ These efforts were carried out with the understanding of the organs of the local German authority. The total of all the remaining Jews at that point barely reached 4,000.
The plan consisted of having the local organs of authority notify the higher levels, that the Jewish community of Zamość had ceased to exist, and all that remained was a work camp. To this purpose, we even prepared a sign on which was written ‘Juden-Arbeits-Lager Numer 1, Zamość.’
Regrettably, this plan was not realized, because on the dat of October 16, 1942 the final expulsion of the Jews from Zamość to Izbica took place, and their liquidation there.
The Jewish PoliceIn the transition from the year 1941 to 1942, the local Gestapo demanded from the ‘Judenrat,’ that it create a Jewish ‘Ordnungsdienst,’ which became popularly known as the Jewish Police.
We opposed the implementation of this mission for a long time; we saw no utility in such an institution. However, at the demand of the Gestapo, we were compelled to create such an ‘Ordnungsdienst.’ At the beginning, it consisted of 10 people. Jews were summoned there especially – former soldiers from the Polish Army, who had returned from German capture, intelligent people, students, eventual graduates of the Gymnasium. Part of them came from eastern lands, which at that time were occupied by the Soviet Army, and had no possibility at that time to get back to their homes.
In order to protect ourselves from any sort of malfeasance on the part of these functionaries, they received higher pensions and living allocations, which assured them of a suitable existence. A strict regime was instituted and a very
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tight accounting from the police to the ‘Judenrat,’ which provided a very substantive oversight, who saw to it that no direct contact would take place between the Jewish Police and the Gestapo and the Polish ‘Granatower’ Police.
A demand was made of us several times to enlarge the cadre of the ‘Ordnungsdienst.’ However, under the explanation that we lacked explicitly qualified forces, we managed to get out of this [requirement].
It was only with the arrival of the first transports arrived at the end of April and beginning of May 1942, with Jews who were ‘evacuated out’ from Germany and Czechoslovakia, that we enlarge the membership of the ‘Ordnungsdienst’ to 16 men, adding to the previous [members], a number of Jews from Czechoslovakia and Germany. The maximum amount of members reached a total of 20 people. This number was arrived at on the categorical order of the Lublin Gestapo in August 1942. Then, the continuous expulsions of the Jews by the Gestapo began, from the Neustadt to the gas chambers at Belzec. At that time, the Gestapo was greatly upset because of the results of the implementation of this aktion. It was only able to ‘seize’ 300 Jews. The blame for this unsuccessful hunt was attributed by it, to the fact that the Jewish Police in Zamość did not participate in it.
Alvin Lipman was designated to be the commandant of the ‘Ordnungsdienst’ in May 1942 by the Council, a German Jew from Dortmund, a former Oberleutenant in the German Army from before the year 1918. He was a flier in Richthofen's Escadrille; he was personally acquainted with Goering and General Liett (?), a man who had practically all the highest German military decorations and personally written letters of gratitude from Hindenburg and Mackensen.[4]
He was the commandant of the Jewish transport, which was ‘evacuated out’ of Dortmund. This person looked to be able to maintain our ‘Ordnungsdienst’ at the appropriate level in every standpoint. With his help, we were able to immediately interdict the attempt by the Gestapo to infiltrate their agents into the ranks of the police. Only at the very end, was it first that a single agent provocateur could be found in our police. During the entire time of the existence of the police, there was no complaint carried out against them by the populace.
The assistant to Lipman was a Czech Jew, also an officer, whose name I do not recall at this time.
The Financial Problems of the ‘Judenrat’From the beginning of its existence, the ‘Judenrat’ had to contend with seriously difficult financial problems. The principle adopted at the outset, to pay for the work done for the Germans, precipitated substantial expenses, especially when the number of employees continuously grew. Even after the Council had implemented the general work burden, the salary for the work done for the Germans was the single source of sustenance for hundreds of Jews – especially among the foreigners. Social assistance found its expression in the same fashion.
Also the levies swallowed up huge sums. After the first two levies, in excess of ten thousand and 75 thousand zlotys, a third was demanded for the local division of the SS in the amount of 150 thousand zlotys.
This demand was set forth in the year 1940 (immediately after the bestial murder of 17 Wloclawek Jews, which we have previously mentioned) by a certain Herman Goldhammer, who was not know to anyone in Zamość. This character presented himself as a so-called liaison-man for the local SS, and especially of its leader, the Major Fritz. As it later became apparent, he was a Jew from Bialystok, a butcher, a personality with a dark disposition, and among other
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things, a missionary. He mastered German so quickly (for a period of time he was in Germany, as an itinerant leather merchant), that despite the fact that he was illiterate, he passed for a period of time as a [native] German. In the SS Division, he presented himself as an emissary of the ‘Judenrat’ in Zamość.
Desiring to please the SS and to obtain their sympathy, he continuously thought up new demands, with which he came to us.
Goldhammer also legitimized himself with some sort of an appointment from a German general, which set out that he had helped the Germans during their siege of Warsaw. This lout, groused around Zamość for a long time, cause the Jews great harm.
His story came to an end through the fact that he was turned over by the head of the SS to the Gestapo, who liquidated him.
This happened a short time after the ‘Judenrat,’ being unable to respond to the continuous new demands, placed itself in direct contact with the previously mentioned Fritz, and thereby brought the whole story about Goldhammer to light. The Council, however, was compelled to pay the sum of 160,000 zlotys. This sum was gathered from among the Jewish populace.
A very weighty burden for the Council, were the expenses that it had in connection with the compulsory burden of providing domicile for the Germans.
The largest financial plague for the Council was the pressure to find cover for the continuously mounting expenditures connected with bribery, gifts, and other outlays for the various officials; for the higher and lower Gestapo officials; German police; gendarmes or employees.
As it rapidly became evident, this was the sole basis on which one could set up mutual relationships; the one way to buy one's self some comparative peace.
To the general misfortune, these sums continued to grow, to the point that the position for this type of expense in the monthly budget of the ‘Judenrat’ reached the sum of between 150,000 and 200,000 zlotys. It was impossible to collect a sum of this nature from the Jewish populace. The normal income from monthly payments brought in approximately eight to ten thousand zlotys; barely enough to cover the compensation for the Council personnel and the outlays of the chancellery.
A need developed to begin looking around for income that was out of the ordinary.
In general, the Council had yet other expenses. It constantly had to cover the deficits of the Help Committee, which ran a field kitchen; maintained a Jewish hospital; other forms of support – this required approximately 30,000 zlotys monthly. The source fro this was found by the ‘Judenrat’ in the sizeable earnings of Jewish merchants and bakers, who fed the Jewish populace (illegally), for whom the allocated norms of foodstuffs from the Germans was insufficient. Very quickly, the entire income from the five bakeries, one slaughterhouse, and several distribution stores, fell into the treasury of the Council.
In that time, it became possible for us to tie up with a close contact with the economic resort of the German City Elder, which, incidentally, was not easy, because the majority of the employees of the City Elder were recruited from the residents of Poznan who had been ‘evacuated out,’ who deliberately did not permit our leaders to reach the right reference point with regard to provisions. By themselves, they drew no small use of this [connection] for their own interests. We were able to achieve this, true, for a steady payoff, or better said, for bribery; to eliminate the influence of the employees as well as the (Polish) municipal leadership, and as a result, we began to receive meaningfully larger allocations than before.
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It happened in the following manner: Every month we would submit an order with the census of the Jewish population. We would increase the count fictitiously by 2-3 time the amount that it really was. Apart from this, we also received allocations for those Jews who in the camps around Zamość. These lists were also false. We did this with the understanding (in partnership) with the leaders of the camps. Because of this they were supplied rather finely. The provisioning official of the City Elder, the so-called ‘Kreisrefererant für Ernehrung’ also received rather generous ‘gifts.’ He categorically prohibited the city council, and others he controlled, to mix into issues pertaining to provisioning for the Jewish populace – this was his own personal issue.
As a result of this, as it previously fell into the private hands of merchants, significant sums of money began to come into the treasury of the ‘Judenrat,’ which made it possible for the ‘Judenrat’ to hold out financially until the liquidation of the Jewish settlement. The Council was able to cover all extraordinary outlays without resorting to placing a burden on the Jewish populace. The Council also had specific reserves of money for unexpected and sudden outlays.
I must provide a characteristic detail here which is very instructive about our psyche. In these extraordinarily difficult times of the worst occupation and inhuman anti-Semitic terror, we were concerned with, and looked after Jewish issues in the future. During that time, we were seen to pay off a lien due to a loan that existed from before the war, which was owed by the Gymnasium. This Gymnasium was indebted to the Society for Social Security (‘Ubezpieczenie’) for several tens of thousands of zlotys, which were paid in, and the debt was erased. Regrettably, we were unable to retire a second lien due to a debt. This demonstrates the optimism with which we lived then, our people's community, in the most difficult of times.
In concluding this chapter, it is necessary to add that the most that cost us was the building that we constructed for the SS with the hands of Jewish workers, by the assistance of building materials given as a ‘donation’ from the Jewish merchants and industrialists. It was a residential complex, for the previously mentioned SS Division, at whose head stood Fritz. The construction of this building swallowed up approximately about a half million zlotys.
The full name of this Division was: ‘First Squadron of the First SS Totenkpffreiter Regiment.’
After building the formidable horse stables, with a roof-covered riding field and a veterinary hospital, the name of this division was changed to: ‘Höherei SS Reit-und Fahrschule.’
The German City Elder, the top man in the district, Weichenmeyer, who came from Stuttgart, cost us about 300,000 zlotys. Enormous sums, which I can no longer recall accurately, were swallowed up in the pockets of the Gestapo in the course of three year. The extracted whatever they could from us.
The fact that the Jewish Quarter, up to the last minute was not a closed one, can be explained by: first, the ‘Judenrat’ paid very dearly for this, with valuable ‘gifts’ and secondly, that a rather large number of Jews from this Quarter worked in the larger area of the city, and needed to go in an out on a continuous basis.
This last fact was one of our countering arguments regarding the repeating demands from a variety of sources, which demanded that our Jewish Quarter should be cordoned off and locked up.
I am reminded of such an instance, when it became very difficult to oppose the pressure of cordoning off and locking up our Quarter. It was at the end of September 1941. Among the Jews, and epidemic of the spotted typhus broke out. At the meeting that was called together, in consultation with the German organs of authority, where I also, as the leader of the ‘Judenrat’ was called, (with my deputy Sheps), we had to fight very strenuously for maintaining the character of our Quarter as it was to date, against the position of the district physician, who advocated that our residential area be cordoned off and locked up.
We first assured ourselves of a tract (through recognized means) and support from the representative in charge of sanitation, and the military commandant, and it was given to us at that time to effectively defend against having us locked in, and creating a ghetto.
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The issue was disposed of by having placards posted on high signs, put up at the expense of the ‘Judenrat,’ on all roads leading into and out of the area where the Jews lived, on which a skull and crossbones were painted, and a sign: ‘Spotted Typhus Fever, Entrance is Forbidden; Only Through Traffic Permitted Without Stopping.’
These placards actually brought us unanticipated great utility, because these placards put an end to the variety of ‘visits’ with the objective of plunder, on the part of many Germans, gendarmes, and other members of the SS.
I cannot proceed without mentioning the role played by the provisioning officer, Hans Revko, in rescuing the financial situation of the Council. Despite the fact that he did not do this free of his interest, he nevertheless always went along with us. Even though he was officially a Hitlerist, he had a positive attitude towards the Jews. Thanks to him, we had the possibility to help our brethren in the work camps; they received a measurably larger allocation of produce than was officially set for them.
On October 16, 1942, when the previously partial liquidations were still going on, and the expulsion to Izbica, and with it, the full liquidation of the Jewish settlement in Zamość, several hundred meters of whitened flour, and a larger number of crude flour, several thousand meters of potatoes (despite the fact that the distribution aktion was not yet complete), and other food reserves, such as a specific amount of buckwheat groats, and other valuable produce, remained in the camps of the ‘Judenrat,’ which the German Jews had brought with them on their transport. We managed with these valuable products in a very spare manner – they were only given out for children, the sick and convalescents.
In the treasury of the Council, there were several tens of thousands of zlotys at that time, which was confiscated by the Gestapo.
In the final moment of the liquidation of the Jewish settlement in Zamość, we were prepared and organized to take on the impending winter of 1942-1943, which, according to our forecasts, was supposed to be the last winter of the enslavement of the Jews who would remain alive.
In March 1942, we found out that a transport of Czech Jews had arrived in the neighboring town of Izbica, and that pretty soon, we had to expect that they would be arriving in Zamość. We were prepared to accept them. On the night of April 30, we received news that the transport was getting close to the city. Almost the entire Council and its employees were at the station.
In the middle of the night, the train arrived with thousands of Czech and Slovakian Jews, from the camp in Theresienstadt.
After unloading them from the wagons, we led everyone to our Quarter, which was at a distance of several kilometers from the station. We carried the old and the sick on small carts. The people were terrifying exhausted from the long journey.
On the second night, another transport arrived, also with Jews from Theresienstadt, in the amount of 1000 persons. For two more nights, the third and the last transport of foreign Jews arrived, also 1000 people. From Dortmund and Westphalia.
Since this was after the first liquidation aktion of April 11, when more than 3000 Jews were taken to Belzec into the ovens, we were able to settle these Jews from the transports among us.
These foreign Jews took no account of the situations that then prevailed in Poland. Their baggage was extensive, and that bore witness to their means. Apart from this, it became evident that each of their transports had in addition, 2-3 wagons with the largest part of their baggage and foodstuffs. Those wagons, however, remained in Lublin, where that dark and somber Globocznik, who was known to us, was located with his central staff. Those wagons had been separated from the transport, and never came to Zamość. Only from one German transport, from Dortmund, which was
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led by Lippman, who is already familiar to us, and thanks to his personal energy and his resistance in Lublin, the wagon with the foodstuffs arrived in Zamość.
The extent to which these people took no account of the situation, is manifested in the fact that, the greatest pretensions and complaints that they had to the Council was, why we were not in a position to reclaim their lost luggage from Globocznik and the Gestapo.
Each of them pushed themselves forward with their baggage claim receipt in hand, and categorically demanded to be immediately provided with their baggage.
The naiveté of some went so far as to threaten us with material responsibility because of this.
Regrettably, they rather quickly came afterwards, to realize the significance of where and for what purpose they had been brought [to this place].
It was the Jews from Germany, from Dortmund, that had the best thoughts and were full of optimism. Hey were convinced that they were traveling to pioneer for work in the east. Most of them had brought along their work equipment, a part also musical instruments.
In this, they overcame the evacuation conditions in Dortmund. The Dortmund city council had distributed a quota of resources for sustenance, similar as that for German citizens, for a longer period of time than initially thought, not excluding white flour, buckwheat groats, sugar, condensed milk for children, and other products.
With the transport from the Czech Jews, among others, the Professor of Surgery, Joseph Weininger came from Vienna, a nephew of the renown Otto Weininger[5]; the Docent of Prague University, Zygmunt Shoenhof with his wife and son; The Docent Benno Epstein, a laryngologist from Prague; Dr. Mauriczy Mittelman, a member of the Editorial staff of the well-known democratic periodical in Prague, and 30 other members of the intelligentsia, merchants and industrialists.
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The doctors were immediately drawn to work in the Jewish hospitals, to which they dedicated themselves with intensity.
The foreign Jews shared in the fate of their Zamość brethren. Not being prepared for these new conditions, almost all of them perished.
As it is now known, Dr. M. Mittelman saved himself, and from whom I received a letter not long ago from Prague. The plan and circumstances surrounding his escape from Zamość, before the final liquidation of the Jewish settlement, was thought out together with me, and without a doubt, I feel and extraordinary joy that our plan succeeded.
In order to help the foreign Jews, and to protect them against any exploitation, partly also at the hands of their own brethren, who purchased valuable items from them at derisory prices, often paying them with banknotes snatched out of the air, the ‘Judenrat’ organized a special office, making purchases of valuables or other pretty trinkets, at market prices – artwork. These items were always needed by the Council for acts involving ‘gift-giving’ (bribery).
Until the time that these Jews got themselves settled with employment, the sale of these items was their single source of income. Together with the two hot meals a day that was given out by the Committee Kitchen, this was the basis for their existence.
It is necessary to note that the majority of these Jews found employment rather quickly. Their knowledge of foreign languages helped them, and the exemplary discipline that they possessed. Were it not for the mass ‘liquidations,’ where they represented a proportionately larger number of the victims than the other Jews, they would have undoubtedly made it through this stormy time.
Jewish Labor in the CampsAs we have already recalled, from the first moment that the Germans occupied the city, an unorganized seizure of Jews began in the streets, to do work and provide personal service for the Germans. Every German division, every German office, and also every German for himself, held it as an obligation to exploit the Jews for all manner of work and services: shining boots, washing cars, chopping wood, unloading wagons, cleaning the premises and offices; carrying out a variety of field work, construction work, metalworking, – the Jews were forced to do all of this. These seizures ceased thanks to the efforts of the ‘Judenrat,’ when they were replaced by an organized daily consultation with designated salaried workers. The number of such workers grew continuously.
One Saturday in June 1940, an order was issued that the entire Jewish populace, men from age 14 to 60 is required to present themselves at the location of the SS barracks, two kilometers from the city, in the former school of agriculture in Janowica. A medical inspection took place there, under the supervision of our two physicians, Freihoffer and Rosenman, of which the latter was a member of the ‘Judenrat,’ and the former – the doctor of the Help Committee.
By that time, we were already in direct contact with the leader (of the SS) Fritz, thanks to which this medical examination was conducted under the oversight of SS doctors, and took place in complete tranquility. At that time, 500 young men were designated for labor, who were arrayed in tow straight groups. One group was led off to Wysokie Bartoticza, about 20 kilometers distant from the city, to which afterwards, several hundred Jews were brought from the neighboring towns of the district: Izbica, Krasnobrod, Komarow, Tomaszow. There, a work camp was created, which carried out maintenance work on the surrounding areas and meadows. This camp was directly organized under the so-called ‘Wasserwirtschaftsamt’ in Zamość , at the head of which stood the German engineer, Starke.
The camp was located in two shires in the middle of a field, heavily cordoned off with wire, and additionally was guarded by ‘Black’ (Volksdeutsche – local, and brought in from out of the country – who would wear black uniforms). The regimen in the camp from the outset was very sharp. The work exceeded the strength; food packages, that were sent by families, were not permitted to be delivered; the suspected or actual attempts to escape ended with shooting; beating the workers was a day-in and day-out occurrence.
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Immediately following the organization of this camp, the ‘Judenrat’ set up within itself a commission of assistance for the camps. In an understanding with the ‘Judenrat’ councils of the other surrounding towns, from which Jews had been driven together into this camp, we began to seek contacts with Herr Starke and his assistants, as well as with the guards of the camp, the Volksdeutsche. In a rather short time, making use of the old and time-tested Jewish methods, which had lightened the fate of the abandoned Jews not once in Jewish history, we obtained an ‘understanding’ from Herr Starke and his assistants. The regimen in the camp, from that time forward, was meaningfully eased. The provision of foodstuffs was permitted, and also medicinal help. We were able to cause the too high workloads to be lowered, and the beatings and shootings stopped.
The conditions held in the camp until the end of 1940. In connection with ending the work on this area, and transferring the work to other areas, which lay quite close to Zamość, the camp was dissolved, and the Jews were released.
At the same time along with this, thanks to strenuous efforts, we were able to organize the filling of the work requirements for the Germans on the basis of voluntary appearance for work, and organized by the labor office (of the ‘Judenrat’). The principle of a paid salary for this work was implemented, and that these workers would be under the oversight of civilian guards, eventually, under Jewish foremen. As a result of the positive support from Herr Starke (whose palms were always ‘well greased’), we were able to obtain continuous allocations of sustenance for those engaged in the camp.
These endeavors led to the result that the work in the maintenance [camps] was thought to be the best, and thereby several hundred Jewish women and girls were employed there, and only a small number of men. This type of work lasted up to the last liquidation of the Zamość Jews in October 1942, and in that connection, there were no notations of any excesses that took place there.
The first period of the time when the camp was locked up was very difficult, and was particularly dangerous the moment when several cases of the spotted typhus appeared there. The so-called ‘Blacks’ reacted in such a fashion, that they shot anyone who looked to them to be infected, that exhibited symptoms of the disease.
The Jews in the camp protected themselves, in that they would take the sick along with them to work, dragging them along with themselves, even when those who were ill has a temperature of 40°C (104oF). In a number of instances, we were able to secure the help of guards who had been bought off, and sneak out the gravely ill from the camp, and to accommodate them up (in the Jewish Hospital). We took them out in the wagons, covered with food. Dr. Friedhoffen showed us a great deal of help in this connection, and his two sanitary workers, who worked unstintingly for the welfare of the Jews.
The second part of those Jews who were driven together for the inspection, to which several hundred Jews from nearby Komarow, Tyszowce, Szczebrzeszyn were appended, were later sent to the well-known abysmal extermination camp at Belzec.
Belzec, at that time, was on the Russian-German border, 44 kilometers distance from Zamość. Here, the Germans began to build, along the length of the border, a long, deep trench to protect against tanks.
The Jewish camp in Belzec was put together on a stretch of land of a couple of ten kilometers, in a number of points, with a central office in Belzec. It totaled about 15 thousand Jews. Most of them were Jews from Lublin, approximately 2000 from Warsaw, a few from Radom, and the rest from the various places in the Lublin district.
There were approximately 500 Jews from Zamość and its surrounding locations.
The commandant and leader of the camp was the familiar Sturmbannfuhrer of the Lublin District, Dolps. To call him a beast in human form, would be a gross insult to beasts.
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Conditions in the camp were hard, literally terrifying. Work beyond [human] capacity; bad sustenance; beatings and sadistic torture at every step. The ‘Blacks’ also guarded this camp as well. Their continuous activity was to shoot at the Jews that were led to and from work.
Our Assistance Division for the camps, headed at that time by Baruch Wilder, Abish Friedling also Rapaport, placing their own lives in danger, because this was against Dolps' strict prohibition, would drive wagons with food to Belzec, and there, by various means, exert themselves to throw it over to the hapless people.
Jews also brought food there from other towns as well.
From time-to-time, Dolps would organize reconnoitering in the area around Belzec, in order to ferret out this ‘smuggling.’ The Jews he captured were either thrown into the camp, or beaten to death.
It was only first, after some time, thanks to our efforts with higher authorities in Lublin, that Dolps permitted the organization of a sort of Jewish camp council, whose mission had to be: providing food for the people in the camp, and help for them. A number of people were appointed to this council, who were released for this duty – especially from Lublin, because they were the majority of the camp inmates.
Being in Lublin during the formation of this camp council, I was able to get a certain Yaakov Glatt out of the camp, a young man from Lodz, who prior to this, had not long ago fled from the Lodz ghetto, to Zamość , and here, ended up in the camp. Glatt exhibited extraordinary talent for organization, and in a really short time, he organized and superbly managed the provisioning of the very many camps in the Belzec territory.
Later, when it became possible to obtain the release of a group of about 500 Jews from Belzec (by means that will come out later in the narrative), who were from Zamość and other surrounding towns, Glatt applied himself intensely to the provisioning the later organized camps in Zamość.
When the news of the terrifying conditions of those sent to Belzec had just come back, to Zamość and their families, we began efforts to get them out of there. We initiated these efforts with the assistance of Major Fritz, who by that time was sufficiently dressed and enriched with Jewish valuables. After several weeks of effort, thanks to a ‘gift’ of 40,000 zlotys, intermediated by Fritz, which was taken by the then well-known SS General Globocznik of Lublin, it became possible for us to gain the release of our people.
Technically, it was carried out in the following manner: Fritz brought the list of names of Jews from Lublin, signed by Globocznik. The list had over 200 names of Jews from Zamość . He rode to Belzec in his auto, accompanied by three members of the council, to get these Jews. Do understand, that in place of 200 Jews, more than 400 people were brought to Zamość, taking along all those whose origin was from neighboring towns: Izbica, Krasnystaw, Zulkowo, Komarow, and others. It already was June 1940.
The camp at Belzec held on for the entire winter, and until the beginning of 1941, and caused the death of many victims.
The well-known Belzec Death Camp for Jews was constructed in 1942, on the place where the digging of the tank traps had begun.
For the first time, on Polish territory, gas chambers were to be found there, and the tank traps served as the mass graves for the victims. At the beginning, bodies were not yet being cremated.
From the spring of 1940, the previously-mentioned Fritz employed about 150 Jews on the grounds of his barracks to do various kinds of work.
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After the medical inspection that was previously described, in the month of June on the grounds of the SS barracks, and the dispatch of the Jews to Belzec and Wysockie Bartoticza, Fritz increased the number of Jews that were employed by him.
These Jews lived in their homes (in the Neustadt) and each morning, as an organized group, together with their senior at their head, would present themselves for work.
We organized a kitchen for them on that location, and produce was obtained from the provisioning division (from the municipal council?), on the strength of a request from Fritz. Seeing that he submitted a number for the workers that was strongly overstated (2-3 times more than in reality), we were able to organize an appropriate sustenance for the workers, and we also had the possibility to respond to the various demands from Fritz and his attendants.
Wanting to protect himself and his division from going to the front, Major Fritz came upon the idea of building in Janowica, a complex of buildings for a riding academy. He received permission to do this from the higher authorities, after he had presented exact plans – representing that he would build this exclusively on the account of Jewish labor and Jewish capital.
He did this, naturally, with the understanding of the ‘Judenrat,’ whom he promised that when his plan will come to reality, no Jew from Zamość will be sent out to any camp; that there will be no place for anti-Jewish excesses; that the German soldiers in Zamość will behave in an orderly fashion towards the Jews.
When you take into account that these words were spoken by a leader of an SS Division, it is understandable what kind of significance it had for the local Jews. Even more: this came about in the Belzec epoch. Wanting to avoid any further deportations of Jews to the various camps, the ‘Judenrat’ agreed to these plans.
And it was in this fashion, that the building complex was started in Janowica. It consisted of huge horse stables, a veterinary hospital, a covered riding arena and barracks. The buildings had to be equipped with the most modern appointments; In the veterinary hospital, the walls had to be covered in tile. At the troughs there had to be mirrors for the horses. The entire area around had to be plastered.
Several hundred Jews presented themselves to do this work – assistants and craftsmen: carpenters, furniture makers, metalworkers, piping workers (everything had to be piped). Apart from Poles who worked on the walls, who also were paid by the council, all the other workers were Jews.
The burden of providing the building materials was placed by the ‘Judenrat’ on several prosperous Jewish industrialists. Also, the bricks in the amount of more than a half million, had to be provided by the Jews – the owners of the local brick making kilns. They also provided the tile. The tin and iron was provided by the Jewish ironmongers. Other Jews provided the cement, and so forth. The ‘Judenrat’ paid for other goods, which was purchased by the SS.
The Jews upon whom the task was place to provide the materials, discharged their obligations in a timely and positive fashion, feeling the obligation of solidarity. Others did it with the knowledge that no matter what, a moment will come very quickly when the businesses will be ‘Aryanized,’ especially as the Aryan competitors had already instituted efforts to accelerate the ‘Aryanization’ of Jewish businesses.
The Jews took an assessment that it is better that their net worth, which had been amassed by the expenditure of energy over generations, should be given over to the ‘Judenrat’ rather than have it fall into the hands of these human hyenas.
And in truth – one didn't have to wait long until the Jewish businesses and undertakings were taken over by the Volksdeutsche, and other Aryans.
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The work in building this complex lasted until the end of the existence of the Jewish settlement in Zamość. The construction of these modern Zamość pyramids was not completed. This was despite the fact that Fritz took out several hundred Jews, after the Zamość Jews were driven to Izbica, and brought them back to Janowica.
This structure stands in Zamość to this day. And it is my interpretation, that no one can deny the right of the Jews to it, because it is with Jewish labor, Jewish money, and their materials, that it was constructed.
Once again I emphasize, that the Jewish workers, those occupied in the construction, were paid by the ‘Judenrat’ for the entire period of their employment, in agreement with the accepted system, which was scrupulously observed, to pay for all the work carried out on behalf of the Germans.
Also the sporadic work, which was carried out by the Jews, which circumstantially were retained on the street, were paid by the Council, in accordance with the calculations provided by those Jews.
The story about Janowica was in its place, factually a Jewish work camp, which was formally recognized in the spring of 1942. It came as a result of the fact that the work there grew, and Fritz demanded more and more workers continuously. When, on one occasion, he demanded that he be provided with an additional several hundred workers, it was not possible to fill the quota. There were no more workers left among the Zamość Jews, also the financial resources did not suffice to cover the outlays that were connected with [the increase].
At that time, the first transports arrived in Izbica of Czech Jews, and Fritz brought 200 of them to work in Janowica. They remained there, locked up in the barracks, and thereby, understand, the ‘Judenrat’ took over the care for their sanitation, and provisioning requirements.
When the aktion process of liquidations began in the Zamość area,, the Zamość Jews that worked in Janowica continued to remain living there, in a manner of speaking, to protect themselves from being seized.
The leader of the Czech group was Jezy Basch, from Prague, a nephew of Viktor Basch from Prague. Among the Czech Jews, there were lawyers, physicians, and a large group of intelligentsia.
The so-called Platzmeister, and later Commandant of the camp, was the SS man, Hans Pienkowski, a leather worker from Oberhausen in Westphalia. He was a sadist, a drunk and a thief. Even these epithets do not completely characterize this lout. Only the precise orders of his superior, Fritz (who firstly had his own interest in mind) as well as the ‘gifts’ and bribes from the ‘Judenrat’ reined in this beast from unloading its feral instincts against the unprotected Jews.
At the end of the year 1942, warmed up by the anti-Jewish aktionen, which continuously repeated themselves, he carried out an act of murder against several tens of Jews. I will tell about this in the chapter where the liquidation of the Zamość Jews will be discussed.
However, here, I would like to recollect the crime that was carried out regarding the Soviet prisoners of war.
Before the Czech Jews from Izbica were taken in, which has previously been related, in order to enlarge the number of enslaved workers, Fritz demanded several hundred Soviet prisoners at the end of the year 1941. These were brought on a daily basis from the large camp of several tens of thousands of Soviet prisoners, who were to be found in Zamość. The same Pienkowski, demonstrated that with his own had, in the course of one week, that he shot about 250 prisoners. He made a whole game out of it. For some sort of a remark, he would shoot a prisoner right in front of the eyes of the workers. Afterwards, he called over two other workers to dig a grave for the one who was shot. Then he would shoot the two, and again call for 4 to dig graves for the two and conceal them. The four were then shot by him, and so forth. In this manner, he shot about 250 captures Soviet soldiers in the course of one week. When I learned about this, I went to the commandant of the prison camp in Zamość (I knew him, because he once approached the ‘Judenrat’ with certain
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specific demands), and told him about it. The result of this was that prisoners were no longer sent to do labor, and Pienkowski was put on trial by the SS and he received seven days of arrest in the barracks.
On the eve of the spring of 1941, in relation to the preparations that the Germans were making for their attack on Russia, they began to build storage facilities, underground shelters for benzine and several large airfields in the Zamość area and nearby surroundings.
It was at that time that the military command and a division of the air force took up quarters in Zamość, which directed this work.
These works were carried out in an industrial manner by the Czech Jews in particular, construction companies (for example Rudolf Pisek) and a few Poles. At that time, the ‘Luftwaffe’ demanded from the ‘Judenrat’ as large a number of workers as possible, through the intermediation of the (German) ‘Labor Office,’ which had created a special division. This so-called ‘Judeneisatzstelle,’ was at that time already salaried. It was in this fashion that the ‘Luftwaffe’ camp was established, in which several hundred Jews were to be found, which were allocated there by the ‘Labor Office’ from an array of surrounding towns, as well as from Zamość Jews, who presented themselves voluntarily.
This was a camp of the type that was open – the workers got a salary, sustenance was provided for by the ‘Judenrat’ through its division for providing assistance to the camps.
All issues pertaining to this camp were actually handled by the previously mentioned Glatt and Baruch Wilder. From the effort of these people, a bureau was created, which calculated the payment to the workers that was due to them. This bureau also directed their reporting.
This camp continued to exist also after the liquidation of the Jewish community in Zamość. The ‘Luftwaffe’ extracted permission, even after the expulsion of all the Zamość Jews to Izbica, to bring back its workers to Zamość.
The SS camp did the same.
It is to be seen from this, that when military factors went in their interest, they were always capable of saving larger or smaller groups of Jews, in opposition to the higher demands and orders of those factions who demanded a complete liquidation of the Jews. Regrettably, such instances were very rare.
We are therefore of the opinion, that, in any case, the higher command, who were the influential spokesmen for the Wehrmacht (the offices and leaders of single military command), were just as responsible for the murdering of the Jews in their areas of control, just like those directly involved in carrying out those murders, such as the Gestapo staff, and the so-called extermination commandos.
The German leader on the side of the ‘Luftwaffe’ at this camp, was a certain Walter Raufert, born in Oppeln, Silesia. From the outset, as a result of the steady ‘gifts’ and other income, he maintained a relative cordiality, not counting various minor chicaneries and the beating of workers. With the extent to which the liquidation of the Jews in Zamość grew stronger, he began to actively participate in the murder of Jews.
With his own hands, in a short period of time, he shot several tens of people from among his workers. That is to say, that they were supposedly sick with typhus, or they were in general exhausted.
Apart from this (the referenced camps) many Jews – men and women – worked at various German workplaces, military and civilian. They were allocated to those positions by the ‘Labor Office.’
The activity connected with employing the Jews was carried out in the name of the ‘Judenrat’ by two appointees: Fishl Grossbaum, a member of the Bund, and Aharon Shlafrok, a Zionist. For the entire time, they worked with
[Page 712]
extraordinary self-abnegation, and in an extremely visible manner, they were able to cause this problem to become normalized.
The Jews, who initially were not particularly keen on presenting themselves for work, afterwards began to present themselves en masse for work, in order, indeed, to earn a living, and also legalize (judicially) their existence in the eyes of the Germans. This phenomenon became even stronger during the time when the liquidations of the Jews increased, which in the early times encompassed the non-productive elements (in principle) as well as the elderly and the children.
At the end of the existence of the Jewish community in Zamość, 70 percent of the Jewish population was employed in a variety of workplaces. We also gave false credentials to children, younger than 14 years of age, indicating that they were older, in order to get them employed somewhere or another, through the auspices of the ‘Labor Office,’ and at the very least, spare them from liquidation for some measure of time.
As was the case everywhere, it was also true in Zamość, that immediately from the outset, as soon as the city was captured, the assault against the Jews began. Beatings, torture, seizures and work. Robbing of businesses and homes, demands that Jews remove their hats before each and every German – this was a day-in and day-out occurrence from the moment when the Gestapo appeared in Zamość, where it had its central office for a number of districts.
Already from the outset of their presence, Jews who happened to be walking in the streets were peremptorily taken to the Gestapo building, where they were beaten and tortured in an inhuman manner, and also for no apparent reason. There were instances, where people who were taken away for a while no longer returned. As it later became evident, these people simply could not withstand the agony, and died in the middle of the torture.
One time, when it was still in the winter of 1939, the men of the Gestapo came upon a group of children, who were learning in a Bet HaMedrash. All the pupils were taken away, and none of them ever came back.
The first of the cruel manifestations was the one that we have previously mentioned, the bestial murder of the 17 Wloclawek Jews, which took place in January 1940 in Janowica, the seat of the SS.
It is necessary to note, that all my efforts to avoid these incidents brought no result. The civil German vehicles of authority, even the gendarmerie and officers we knew, to whom I brought this matter for appeal, refused to make any sort of intervention. They would wave with their hands, trying to convey that against the almighty Gestapo and SS, no one can do anything.
After the connections between the ‘Judenrat’ and the Germans were established, and after implementing the system of giving more and more lapuvka (bribery), these sporadic harassments and the occurrences of people vanishing stopped for a short span of time.
Towards the end of the year 1941, the terror intensified, at the time the United States entered the war.
In December 1941, the ‘Judenrat’ received an order from the Gestapo, that all Jews, in the course of several days, by latest, January 1, 1942, must turn in all their overcoats, without exception. This was the time, when at the outskirts of Moscow, German reversals were starting. With the help of Jewish overcoats, the Germans wanted to rescue their army, which was being killed on the endless Russian steppes.
After the completion of this aktion, during which time the best of the men's and women's fur coats were taken away by the Gestapo staff, officers of the German command, and German civilian employees for their own personal use, as well as for the use of their families (ignoring the fact that this was a personal order from Hitler which carried the threat of a death penalty for taking fur coats for one's own personal use), various members of the Gestapo carried out special audits on the streets and in Jewish homes, and if somewhere or another, they found a garment with some semblance of
[Page 714]
fur on it, they killed people right on the spot. In this aktion, for this sort of ‘crime,’ a number of people were killed, among others a certain Burstein from Warsaw.
In the middle of March 1942, we received alarming news from Lublin, that they had begun mass ‘evacuations out’ of Jews who were already located in the ghetto there. This news was terrifying, especially because it was accompanied by a description of how this ‘evacuation out’ was taking place. It was related [to us] that people were lost in freight cars and that they were sent off to Zamość. From there, we were, indeed, questioned about the fate of those who were transported, whether these transports from Lublin had in fact arrived in Zamość. Regrettably, we could not provide any calming answers to this questioning, because no such transport had ever arrived in Zamość.
As a result of this news, we began to investigate and attempt to find out what had happened. In a few days time, we were able to establish with certainty that these transports passed through the station of Zaworo (8 kilometers from Zamość) and were taken off to Belzec.
With the help of the Jews in the nearby towns of Tomaszow, Krasnobrod and others, we were able to quickly establish that at the Belzec station, in that place where in the year 1940 there existed the previously described Jewish camp, and where they had begun to build the tank trap trenches near the border, there was constructed, in a small wooded area, a row of wooden barracks; a branch track of a rail spur was laid down to reach that place, and everything was cordoned off with a heavy wire fencing.
We also were able to establish that the Jews who had been brought there from Lublin, were taken off, and the empty cars are turning back immediately to Lublin, in order to bring fresh victims.
These were the first authentic reports about Belzec, the first confirmation of the existence of the death camp there, which had been specially constructed for Jews.
I will not pause here to elaborate on what took place in Lublin. We knew, however, that approximately forty thousand Jews were evacuated out of Lublin. Those who remained behind, were packed into the smaller ghetto in the Majdan Tatarski neighborhood, which was located opposite the (somber)-notorious Majdanek.
What was done in Belzec, and how (the Jews were being murdered) we only first learned at the end of March. It is not difficult to conceive of the fear that seized upon us in Zamość, we had anticipated this, and we were waiting for our turn. We initiated strenuous efforts with the local authorities, at that time, we had still talked ourselves into believing that something can be done to help us, that we will avoid the fate of the Jews of Lublin.
Regrettably, that was not the case.
On April 11, 1942, Saturday at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, our Jewish residential quarter was surrounded by a heavy cordon of police and German gendarmerie. I was then in the city, outside of this area. As soon as I learned of this, I immediately hurried to the spot. I was permitted to enter without any difficulty; I took note however, that no one was being permitted to leave the quarter.
Very shortly afterwards, in the location of the ‘Judenrat’ office, the entire Zamość Gestapo arrived, with the Hauptsturmbannfuhrer who was in charge at that time, Captain Schubert, at the head, as well as the representative for Jewish affairs from the office of the City Elder, Oskar Reichwein, who came from Berlin.
The ‘Judenrat,’ in its full quorum, was forced to hear that 2500 Jews must be ‘evacuated out’ to the east. They are permitted to take their entire money and valuables, and apart from that, every person is allowed to take along 15 kilograms of baggage.
These people, in the course of one hour, must present themselves on the [market] place where, according to the declaration of the Chief of the Gestapo, a selection will take place. We understood already what this implied.
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Immediately after reading this order, the police and gendarmerie that had surrounded the Jewish Quarter, began to squeeze down the circle they made, and drive the Jews to the marketplace.
The Gestapo staff meanwhile went through the houses, from which in a short time, the reverberations of shooting could be heard.
In barely an hour, the [market] place was overflowing with the Jewish populace, with no difference as to gender or age. Groups were drawn in from all directions, driven by the Germans, dragging their ‘net worth’ with them in packages, especially bedding. We had yet talked ourselves into believing that were are going to be transferred to another city.
When I saw that the [market] place was over-filled, I began to plead with the Chief of the Gestapo that he should stop the driving of the Jews, because the required number of 2500 men has certainly been achieved already.
At an opportune moment, using his good humor from such a successful aktion, I slipped a diamond ring into his hand that I had already prepared previously.
He then issued an order to cease the aktion. Together with the members of the ‘Judenrat’ who were found with me at that time, I then ran through the entire Jewish neighborhood, repeating the order of the Gestapo Chief, for the separate Gestapo staff and policemen, who did not have any great desire to permit the hounded victims to turn and go back to their homes.
The elation of those who were permitted to remain in their homes was a great as the confusion of those who stood on the [market] place, ringed with that tight cordon of Germans.
These people, were detained on the [market] place until 8 o'clock at night, not allowing a morsel of bread or a bit of water through to them.
As it became evident, the (somber) notorious train to transport them out, was turned down for the evening, and had been stopped not far from our (Jewish) residential Quarter.
During these several hours, I made the effort , using all means, to extract how many more people that I could out of this mass, who had been designated for death. I was able to get out approximately 400-500 men, on the basis of a variety of excuses, that these were needed craftsmen, etc.
No sort of selection, no sort of medical examination took place; neither were any documents examined. In the evening, everyone was stood out four to a row, and they were driven to the train.
Anticipating the possibility of escape, utilizing the dark, the guard was rather heavy on both sides of the train, and shot into the crowd the entire time. The people, in general, went quietly – without shouting or crying.
At night, after being taken to the train, where they were packed in at the rate of 150 people to a car, the Germans issued an order to us that we should gather up those who were killed, and others that were lying on the road, and take them – the living along with the dead – and load them on the train cars. Along a strip of one kilometer – from the Jewish Quarter to the train ramp – we gathered up to 150 that were killed.
Apart from this, we were compelled, in accordance with an order from the Gestapo, spend the entire night washing off the blood stains from the road, and to spread sand on it, so that on the following day, there should not be any traces.
In the houses, on the second day, we found 89 people who were killed, who were buried in two common graves in the Jewish cemetery.
[Page 715]
Among those who were killed on that day, was Hessia Goldstein, the sister of I. L. Peretz, a 70 year-old elderly woman, who, as was related by eye witnesses, when the Gestapo officer came into her house, and ordered her to go with him to the [market] place, declared to him, not getting up from her seat, that she asks that he shoot her right here on the spot, because she has no intention of moving from the spot to go anywhere.
Almost in the same way, and exactly 4 months later, on August 11, 1942, her son, the lawyer, Julian Goldstein was killed with his wife and child.
This particular aktion did not affect anyone from the ‘Judenrat,’ and its employees. However, the German police, from a division that distinguished itself especially for its cruelty, not satisfied with the fact that they suspected me of having quiesced the aktion too early, decided to get me off the scene by their own hand. At night, during the time when the road was being washed (to remove blood stains), one of them rode up to me on a motorcycle, and demanded that I go with him to the ‘Judenrat,’ in order to resolve some sort of an issue. A peculiar premonition gave me an impetus to flee, which was facilitated by the darkness of the night, and I hid myself until morning.
On the following morning, the Jewish workers told me that they overheard a conversation among the Germans about this, and how it did not become possible for them to dispose of me because I had fled, and they promised to do this at the earliest opportunity.
After compiling a new census of the population, it was verified that the aktion cost 3000 people. The majority of the victims were women; there were 700 children aged 14 years [sic: and under]. The remainder were men. This is explained by the fact that most of the men, at the time, were at work.
During the course of this aktion, I heard, at a specific moment, how the Chief of the Gestapo approached the dignitaries that stood around him, who had come to observe this scene, and remarked that this aktion will enable a small German city to be provisioned. One can infer from this, that the Germans attempted to explain to part of their own audience that killing out the Jews, they are exterminating unnecessary consumers – ‘eaters’ – and in this way, they attempted in the eyes of their own, to justify these aktionen on the basis of the scarcity of food.
Our confusion, and that of the remaining families of those who were taken away, had no bounds, but we had no course of action open to us. Those who remained alive, the men, brothers and families, consoled themselves with the hope that the unfortunate ones were taken somewhere to the east, and would constantly come with pleas that we should try to discover their new addresses, in order to send them parcels of food and clothing.
Among the victims of those who were sent to Belzec, was the wife of Wohlstein, who had been ‘evacuated out’ of Wloclawek, who was a member of the Help Committee and who, during the aktion, was at work at the train. Along with his wife, his 18 year-old son and 13 year-old daughter were taken away from him.
Early Monday, on April 13, this young boy came running to the ‘Judenrat,’ and told the following:
The terrifyingly over packed wagons were taken to Belzec for the entire night, a distance of 44 kilometers from Zamość. On Sunday morning, they were taken to the place itself.
After they had been off-loaded, they were stood out in rows of four – men separately and women separately, Some sort of an officer spoke to them, saying that they are being transferred to the east, and therefore they have to go through a bath and disinfection. It was demanded that the clothing be laid out precisely, and turn over valuables, after which they were driven into a barracks. At that time, he had the opportunity to hide himself in the public bathrooms. Where he remained until nightfall in the discharge hole. Afterwards, he fled the camp and hid himself out with the Gypsies that lived in the area, who helped him, and showed him the way to Zamość.
[Page 716]
He related, that after the people had gone into the barracks, he saw no one afterwards. However, after several tens of minutes, he noted that in other barracks they opened the doors, which lead to the train ramp, and that SS staff and several tens of young Jews, apparently selected for this task, began to take out naked bodies onto small carts.
This was the first news from an eye witness of the horror of what took place at Belzec. This young boy, together with his father, remained for a short while longer in Zamość, and were killed during one of the subsequent ‘aktionen.’
The last spark of hope, which flickered among a part of the hapless, was then fully extinguished. There were then no illusions about what Belzec was.
The homes of the these first hapless victims were then occupied by those foreign Jews that were allocated to us, who came to us, as we have previously related, at the end of April and the beginning of May.
On April 28, 1942, the aktion to exterminate the communists took place in Zamość, as it did, identically, in other areas of the so-called General-Government Province. On that day, two members of the Gestapo, along with the Chief of the Jewish Division, Robert Kolb at the head, addressed the ‘Judenrat,’ and asked to be shown the addresses of approximately 30 Jews, whose names they had prepared on a list. As it became evident, this list consisted of Jews, who had been noted as being active in the communist movement before the war. The names had been provided by the current ‘Granatower’ Police. It was clear, that practically none of them was in Zamość at that moment, and those that were appeared to have hidden themselves, as the police had made note of their addresses. In connection with these doings, the Gestapo seized an array of people with identical family names; in a couple of instances, fathers were taken to be their sons (among others they took Leib Rosen, the member of the ‘Jewish Judenrat’ whose son in his time took part in the political activity, and at that time was far away from the borders of Poland).
Wanting to have a complement of 30 people, and missing 10, they simply seized convenient passers-by off the street, not even asking them for their family names. In this fashion, more or less, a complement of 30 people was put together, and they were taken off to the ‘Rotunda,’ killed them on the same day, and buried them.
The ‘Rotunda’ was an old fort in the Zamość fortress from the old days, before the Polish partition. This fort was utilized by the Germans as a large prison for special purposes. It is a formidable structure, approximately a little under a half of a kilometer distant from the city, with thick walls, a moat surrounding it, with tiny windows and firing positions. The majority of the murders of Poles from the secret trials of the Gestapo, and others, were carried out in the area of the ‘Rotunda’ and the victims were buried there.
Only now, after the liberation of the city, were mass graves discovered there, and a great deal of ash from cremated bodies.
The ‘Rotunda’ was not utilized as a place for large-scale Jewish extermination, with the exception of the aktion of April 28, 1942 and the liquidation of the Jews who worked at the Gestapo; they were still employed by the Gestapo until October 16, 1942.
The following ‘evacuation out’ took place at the end of May. At that time, three transports went off, especially the foreign Jews, from Germany and Czechoslovakia, because the Zamość Jews had previously already learned the trick of hiding themselves very well. Hideaways were created everywhere. Also, having relationships with the employees of the railroad, they already informed us when a train was being assembled, and thereby the Jews had the time and the opportunity to wriggle out of the aktion. Not permitting themselves to be ensnared, they would stay at their work places, or hide out in their already-prepared hiding places, or in the field in the [standing] grain. Therefore, in later times, it never became possible for the Germans to seize more than 300-400 people [sic: at a time]. This brought them to a state of angry frustration. The demanded that the Zamość ‘Judenrat’ take part in the aktion, as was the case in other cities, with the help of its employees and Ordnungsdienst. However, we never went along with this, giving as an excuse, the virtual non-existence of our Ordnungsdienst (the maximum membership of our so-called ‘Jewish Police’ was 15-20 people).
[Page 717]
On one occasion, the Gestapo brought the Jewish Police of Izbica to help with carrying out an aktion, where it was organized with a larger number of Czech and German Jews (over 100 people). However, even then, the aktion was not successful, because we were also warned about this in advance.
The following aktion, in accordance with the sequence, took place on August 11, 1942. Gestapo staff from Lublin came to help to the Gestapo staff in Zamość. This aktion was led by the Gestapo man Goetz, of extraordinary height, who held the rank of Obersturmfuhrer. The angered Gestapo staff, desiring to fill up the transport of the wagons that had been provided, went into all of the work camps, and not skipping the military work places in Zamość, selected several tens of people from each and every camp. For the first time, they then also took from among the members of the ‘Judenrat’ (5-6 members) and a specific number of employees, together with their families, who during each of the aktionen, would hide themselves in the ‘Judenrat’ building.
The Gestapo man Goetz was wild because of the failure of this aktion, and he accusations to me that Jews are avoiding the ‘evacuation out,’ and are not presenting themselves voluntarily, in his aroused state, he made the accusation that this is because rumors are circulating among the Jews about ‘so-called’ murders of their numbers. When I told him that we have been superbly informed about this, as to what was taking place in Belzec, and therefore one should not count on our cooperation, he declared to me that at the earliest possibility I will have the opportunity to be there and to personally see that this is all only ‘lurid propaganda.’
I had the opportunity to improve his disposition by turning over 30 thousand zlotys to him, a kilo of coffee, a kilo of tea, and a leather wallet, all of which was packed away elegantly.
He then stopped the aktion, satisfying himself with about 500-600 victims. In parting, he once again said to me that he will personally will assure that the next time I will take the trip to Belzec, and see for myself what is going on there.
This aktion also brought with it, approximately 70 victims that were shot on the spot by the Gestapo staff. On the following day, these victims were buried by us in a mass grave in the Jewish cemetery.
At that time, the lawyer Goldstein with is wife and daughter were killed. When standing in the crowd, he refused to go out and be loaded onto the train. He was then killed by the SS man, Hans Pienkowski, the previously recalled head of the camp. The lawyer and his child were killed on the spot. By contrast, his wife, Regina Goldstein, was severely wounded in the head. She lost her sight, and struggled on for nearly a week in our hospital.
At that time, the children of the Jewish journalist from Czechoslovakia, Jagsch were killed together with their grandmother, the daughter of the former Rabbi of Berdichev (I do not remember the family name). The mother of the children was then at work, and when she came home she found the bodies of her mother and two little sons. The Gestapo man Schmidt shot them in their home.
At the beginning of September 1942, yet another aktion was carried out, with more-or-less the same result – that is to say, about 400 people were apprehended and sent to Belzec.
Up to that time, assessing that the one means by which one could save one's self from a terrible death in Belzec, was to work at any location that was German, the entire Jewish population was drawn into work.
We then made the effort to persuade the Gestapo, that the Jews that remained alive were working, and the project was then instituted to transform our settlement into a large work camp.
The local Gestapo, as well as the central leadership and other German organizations, who were strongly interested in the existence of the local Jews, because they were very generously being paid by the ‘Judenrat,’ so-to-speak, accepted this plan. We then approached the implementation of t6he action to distribute the so-called life cards, the J cards, to those Jews who remained. This action lasted from the middle of September and was tied up with a review of all the Jews that remained alive. The review took place in the Jewish Division of the German Labor Office, in the presence
[Page 718]
of the members of the ‘Judenrat,’ a doctor, and members of the Labor Office. The review was directed, and certification for the receipt of a J card was carried out, by the Gestapo man Langenkompfer, the representative of the Chief of the Jewish Division at the Gestapo in Zamość.
At the same time, posts and barbed were brought in, with the objective of cordoning off the future camp. A sign was also prepared that had the writing: ‘Judenarbeitslager Zamość Numer 1.’ The German civil authorities had to assure that the Jewish settlement in Zamość was already liquidated.
This aktion was not carried out to its conclusion, because this time, quite suddenly, on October 16, 1942, at 5:00AM, our residential quarter, which had become very much shrunken, but still not cordoned off, and already was occupied only by Jews, was suddenly surrounded by a heavy cordon of German Police, Gendarmerie and Gestapo, and the battalion of motorized Gendarmerie, which had been brought from Warsaw.
Without exception, all the residents of the residential quarter were driven out onto the [market] place. They were not even given a couple of minutes of time, and the possibility to take something of their belongings with them. They were stood out in rows of 5 men, and with a quick march, were driven to Izbica, which lies about 21 kilometers from Zamość.
I deduce, that because the prior few ‘aktionen’ at this location, did not produce the desired result, that it was decided to drive all of the Jews to Izbica, where on unfamiliar turf, without hideouts and without the possibility of finding refuge in workplaces, it will be easier to liquidate them.
The Jewish population of Zamość at that time consisted of about 4000 people. Before the march, the Gestapo selected several tens of young Jews from the mass, – men and women – who worked for them as servants, to help load a freight truck and then drove them to the notorious ‘Rotunda’ and shot them there.
Apart from this, several members of the ‘Judenrat’ were also taken out of the mass, a doctor and a couple of craftsmen who had always worked for them at the account of the Council. I, together with the family, was in the number of those detained, under a guard.
All the rest were driven, as I have previously remarked, to Izbica. Along the way, they did not stint on shooting into the mass, a result of which was that several tens of killed people were left along the way. They were buried by the surrounding peasants in the gullies along the way, and in the fields, where no trace of them remained.
The remainder of the Jewish communities from the surrounding towns were also driven to Izbica, such as Krasnystaw, Turobin, Zulikiewa, Szczebrzeszyn, and others.
These people were bunched together in Izbica under the open sky, under a rain. Only a small portion could find a roof over their heads with the local Jews. This is how they were held until Monday, when approximately half of all the Jews who were found in Izbica, together with the locals, were loaded onto wagons and sent off – part to Belzec, and a part to Sobibor.
This took place on Monday, October 19, 1942.
This aktion was lead by the Gestapo man, Engels, one of the worst sadists, with the assistance of several hundred Ukrainians; for the entire time, he personally shot into the mass [of people] with hand-held machine gun weaponry, and caused the death of approximately 400 Jews on the spot.
The remainder, two weeks later, also on a Monday, November 2, 1942, almost all, without distinction, were taken to Sobibor, Belzec and Majdanek.
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A great number were killed on the spot. Only several hundred people hid themselves in the fields, and in the surrounding woods. This took place at the same time, when in Warsaw, and in all of the larger cities of the so-called ‘General-Government’ Province, huge signs were hung by the German regime, that several ghettoes were being created in the area of the General-Government Province, where all of the Jews need to be brought together, and where there will be guaranteed security.
The call was directed at all the Jews, who were hiding themselves, that they should come to these ghettoes voluntarily, as well as to Poles, with the threat of death for giving protection to Jews that were hidden.
One of these places, where the Jews were supposed to assemble, and where they were, so-to-speak, to have security, was Izbica.
When I was then already in Warsaw, Where I had concealed myself on so-called Aryan papers, I personally read such a representation.
On the strength of this, apparently, several hundred Jews who were spread out in the Izbica vicinity, not being able to find any other advice, presented themselves in Izbica. There, the previously mentioned Engels, apparently sufficiently sated with Jewish blood, organized a small ghetto for them. Those couple of hundred Jews existed there in comparative tranquility, and held out until the spring of 1943. On one day, they were all murdered there.
Apart from the members of the Gestapo and Ukrainians, Polish volunteer firefighters from Izbica and the surrounding villages also took part in the aktion of November 2, 1942. Without a doubt, they did this at the order , and under the compulsion, of the Germans. However, one must not cover up the fact, that, regrettably, a large part of the fire fighters were too zealous in discharging their duty to use their fire-fighting equipment in searching out all the Jewish hiding places and cellars. All corners and tiny rooms, where the hapless could conceal themselves, they searched them, dragged them out of there, and drove them under the German and Ukrainian bullets.
In waiting for wagons, the Jews were assembled, and kept for three days in the hall of the city cinema and at the firehouse.
As was later told to me the very few that were saved from death, the instances were not rare, when for a small bottle of water, the local obvalitas[6] (citizenry) demanded 500 zlotys from the thirsty people who were fainting and near death.
In this transport, which left Izbica for Belzec, among others, were the still-alive members of the ‘Judenrat,’ their families, with the Vice-President of the ‘Judenrat,’ Azriel Sheps at their head.
It was in this fashion, that the several centuries old, populous, and culturally, traditionally and historically rich, Jewish community of Zamość came to an end.
At this moment, (December 1947), Zamość counts 5 (five) Jewish residents – 4 men and one woman.
The Help-CommitteeThe Help-Committee was created in the first half of the month of December 1939, under the name, ‘Jewish Help-Committee’ and its first objective was to create help for the previously mentioned transport of those Jews that were ‘evacuated out’ from Wloclawek, which had arrived on December 18, 1939.
[Page 720]
After a variety of changes, together with a change in its name, the Help-Committee became a part of the general assistance organization of the Jews, which was active in the ‘General-Government’ Province under the name, ‘Jewish Social Self-Help.’ Previously, the organization belonged to the authority of the Office of the Governor-General in the hierarchy, and with the time, it was divided off as a separate Jewish organizational entity.
The first activity of the committee was the organization of a community kitchen, which was active from its founding, on December 18, 1939, until October 16, 1942. This kitchen distributed two meals a day, warm food, especially at no charge, or for a truly small amount of money, at the level of between 10 and 15 groschen. The means to keep the kitchen operating was largely covered for the entire time of its existence by the ‘Judenrat.’
In the initial period, the committee was financially supported by the ‘Joint,’ and later from the central office of the ‘Jewish Social Self-Help,’ which was located in Krakow. However, both of these institutions showed only a very small amount of help.
At the initiation of its activity, the Help-Committee also arranged an clinic, at the head of which stood the doctor, Gedalia Friedhofers, a refugee from Pulow.
The committee was lead by me, my representative, Moshe Levin, and later, we co-opted a certain Wohlstein, from Wloclawek.
Apart from the fact that the help from the central Jewish aid organizations in Warsaw and Krakow was non-existent, we had to fight for each groschen, personally traveling after it to Warsaw, losing time while waiting, and having to disburse funds for expenses.
As I was able to observe at that time, the entire province was being handled by the central institutions in the fashion of a stepmother, whether in the question of the allocation of money, as well as the distribution of food and clothing, which in the initial period were actually available in large amounts, coming from out of the country, for the Jews of Poland.
We very quickly oriented ourselves, that we could not count on help from the outside, and we will have to support ourselves financially through our own independent help institution, built on local vehicles. Thanks to the fact that the Help-Committee was headed by the same individuals as the ‘Judenrat,’ we were able to carry out the work of the Help-Committee without disruption, and also to broaden its activities.
With the passage of time, in connection with the outbreak of the typhus epidemic in our residential quarter, we organized a hospital for epidemics consisting of 60-70 beds. After overcoming the typhus epidemic, this hospital was re-configured into a general one with a variety of divisions, because in this period the municipal hospital no longer took Jewish patients. The number of Jewish ill, as well as those who suffered from a variety of injuries from the work places, was large; it was no always possible to have sufficient help in the clinic. All the Jewish doctors of Zamość worked in the hospital, as well as an array of rather prominent Jewish physicians from among the ‘evacuated over’ from Czechoslovakia and from Germany. Among others, the famous bacteriologist, and docent of dermatology, Dr. Zygmunt Shoenhof from Prague, as well as the surgeon, Dr. Joseph Weininger from Vienna, worked there.
The committee also organized a Prebel school[7] for the children, which was led by Ernestina Cahan, and Eva Zimmerung, a teacher of art, and others. This Prebel school was also connected to providing food for the children, and was a very important institution. Regrettably, it functioned only up to April 11, 1942 (the date of the first ‘evacuation out’ to Belzec). We then had to liquidate the Prebel school, and hide the children, because, as is known, the children and the elderly were the first victims of that ‘aktion.’
[Page 721]
From the start, we made an effort to open any number of schools for Jewish youth, supporting ourselves on the existing and the orders of the ‘General Province’ which made so-called Jewish schools permissible. But in response to the request that we made to the appropriate office, we never got any sort of answer. Other known ‘efforts’ led to no result.
Seeing that no Jew could conceive of the worst possibilities that awaited us, we attempted to use this time for the young people, which without schooling would be ruined, and could stray from a decent path. We organized a course for tailoring and sewing for girls. The courses were directed by Bertha Mandeltort of Zamość, with the skilled help of local craftsmen and also refugees from Krakow. From the outset, the courses developed very successfully, up to the first ‘aktion;’ Afterwards, they continued to exist, so long as there was a hope, that something might survive of the settlement in Zamość.
After the arrival of the first transport of the Czech Jews, at the end of 1942, they began to create various forms of art products in these courses. Among the Czech women, there were several graduates of the Hochschule of Artistic Industry.
In connection with this, I want to make a remark about the degree to how solid the good faith of the Czech and German Jews was, in preparing themselves for their ‘evacuation over’ to the east, and to begin a new life there. Most of them, especially the young people, underwent a variety of preparation courses, in their various locations, before they were transferred to Poland, and almost every one of them had some sort of trade; learned some kind of skill, which he had mastered to a greater or lesser degree, and which assured him of a means by which to earn a living from his own work, not needing to come for help from the local Jewish populace.
One of the most important achievements of the Help-Committee, was organizing the area of the Neustadt, where the Jews were transferred from May 1, 1941. This area became a necessity to existence. The 8-10 thousand head of Jewish population was crammed into a small area, under the worst of conditions, without the most primitive of hygienic requirements. In the entire area, there was not a single house with indoor plumbing, no bathroom. In a half-wrecked building, with almost nothing, only through the sacrificial work of our manual trades (Fass, Magaril and others). It also became possible for us, literally at the last minute, before the Jews were transferred over to the Neustadt, to decorate, and ‘pilfer’ from the mikva, which was located in the Altstadt, a few pipes, several bathtubs, and related amenities. All of this enabled us to arrange a bathing facility, where there was hot and cold running water, and several bathtubs. We also arranged for a delousing division at the baths, which had a disinfection chamber. Without this, we would not have been in any position to fight against the red-typhus epidemic. The obligation of guarding sanitation was a very serious one. No Jew was able to get his food card from the ‘Judenrat,’ without providing evidence of having, once a week, taken a bath and had his clothing disinfected.
The budget of the Help-committee in all of its divisions came out approximately to between 60-70 thousand zlotys a month, which by those currency values and prices (a kilogram of bread in 1940 cost 40 groschen, and in 1942 – 1 zloty 15 groschen) was very high. The support from the ‘Joint’ and from the ‘Jewish Social Self-help’ on average made out 3-5 thousand zlotys a month. Only in one singular instance, in February 1940, did we receive the sum of 16 thousand zlotys from the ‘Joint’ in Warsaw. This happened thanks to the one-time inspectors from the ‘Joint,’ Dr. Shalman and Goldfarb, who visited Zamość, and acquainted themselves with the condition of the masses, as well as the entire scope of the work implemented by the Help-Committee in Zamość. These gentlemen, later at every opportunity, supported us warmly, however, they could not break the entrenched unwillingness of the higher authority to support the province.
At Passover of 1940, we received a larger number of matzos in freight cars, with the objective of distributing this among the Jewish populace of the three municipalities: Zamość, Krasnystaw, and Tomaszow.
Later, form time to time, we would receive small sums with clothing from the central Jewish institutions, food stuffs and medicaments.
The bookkeeping of the Help-Committee was conducted very rigorously, and we had an accurate book of inventory with displayed positions of all received products, etc. We also had copies of the donations that were distributed through us
[Page 722]
for assistance. We were therefore very dismayed on a certain day, when towards the end of the year 1941, or the beginning of 1942, we were sent formulas with positions for products and clothing, from the central office of the ‘Central Help-Organization,’ that we supposedly had received. These sums were significantly larger than what we had truly received during the entire period. Also, there were listed items and produce which were never given to us at all. Under the excuse that the original bills had been lost, which were sent out from America, they requested that we endorse the copies. Seeing that these bills did not agree at all with ours, I refused to sign the formulations that were sent to us. Instead, I demanded a clarification about this blatant discrepancy and demanded that they should demonstrate who really received these items of clothing, foodstuffs, and medicaments, which are listed on our account. received no answer. This starkly characterizes the relationship of the central Jewish institutions to the Help-committees of the province, and to the Jewish populace which found themselves under their protection.
Every month, balances, and accounting of the activity of the Help-Committee, were presented to the Division for the national minorities at the German City Elder and the central Jewish institutions.
Produce for the public kitchen we received in set amounts, more or less, a half of what we needed, from the provisioning division of the German City Elder. With the representative of this division, we entered into ‘negotiating’ relationships, in which for the systematic extraordinary ‘sweetening,’ which he received, he would get things into our hand.
I must emphasize that our activity was impartially administered by the provisioning representatives of the municipal leadership.
Thanks to this sort of ‘interplay’ among all of the various factors, our public kitchen functioned without interruption until the final expulsion of the Jews of Zamość to Izbica, distributing the last meal even on the evening of October 15, that means simply, the evening of the expulsion itself.
The significance of the public kitchen was very great, at the beginning of its existence, and later, at the beginning of the liquidation aktionen, grew even more. Continuously, men were left alone, from whom families had been taken away, wives, who at that time already, without exception, all worked at German workplaces, and were sentenced to derive their sustenance from the public kitchen. For this reason, the number of meals distributed every time also rose. At the beginning, this number was 500 – at the end, it reached the level of between 2500-3000 meals.
The entire activity of the Help-Committee in Zamość mentioned above, was suddenly halted on October 16, 1942, along with the expulsion of the Zamość Jews to Izbica.
All acts, documents, as well as books of the Committee, shared in the same fate as all of the material that had any bearing on the activity of all Jewish institutions in Zamość. The Germans confiscated it, and it appears, they destroyed it.
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