Innocent but sentenced to death
Children in the Warsaw Ghetto
During the Shoah, over a million Jewish children were mercilessly murdered by the National Socialists and their accomplices. Their extermination was preceded by processes of marginalization, disenfranchisement and deportations to camps and ghettos under indescribable conditions. But what was everyday life like for children in the Jewish ghettos under German occupation, for example in the Warsaw ghetto? Who looked after them and what facilities were there?
The “Geneva Declaration” could not prevent it
One hundred years ago, on September 26, 1924, the
League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was founded as a result of the First World War and on the basis of the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920) and the peace treaties concluded within its framework. Its main purpose as an international organization was to promote international cooperation between its member states and to support conflict resolution. Over the years, a total of 63 states joined the League of Nations. However, its power and means of action were always limited and soon after the beginning of the Second World War, its activities ceased. It was formally dissolved in the spring of 1946, after the founding of the United Nations.
adopted the “Geneva Declaration” at the instigation of the Save the Children Fund International Union, which had been founded by sisters Eglantyne Jebb (1876-1928) and Dorothy Buxton (1881-1963) in the wake of the horrors of the First World War. This was the first time that the special rights of children and child protection had been formally recognized. Formulated in five concise articles, the document declared that humanity “owes to its children the best it has to offer.” The German Reich, initially ostracized as a war culprit, was only able to become a member of the League of Nations in 1926, a sign of the international recognition of the Weimar Republic. However, after the National Socialists seized power, the German Reich declared its withdrawal from the League of Nations on October 14, 1933. In 1934, the General Assembly of the League of Nations reaffirmed the Geneva Declaration, and the signatories promised to incorporate the demands of the document into national legislation. Although this was not fulfilled, the Geneva Declaration was the first international document to deal specifically with children's rights over and above general human rights.The systematic extermination of children
Throughout history, in all regions of the world affected by conflict, children have been, and continue to be, the anonymous victims of violence and arbitrary mistreatment. Unable to articulate themselves, their numbers, over time, are countless. We see this time and time again, most recently in the current conflicts and wars such as in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan. The Geneva Declaration was the first recognition of children's rights and of the need to protect children – though the moment of its creation happened to be on the eve of an industrially organized mass extermination, not only of children, but also of the infirm and the elderly, which is generally considered to be unrivalled in history. The Second World War was the first war in which children became a deliberate target. For Adolf Hitler and the National Socialists, it was an explicit goal to systematically exterminate Jewish children.1 Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945), Reichsführer SS, made the following statement in a speech to the Gauleiters in Poznan on October 6, 1943: “What about women and children? I have decided to find a very clear solution here too. I did not consider myself entitled to exterminate the men – in other words, to kill them or have them killed – and yet allow the avengers of our sons and grandsons in the form of their children to grow up. The difficult decision had to be taken to make this people disappear from the earth. [...] The Jewish question in the countries we occupy will be settled by the end of this year. All that will remain will be remnants – individual Jews who have slipped into hiding.”2 Against this backdrop, the unfathomable events that took place in German-occupied Eastern Europe will be examined below using the example of the children in the Ghetto.
Warszawa
deu. Warschau, eng. Warsaw, yid. Varše, yid. וואַרשע, rus. Варшава, rus. Varšava, fra. Vaarsovie
Warsaw is the capital of Poland and also the largest city in the country (population in 2024: 1,863,845). It is located in the Mazovian Voivodeship on Poland's longest river, the Vistula. Warsaw first became the capital of the Polish-Lithuanian noble republic at the end of the 16th century, replacing Krakow, which had previously been the Polish capital. During the partitions of Poland-Lithuania, Warsaw was occupied several times and finally became part of the Prussian province of South Prussia for eleven years. From 1807 to 1815 the city was the capital of the Duchy of Warsaw, a short-lived Napoleonic satellite state; in the annexation of the Kingdom of Poland under Russian suzerainty (the so-called Congress Poland). It was not until the establishment of the Second Polish Republic after the end of World War I that Warsaw was again the capital of an independent Polish state.
At the beginning of World War II, Warsaw was conquered and occupied by the Wehrmacht only after intense fighting and a siege lasting several weeks. Even then, a five-digit number of inhabitants were killed and parts of the city, known not least for its numerous baroque palaces and parks, were already severely damaged. In the course of the subsequent oppression, persecution and murder of the Polish and Jewish population, by far the largest Jewish ghetto under German occupation was established in the form of the Warsaw Ghetto, which served as a collection camp for several hundred thousand people from the city, the surrounding area and even occupied foreign countries, and was also the starting point for deportation to labor and extermination camps.
As a result of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising from April 18, 1943 and its suppression in early May 1943, the ghetto area was systematically destroyed and its last inhabitants deported and murdered. This was followed in the summer of 1944 by the Warsaw Uprising against the German occupation, which lasted two months and resulted in the deaths of almost two hundred thousand Poles, and after its suppression the rest of Warsaw was also systematically destroyed by German units.
In the post-war period, many historic buildings and downtown areas, including the Warsaw Royal Castle and the Old Town, were rebuilt - a process that continues to this day.
“Hygiene measures against epidemics”
The Warsaw Ghetto, which is examined below, only existed for a few years, but within that brief time the nameless fates of hundreds of thousands of children were interwoven there. It was by far the largest Jewish ghetto under German occupation, serving as a collection camp for hundreds of thousands of people and at the same time a departure point for deportation to labor and extermination camps. It was established in 1940, around a year after the start of the war: measures to segregate the Jewish population were initially carried out for “hygienic” reasons, ostensibly out of fear of epidemics. On October 2, 1940, all Jewish residents of Warsaw were forced to move to a restricted area west of the city center, which was cleared of non-Jewish residents and officially and euphemistically called the “Jewish residential district”. Six weeks later, on November 16, 1940, it was sealed off with an 18-kilometer-long perimeter wall. It was home to around 350,000 people, plus hundreds of thousands who were deported to the ghetto from other places. Around 100,000 children lived in the ghetto, a fifth of them separated from their families – lost, abducted, orphaned or missing, and at the same time socially ostracized.
Two children dressed in rags begging in Warsaw in the early 1940s. Ernst Herrmann / Bundesarchiv: Bild 101I-134-0771A-39, CC BY-SA 3.0
Two children dressed in rags begging in Warsaw in the early 1940s. Ernst Herrmann / Bundesarchiv: Bild 101I-134-0771A-39, CC BY-SA 3.0
Ubiquitous hunger
The Polish population had to make do with starvation rations, but the food situation in the ghetto was nothing less than catastrophic. The rations granted to the inhabitants of the ghetto amounted to a mere 184 calories per day, which included portions of either bread or potatoes. Disease and hunger were rampant: “Starvation repeatedly engulfed whole sections of the population. Every morning, new corpses covered in newspapers lay on the streets outside the front gates.”3
The more miserable the people's situation became in the face of constantly rising prices and dwindling food supplies, the more desperate the struggle for survival became. The many children in particular, who languished on the streets, tried to obtain food by stealing groceries from passers-by. They were referred to as “snappers” by the ghetto inhabitants.
Processions to the “transfer point”
Lone children were among the first to be exterminated, especially those who were picked up on the street and were not fit for work. When the ghetto was gradually dissolved from July 1942 as part of
Operation Reinhardt
Operation Reinhard
“Aktion Reinhardt” (“Operation Reinhardt”) was the Nazi code name for the deportation and systematic extermination of Jews and Roma living (mosty) in the General Government, i.e. in the occupied territories of the former Second Polish Republic, which had not been directly annexed to the German Reich following its conquest. Up to 1.9 million people were murdered in the Bełzec, Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps for this purpose. The operation lasted more than a year and ended in October 1943. “Aktion Reinhardt” was named after Reinhard Heydrich (1904-1942), who from 1941 was one of the main organizers of the Holocaust and was fatally wounded by an attack by Czechoslovak resistance fighters in the beginning of June 1942.
, most of the inhabitants were taken to the gas chambers at Treblinka. Those children who were housed in the ghetto's own facilities and thus gathered in one place were particularly easy to deport to the extermination camps. It was only when they were led to the so-called “Umschlagplatz”, the assembly point for deportations at the Gdansk railroad station north of the city center, that the children's deportations became visible to the city's population. Various eyewitnesses reported on the procession that made its way to the transfer point on August 5, 1942. It is well known that the pediatrician and reformist teacher
Janusz Korczak (1878/79-1942)
Janusz Korczak (1878/79-1942)
Janusz Korczak (1878/79–1942) was an important Polish pediatrician, educator, and author who, among other things, established the “Dom Sierot” orphanage in Warsaw, which opened in 1912, and ran it in close collaboration with Stefania Wilczyńska (1886–1942). In contrast to other orphanages, the “Dom Sierot” was not only modern and generously equipped, but also pedagogically highly innovative: the children played a decisive role in shaping the rules and organization; the institution had its own children's parliament, newspaper and children's court, for example. At the end of 1940, the orphanage was relocated to the Warsaw ghetto upon German orders. At the beginning of August 1942, Korczak and Wilczyńska accompanied the 200 children of the orphanage to the Treblinka extermination camp at their own request, where they were murdered shortly afterwards, although an exact date of death is not known.
accompanied the children from his orphanage to their deaths on this day, and that this meant he too would die – but he was not the only one. “The fact is that there were tens of thousands of Korczaks in the ghetto. They all led their children to their deaths. Only a few saved themselves and left those entrusted to them to die,”4 wrote
Jan Remetz (1923–2019)
Jan Remetz (1923–2019)
Jan Yohay Remetz (1923–2019), born Jan Piechocki, was a Polish resistance fighter. Born in Warsaw, Remetz and his family were confined within the Warsaw Ghetto, from which he managed to escape in 1942. Under a Christian alias, Remetz even worked as a guard at an airfield, before joining the Polish resistance. His memoirs were published in 2022 under the title “Remetz: Resistance Fighter and Survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto”.
, for example.One significant example of this took place at the children's home at 67 Dzielna Street. According to later reports, the head of the home, Sara Janowska, called the teaching staff together and explained that she had become aware of a plan among some of the teachers to hide from deportation. She demanded that they resolve not to leave the children. Anyone who was not prepared to go with the children was to leave the facility immediately. No one left.5
Resistance fighters killed in the midst of the already extensive destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto. The photograph was part of the photo documentation of the “Stroop Report”. The original caption reads: “Bandits killed in combat.”. Public Domain
Resistance fighters killed in the midst of the already extensive destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto. The photograph was part of the photo documentation of the “Stroop Report”. The original caption reads: “Bandits killed in combat.”. Public Domain
The photo of the boy from the Warsaw Ghetto, probably the most famous photography from the time of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, taken in late April or early May 1943. The photo comes from the so-called “Stro op Report, a documentation with numerous photographs by Jürgen (Josef) Stroop (1895–1952), who commanded the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising on the German side. One of three versions of the report was sent to Heinrich Himmler. The original caption reads: “Recovered from bunkers by force.”. Public Domain
The photo of the boy from the Warsaw Ghetto, probably the most famous photography from the time of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, taken in late April or early May 1943. The photo comes from the so-called “Stro op Report, a documentation with numerous photographs by Jürgen (Josef) Stroop (1895–1952), who commanded the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising on the German side. One of three versions of the report was sent to Heinrich Himmler. The original caption reads: “Recovered from bunkers by force.”. Public Domain
Child and orphan care facilities in the ghetto
In her publication “Dziecko wobec Zagłady” (The child in the face of the Holocaust), which has so far only been available in Polish, Agnieszka Witkowska-Krych presents her latest research into the everyday living conditions of children and their adult caregivers in the ghetto and looks at those whose fates have so far received little attention and have not been formally researched. She explains that there were at least 23 institutions run by various organizations that looked after the children in orphanages, residential groups and boarding schools – the best known of these was the Dom Sierot orphanage run by Janusz Korczak and Stefania Wilczyńska (1886-1942), which was relocated to the ghetto in October 1940. A total of 28 documented pediatricians also worked in the ghetto and, in addition to their practice, worked part-time or full-time in a number of welfare and therapy facilities for children. There were also several care facilities for mothers and children in the ghetto.
According to the National Socialists’ view, Jewish children did not deserve the privilege of education. The strict policy of socially excluding the Jewish population also encompassed the school system. For this reason, all Jewish schools in the General Government were closed in December 1939. As a result, secret schools were set up, which attempted to adopt at least part of the pre-war curriculum. These underground schools continued to play a role in the ghetto as well, as education and training provided a vital chink of hope for a future life.
The uprising and the end
The remaining ghetto inhabitants mounted an
uprising
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
also:
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was a response to Heinrich Himmler's order to implement the final phase of the liquidation of the ghetto. At that time, there were 500,000-550,000 people trapped in the Warsaw Ghetto, of whom 50,000-60,000 remained. The uprising lasted from April 19, 1943 to May 16, 1943. It was also the first action of resistance against the German Nazi regime of this magnitude on Polish territory and the largest single Jewish uprising during the Second World War. However, the so-called January Uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto took place before the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising as the first act of armed Jewish resistance.
The armed struggle was led mainly by members of the largest, but poorly equipped, group of the Jewish Combat Organization (Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa – ŻOB), led in the ghetto by Mordechaj Anielewicz, and the Jewish Military Union (Żydowski Związek Wojskowy – ŻZW), led by Paweł(?) Frenk(e)l. Estimates range from up to 1,000-1,500 fighters, with the forces of the ŻOB rather comprising 220-300 and the ŻZW probably 100-200 persons. They were also joined by other groups and individuals. The Polish resistance, in particular the Armia Krajowa (the so-called Polish Home Army), the Gwardia Ludowa (People's Guard), the Korpus Bezpieczeństwa (Security Corps) and probably the PLAN (Polska Ludowa Akcja Niepodległościowa – Polish People's Action for Independence), helped to procure weapons for the insurgents. However, these groups were ambivalent about the Jewish uprising and its support, not least in view of the already scarce resources for their own activities. During the uprising itself, the Armia Krajowa and the Gwardia Ludowa also carried out individual military actions, but these played a subordinate role in the course of the uprising. After the end of the uprising, isolated fighting continued into June.
The German occupiers used the scorched earth tactic. During the uprising or immediately after it was suppressed, 10,000-13,000 Jews were killed, and a further 43,000 were subsequently deported to extermination camps. During the fighting, only a small number of the ghetto inhabitants managed to escape. On the German side, approximately 2,100 armed soldiers and police fought the uprising every day, including Ukrainian, Latvian and Lithuanian units. On the so-called Aryan side of the ghetto wall, the local police (i.e. the former Polish police) patrolled to arrest people trying to escape. Estimates of the losses on the German and their helpers' side range from 16 to over 100 people.
on April 19, 1943, which was suppressed with extreme brutality and complete destruction. Over 56,000 people lost their lives in the fighting or as a result of their capture and deportation to the death camps. On May 16, 1943, the occupying forces reported that the former Jewish residential district of Warsaw no longer existed. Few survived, and of the survivors, very few were children.Uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto
A monument to the children
In 1993, the Memorial to the Child-Victims of the Holocaust was erected at the Jewish cemetery in Warsaw on Okopowa Street. It was privately donated by Jack (Jacek) Eisner(1925-2003)6, whose words remain immortalized on a plaque there: Grandma Masza had twenty grandchildren. Grandma Hana had eleven and only I survived. Jacek Eisner. The Children's Memorial consists of a replica of a triptych-like ghetto wall with barbed wire, in front of which lies a pile of rubble from the ghetto where photos of children who perished have been inserted: In memory of one million Jewish children who were murdered by the German barbarians in the years 1939-1945. Another memorial plaque features a poem by Henryka Łazowertówna (1909-1942) entitled “Little Smuggler” (pol. Mały szmugler) in Polish, Hebrew and English. Henryka Łazowertówna was already a well-known Polish poet in the pre-war period.7 In the Warsaw ghetto, she worked for Centos, a charity organization that looked after the increasing number of orphaned and homeless children. The historian and publicist Emanuel Ringelblum (1900-1944), who was also politically active, employed her at Jewish Self-Help (Alejnhilf). She wrote texts for the secret underground archive “Oneg Shabbat” set up by Ringelblum. The poem “Little Smuggler” is about a boy who smuggles food from the “Aryan” side into the ghetto for his family. Henryka Łazowertówna did not want to leave her mother, who was on the list during the great deportations of over 5,000 people a day in July 1942, so she allowed herself to be crammed onto the train with her and was murdered in Treblinka.8
The poem first appeared in an anthology of works written during the National Socialist occupation describing Jewish experiences and adventures. It was compiled by Michał Maksymilian Borwicz (1911-1987), the head of the Central Jewish Historical Commission, and was published in 1947 under the title “Pieśń ujdzie cało...” (“The song will survive unscathed...”9) .
Little Smuggler (Mały szmugler)10
Through the walls, through holes, through the guard posts,
Through the wire, through the rubble, through the fence,
Hungry, bold, and stubborn,
I sneak through, I dash like a cat.
Through the walls, through holes, through the guard posts,
Through the wire, through the rubble, through the fence,
Hungry, bold, and stubborn,
I sneak through, I dash like a cat.
At midday, in the night, at dawn,
In snowstorms, foul weather, and heat,
A hundred times I risk my life,
I put my childish neck on the line.
In snowstorms, foul weather, and heat,
A hundred times I risk my life,
I put my childish neck on the line.
A rough sack under my arm,
Wearing torn rags on my back,
With young, nimble legs,
And constant fear in my heart.
Wearing torn rags on my back,
With young, nimble legs,
And constant fear in my heart.
But you have to bear it all,
You have to put up with it all,
So that tomorrow you
Will have your fill of bread.
You have to put up with it all,
So that tomorrow you
Will have your fill of bread.
Through the walls, through holes, through the brickwork,
At night, at dawn and in the day,
Cheeky, hungry, crafty,
I move silent as a shadow.
At night, at dawn and in the day,
Cheeky, hungry, crafty,
I move silent as a shadow.
And if one day the hand of fate
Unexpectedly catches me at this game,
It’ll just be one of life’s little ambushes.
Mother, don’t wait for me anymore.
Unexpectedly catches me at this game,
It’ll just be one of life’s little ambushes.
Mother, don’t wait for me anymore.
I will not come back to you again,
You’ll not hear my voice from that far;
The dust of the streets will bury
The fate of this lost child.
You’ll not hear my voice from that far;
The dust of the streets will bury
The fate of this lost child.
And I have only one request,
The grimace set on my lips:
Who, Mother, will bring you
Your bread tomorrow?
The grimace set on my lips:
Who, Mother, will bring you
Your bread tomorrow?
Postscriptum
There are many vivid descriptions, reports and photographic records of the Warsaw Ghetto.11 Original recordings from the Warsaw Ghetto – most of which, though, are Nazi propaganda material – are also part of Yael Hersonski’s film “A Film Unfinished”, which was released in 2010. A German version can be found on the website of the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (Federal Agency for Civic Education).
English translation: William Connor
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Authors
Footnotes
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Jozef Gitler-Barski: Die Betreuung des jüdischen Kindes im Warschauer Ghetto (auf der Grundlage eines Interviews), [in:] Kinder klagen an, op. cit. p. 229. J. Gitler- Barski, Opieka nad dzieckiem żydowskim w getcie warszawskim (na podstawie wywiadu), [in:] Dzieci oskarżają, oprac. M. Hochberg-Mariańska, N. Grüss, Krakau 1947, p 229.
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