But dozens of people from the Bathyrans and the Labor Zionists and Revisionists and Bundists were not so fortunate. Black Friday shattered the ghetto and it sank to its lowest depths.
On the Sabbath following the massacre the ghetto was plastered with terrifying orders and the loudspeaker trucks roamed up and down, up and down, booming the edicts.
ORDER OF DEPORTATION NOTICE
1. By order of the German authorities all Jews living in Warsaw, without regard to age or sex, are to be deported to the East.
2. The following are excluded from the deportation order:
(a) All Jews employed by German authorities or in German enterprises who have their
Kennkarten
properly stamped.
(b) All Jews who are members and employees of the Jewish Civil Authority as of the day of this notice.
(c) All Jews belonging to the Jewish Militia.
(d) The families of the above-mentioned. Families consist only of husband/wives and children.
(e) Jews employed by social welfare agencies under the Jewish Civil Authority and Orphans and Self-Help Society.
3. Each deportee is entitled to take fifteen kilograms of personal possessions as baggage. All baggage over the weight will be confiscated. (All valuable articles such as money, jewelry, gold, etc., should be taken in order to use it for an orderly resettlement) Three days’ food should be taken.
4. Deportation commences on July 22, 1942, at 11 A.M.
5. Punishments:
(a) Jews in the published lists not reporting will be shot.
(b) Jews undertaking activities to evade or hinder orderly deportation will be shot.
JEWISH CIVIL AUTHORITY, WARSAW
Boris Presser, Chairman
ANNOUNCEMENT
Each deportee who reports voluntarily will be supplied with 3 kg. bread and 1 kg. marmalade. Food distribution will be held at Stawki Square.
Staging center for deportation will be the process center at Stawki 6-8 on the Umschlagplatz.
JEWISH CIVIL AUTHORITY, WARSAW
Dr. Paul Bronski, Deputy Chairman
ANNOUNCEMENT
Each day deportations will be clearly posted and announced for the proceeding day. Deportees for July 23 shall come from the following areas:
Elektoralna St. #34–42
Chlodna St. #28–44 inclusive
Orla St. #1–14 and 16–34
Leszno St. #1–3, 7–51, 57–77
All Biala Street
BY ORDER OF PIOTR WARSINSKI
Jewish Militia of Warsaw
Chapter Six
THE UNDERGROUND RECOILED FROM Black Friday and set out to determine what was behind the deportation.
For the first three days the Germans had an unexpected success. Wild Ones who lived in hiding without Kennkarten left their secret hovels, unable to resist the temptation of the three kilograms of bread and one kilogram of marmalade promised by the Germans. There were more volunteers than could be processed at the Umschlagplatz.
The deportation center was in a gray four-story concrete structure at Stawki 6-8, just beyond the northern gate. It was out of view of both the ghetto and the Aryan side. Once a school, it had later been an Orphans and Self-Help hospital.
Waffen SS Haupsturmführer Kutler, in charge of the detail, was a member of the Kommandos who had carried out the massacres on the eastern front. Kutler was in a state of drunkenness, tormented by a continuous nightmare of blood. His gory dreams were shared by most of the other Kommandos, who kept themselves going on liquor and dope.
A pair of thick iron doors hung across the entrance. Inside, a half dozen Nazis made selections, standing in front of the never-ending lines of humanity. A few were returned to the ghetto for labor. Most were passed along to the immense cobblestone yard surrounded by a high wall.
The courtyard detail was composed of Nightingales and their Litt and Latt compatriots under the direction of a few SS men who held various Alsatian dogs at leash end.
A brick train shed and platform some two blocks in length ran to the extreme end of the courtyard. A train of forty-four cattle and freight cars stood in readiness.
As the selectees came in, their belongings were ransacked for jewelry, money, valuables of any kind. In order to make room for more people on the cars, most of the clothing they carried was confiscated.
A detail of Jews from Koenig’s labor pool carted the clothing across the street to a building which served as a warehouse. Linings of coats were ripped apart for hidden valuables. Personal mementos—family letters, pictures, keepsakes—were burned in a large oven alongside the building.
When six thousand people had been gathered, they were loaded on the trains. At three o’clock promptly each afternoon the train pulled out for an “unknown eastern destination.”
The Wild Ones who had volunteered in the first days of the Big Action had been cowed to such a state that they offered almost no resistance. But anyone who balked inside the Umschlagplatz courtyard was pounced upon immediately, mercilessly, by the guards.
Outside the courtyard, Polish Blues and Jewish Militia kept order in the lines feeding people into the selection center.
The aged, cripples, and those obviously unfit for labor were taken from the Umschlagplatz and shot by SS firing squads at the cemetery several blocks away. In this way the Germans “proved” they were taking only the healthiest people to the new labor camps.
Despite the passivity of the Orthodox community, men like Rabbi Solomon continued to wield great influence over the people. As more and more rabbis went to an unknown fate, diminishing the numbers leading the Orthodox Jews, the remaining inherited more responsibility.
On the fourth day of the Big Action the remnants of the underground had the Umschlagplatz under observation and scurried desperately around Warsaw trying to learn the destination of the trains.
Alexander Brandel visited Rabbi Solomon in an attempt to convince him to go to the Jewish Civil Authority. The old man had drawn a rigid circle binding his duties. The Civil Authority, he argued, was beyond his sphere of activity. Through Talmudic reasoning and arguments Alex weakened his stand by drawing parallels with ancient exiles. Finally the rabbi agreed to a rabbinical court and allowed Alex to plead before the five rabbis they were able to assemble.
They decided it was morally correct for Rabbi Solomon to petition the Civil Authority.
The old man was partly blind, able to see only in shadowy images. Months before, he had been forced to give up his work on the Good Fellowship notes and Brandel’s journal. He entered tine Civil Authority building at Zamenhof and Gensia streets on the arm of Stephan Bronski, his favorite student.
Paul Bronski was more nervous than usual. The sight of Stephan with the rabbi in broad daylight in a place which was a rats’ nest of informers unnerved him. Stephan was sent home. Although Solomon could not see Paul, he was able to sense the uneasiness in the man’s voice.
“Dr. Bronski, there has been much talk about these deportations. In fact, little else is spoken of.”
“That is certainly understandable.”
“We hear that there are continuations of the eastern massacres in death camps.”
“Nonsense. Can’t you see it is the same group of agitators we have had to contend with since the first day of the occupation? We have only their propaganda that there have ever been massacres in the east.”
“Has the Civil Authority ever questioned the Germans about the validity of the stories of the eastern massacres?”
Of course not. Paul clamped his teeth together. Sightless though the old man was, none of the keen edge had gone from his mind, nor had he lost the acid manner of setting verbal traps.
“My dear Rabbi Solomon, no one claims that life in the ghetto has been easy. We are the losers in a war in which we have been chosen as the scapegoat. Yet, through orderly process, the fact is that we have kept most people alive and here.”