Once in the ghetto, the instruction declared, Jews would be “forbidden to leave the ghetto, forbidden to go out after a certain hour in the evening, etc.”59
Heydrich demanded that “the chiefs of the Einsatzgruppen report to me continually regarding… the census of Jews in their districts…. The numbers are to be divided into Jews who will be migrating from the country, and those who are already in the towns.”60
Some 3 million Polish Jews, during a sequence of sudden relocations, were to be catalogued for further action in a massive cascade of repetitive censuses, registrations, and inventories with up-to-date information being instantly available to various Nazi planning agencies and military occupation offices.61 How much food would the Jews require? How much usable forced labor for armament factories and useful skills could they generate? How many thousands would die from month to month under the new starvation regimen? Under wartime conditions, it would be a marvel of population registration—a statistical feat. No time was to be lost.
The Reich was ready. During summer 1939, the Office for Military-Economic Planning, with jurisdiction over Hollerith usage, had conducted its own study of the ethnic minorities in Poland. By November 2, 1939, Arlt, the statistics wizard who had already surveyed Leipzig Jews and their city-by-city ancestral roots in Poland, had been appointed head of the Population and Welfare Administration of the “General Government,” the new Reich name for occupied Poland. Arlt was devoted to population registrations, race science issues, and population politics. He edited his own statistical publication, Volkspolitischer Informationsdienst der Regierungen des Generalgouvernments (Political Information Service of the General Government), based in Krakow. It featured such detailed data as Jewish population per square meter with sliding projections of decrease resulting from such imposed conditions as forced labor and starvation. Arlt ruled out permanent emigration, since this would only keep Jews in existence. Instead, one article asserts, “We can count on the mortality of some subjugated groups. These include babies and those over the age of 65, as well as those who are basically weak and ill in all other age groups.” Only eliminating 1.5 million Jews would reduce Jewish density to 110 persons per square kilometer.62
In October 1939, the next counts began.
UNLIKE GERMAN, Austrian, and Czech Jewry, most of Polish Jewry was not assimilated. Intensely religious and not infrequently cloistered into very separate communities, they were often discernible by certain physical features that Eastern Europeans associated with Jews. Characteristic dark beards and other facial attributes made their appearance very different from many Poles. Openly speaking Yiddish and Germanic dialects only set them further apart. In some neighborhoods, Jews wore traditional attire. Persecuted into the portable professions, Jews inhabited the merchant class and artisan crafts. Indeed, the Polish word for “commerce” was the German word handel, which Jews had Yiddishized. With well-developed schools and other institutions, as well as a unifying corporate communal body, a flourishing Jewish and Yiddish culture thrived in Poland. The Jews of Poland were often highly recognizable and frequently resembled the stereotypical notion anti-Semites harbored. In short, one didn’t need a punch card-driven census to identify most of Polish Jewry.
But for special measures Hitler had in mind, the Jews of Poland did need to be counted and their possessions inventoried. Moreover, the Nazis did need to identify the thousands of Jews who did not fit the physical and social stereotypes, had drifted away from the communal group or its neighborhoods, had become baptized, or who had simply assimilated successfully into overall society.
Once Germany invaded Poland, the vibrant Jewish existence there was quickly obliterated. First, as instructed by Heydrich, Nazi forces created Judenrate, that is, Jewish Councils, across the country. In Warsaw, where a third of the city’s million-plus residents were Jewish, a balding engineer named Adam Czerniakow was abruptly appointed chairman of the local Judenrat. Undoubtedly, he was chosen for his methodical, engineering mind. Czerniakow and his council of twenty-four handpicked elders were charged with managing all civic affairs of the trapped Jewish population. It was the Council’s responsibility to gain rigid compliance with the torrent of oppressive measures decreed by the Nazis as the Reich speedily dismantled the once-thriving community of some 375,000 Warsaw Jews. In their impossible task, the Judenrat’s every move was closely regulated by the Gestapo, SS, Einsatzgruppen, and other Nazi bodies. Nazi officers sometimes lurked just a few feet away at the window as Czerniakow worked in his office.63
Statistics, registrations, and census would be an all-consuming duty for Czerniakow and his council during the coming days.
On October 4, 1939, Czerniakow was called to the Einsatzgruppe offices on Szuch Avenue. As instructed, he immediately went to work on a statistical questionnaire. He continued to meet with Nazi officials daily. Each time he was summoned, he noted their escalating, almost non-negotiable demands and commands. October 7, the issue of statistics came up again. October 12, during a meeting with the SS, Czerniakow reviewed questions about the community’s finances, forced labor contingents, and the forms to be used to record data. October 13, in meetings with the SS, Czerniakow again conferred on statistics wanted by the Germans and the forms to be used.64
To swiftly transfer the Jews out of their homes and businesses across Warsaw and compress them into a small prison-like neighborhood was a major population transfer that required detailed planning. The Nazis were already gathering house-by-house lists of residents from German-appointed “courtyard commandants,” this ostensibly to qualify occupants for food in a city where nearly all water, electricity, and transportation had ceased. In addition, the Judenrat was required to compile lists of all Warsaw Jews between the ages of sixteen and sixty.65
None of it was fast enough or complete enough. On October 14, Einsatzgruppen officers ordered the Judenrat to conduct a full Jewish census broken down by city district. Somehow, the Judenrat would also have to identify the baptized Jews who were not part of the Jewish community.66
German statistical officials already possessed the published figures of the Jewish population from the 1931 general Polish census. That census routinely recorded citizens by religion and mother tongue. So the Nazis could easily estimate that about 350,000 Jews lived in Warsaw. But many had fled as the Blitzkrieg advanced into the Polish heartland and during the years of prewar anti-Jewish agitation. Berlin needed precise numbers. They didn’t care how. The Nazis demanded Czerniakow plan and execute the census taking.67
The next day, as Czerniakow prepared for his task, Einsatzgruppe officers and their Polish-born auxiliaries patrolling the Jewish quarters continued to sadistically terrorize Jews directly outside his office. Their favorite sport was pouncing on defenseless, pious Jews walking the streets and demonstratively cutting off their beards. Other times, they forced Jews down on all fours and then ordered neighbors to ride them like donkeys in a race. Brutality to Jews on holy days or just before the Sabbath was the most intense. Pork and butter were smeared across their lips to violate their kosher observance. Soldiers snapped endless photos of the merriment for keepsakes. As such outrages took place outside his window, Czerniakow struggled to outline the logistics of the census.68