Noam Rachmilevitch
The Everyday Lives of Jews on the Aryan Side of Warsaw, Based on Letters to the Council for Aid to Jews and the Jewish National Committee, Held in the “Berman Collection”
2017 | Full access | Submitted in Hebrew
Even after the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto on May 16, 1943, some 20,000 Jews remained in the city. Some of them were living under an assumed identity (“above the surface”) while the majority lived in hideouts, in complete isolation from the outside world (“underground”). The purpose of this study is to examine the problems faced by Jews from these two categories in their struggle to survive in Warsaw and the measures they took to confront them. This study focuses on the period between the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the Polish Uprising, that is, May 1943 to July 1944.
The main source is a collection of requests for help sent by many of those Jews to the Jewish National Committee (Żydowski Komitet Narodowy, or ŻKN) and the Council for Aid to Jews (Żegota), a Jewish underground and a Polish one, respectively, both working alongside the Bund in helping Jews on the Aryan side. These letters reveal the hardships faced by the senders. These letters were kept during the war in the ŻKN archive and were later brought to the Ghetto Fighters’ House Archives by Adolf Berman. By analyzing and contextualizing hundreds of letters and other documents from this collection, I have examined the existential challenges faced by the Jews on the Aryan side and the responses they were given.
The study shows that the Jews initially tried to get by on their own; they utilized the means at their disposal (money, clothing, valuables, etc.), which they had entrusted to Polish acquaintances; they obtained forged papers and tried to make a living from jobs, homemade products, the black market, and other initiatives. However, the reality on the Aryan side was harsh, and their situation soon deteriorated: entrusted property was not returned; landlords maltreated them; poor clothing, hunger, and health problems aggravated their physical condition, especially in hiding; Jews were arrested, blackmailed, and robbed, often not only losing their clothes, money, papers, and possessions, but thrown out of their homes as well. Many were in physical and mental distress, and many were destitute.
Only once they had exhausted their resources and had nowhere else to turn to did they ask the underground aid organizations for help. Some ten to twelve thousand Jews received regular financial support, in addition to help in coping with concrete stringencies, and had a safety net of sorts. The biggest help was in the finance of the rent (even partially), which allowed them to stay hidden; the aid helped its recipients in other areas, such as hiding, obtaining papers, food, health, clothing, and sustenance, and provided a morale boost.
The research leads to several other conclusions: First, the Jews who lived in hiding and the ones who lived with an assumed identity had a different hierarchy of needs because their predicaments called for different solutions. Second, it appears that the sheltering of Jews for money was much more commonplace than doing so from conscientious reasons. Third, receiving aid made it easier for Jews to move from one pattern of existence to the other – from hiding to an assumed identity and vice versa. Fourth, the crisis points that impelled the hiders to seek help had similar biographical characteristics. Finally, the perspective of the Jews fighting to survive on the Aryan side shrank to the immediate future. The study of the Berman collection, which documents the underground relief actions for Jews in post-ghetto Warsaw, can thus contribute to our understanding of various aspects of the Jewish existence there.
Supervisors:
Prof. Havi Dreifuss
Prof. Arieh Kochavi