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The Warsaw Ghetto | DW Documentary

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  1. [Music] There's nothing here to remind me of my birthplace.
  2. There was once a beautiful square, Morinki Square. I remember trees and benches.
  3. I was born in Warsaw into a traditional Jewish family. I went to a preschool for Jewish children where they taught Polish.
  4. At home, we spoke Yiddish, but I had no problem with the Polish language. We spoke that, too.
  5. My parents lived in Warsaw. My grandparents do. We lived at 91 Street. By the gate was a tiny shop which was owned by our Jewish neighbor.
  6. He had this trick where he'd pretend to stitch his fingers together with a needle. Of course, it made a huge impression on
  7. us kids. We'd be horrified. He had a daughter called L who was friends with my sister.
  8. We live just like normal neighbors. My street was Novip. Sometimes I can see it more clearly than
  9. the Warsaw around me today. In my memory, it's still the same. In the morning, warm pretzels would be delivered. They were called bagels.
  10. You won't find bagels like those anywhere these days. You could take one and untwist it.
  11. My parents lived at 49 Marshovska Street. It was a so-called good neighborhood. My nanny would take me to the Church of
  12. the Holiest Savior. I remember we had to recite prayers. Some children would say they didn't know the prayers.
  13. I knew them because my nanny taught me. For me, the war began at the Jordan Park on Bagatila Street. I was sitting in a
  14. sand pit and my mom came over. She said, "There's a war. What are we going to do? [Music]
  15. [Music] It's the special quality of the Nazi system. People who had the energy to develop
  16. something had the power to do it. When Mr. Dangle took over in Warso in early December 39. He had the idea to
  17. invite Hubert Gross to come to Warso and build a German bow failek gross upon the advice of Mr. Danielle developed a dream of
  18. reducing Warso to next to nothing. On the screen is the visualization from one of my projects. It's based on
  19. fascist plans for the construction of a new German city, the Noat Vasha. This is a virtual reconstruction of that new Warsaw. This is the city center. It's a
  20. relatively small city. The entrances were to be guarded by watchtowers on all sides. These are the main buildings of the new
  21. German Warsaw. On the Praga side, there was to be a district for Poles who would be slowly
  22. exterminated. The new German city of Warsaw was to be inhabited only by Germans. There was to be no Jewish population.
  23. With regard to Warsaw, the Furer has decided that the reconstruction of that city as a major Polish metropolis is absolutely out of the question. The
  24. Furer's wish is that in accordance with plans for the territo's development under the general government, Warsaw be reduced to the level of a provincial
  25. city. From the diary of Governor General Hansf Frank. Once the Germans arrived, the terror began almost right away with various
  26. official announcements and notices. All Jews were forced to wear armbands with the Star of David. It was awful.
  27. In my mind, this was a form of degradation. At any moment, I could be humiliated.
  28. In the spring of 1940, consultations began with a view to creating one or more Jewish housing districts within the city of Warsaw. In the end, however, it
  29. was decided that a single district should be established in the area where Jews were traditionally the majority. Dr. Friedrich Gollet, SS Undoufa, Head
  30. of Division of Regional Planning, Office of the Governor of the District of Warsaw. [Music]
  31. Where was the Jewish neighborhood in Warsaw? There were Jewish neighborhoods. Yeah. Nalefki, no Valipki, where it was almost all Jewish. But when
  32. you're a third of the city, you're all over the city. And the interaction with non-Jews was a normal daily event.
  33. That comes to a crashing halt with the building of the Warsagetto wall which goes through the heart of the city and divides Jews from non-Jews
  34. as they were never divided before. The wall didn't appear suddenly. Bits and pieces of wall started to be built
  35. from April 1940. These were sections of wall or barriers with barbed wire. They popped up in various places.
  36. [Music] I had no idea I was Jewish. So, first I was asking why do we have to move and
  37. later what does it mean that I'm Jewish and why do we have to leave our home? [Music]
  38. When we arrived in the ghetto, the first thing I saw was a horrible poster. I didn't want to be like that Jew on the poster. And I was distraught at being
  39. forced to live there. I thought that every Jew had to look like that. I was so terribly humiliated by all this. I said to my mom I didn't
  40. want to be a Jew anymore, that I wanted to go back to Marshovska Street. And why was all this happening anyway?
  41. notice. By order of the district governor and effective immediately, a self-contained Jewish quarter is to be created in the district of Warsaw with a
  42. view to preventing the spread of disease. In the city of Warsaw, a boundary running around the Jewish quarter has been established. All border
  43. streets are to be closed off from it on both sides as follows. From Giela to Kruvka and Zwarta. From Zwarta to Giela and Jalasna. From
  44. Touvvada to Jalasna and Strebra. From Srea to Tada and Miaana. From Miaana to Srebrina and Kajime Square.
  45. that she's We already lived in the area that was now the ghetto because Moranovski Square
  46. was inside the area. Jews who lived outside the ghetto had to move in and Poles who lived in the ghetto had to move out.
  47. This led to very painful situations for people. They left their homes. They left their furniture and possessions carrying only a few small bundles with them.
  48. The ghetto became very crowded. [Music] We've all seen the images of the
  49. expulsion of the Jewish community. Something similar happened the other way around, too. There were tens of thousands of people like us. I remember
  50. sitting on a cart full of our things. [Music] We were thrown out of Jalajna because
  51. the ghetto was created there. We were moved to Brekka Street number five, apartment 110. It was a ruin.
  52. measures involved the resettlement of around 700 ethnic Germans, 113,000 Poles, and 138,000 Jews. The Warsaw Jewish Housing District is an enclosed
  53. area cut off from its surroundings by walls, fences, and so on. Movement of persons and goods in out of the area is by special permit only.
  54. Dr. for Friedrich Gollett, SS Untoura, Head of Division of Regional Planning, Office of the Governor of the District of Warsaw.
  55. [Music] The Jewish population always looked for contacts outside the ghetto wall to get
  56. food. At first, Lorna came to us on Beska Street, though we weren't well off at
  57. the time. We were three siblings, my mom and my dad.
  58. My father did the smuggling because there was no other way then. But my mother put aside potatoes and peelings for her.
  59. Later stopped coming. Of course, we didn't know why.
  60. After that, my sister simply disappeared. I don't know how. She and my father just ceased to exist.
  61. I don't remember any farewell or any of the circumstances. Maybe my memory suppressed it because it was too terrible.
  62. The city center was cut off and ceased to function normally. When you see which part of the city made up the ghetto, you realize it was really
  63. the heart of Warsaw. If you take into account that the Germans also carved off a piece for
  64. themselves, what was left of Warsaw for other residents was just a small part. The German housing district has been created for the protection of the German
  65. population at their request. The police cannot guarantee Germans living outside of this district the same degree of personal safety as is provided to those
  66. living within it. Hunts Flegner Nazi party Warsaw.
  67. [Music] Night and day by rail in carts and buses, Jews arrive here from Polish
  68. towns and villages. is the individual vanishes in this enormous human mass. People are crammed in.
  69. Individual faces are unrecognizable. [Music]
  70. The German army and civilians must in any event be protected from the Jews, immune carriers of disease. The separation of Jews from the rest of the
  71. population, Polish as well as ethnic Germans, is a moral and political imperative. Traffic in the center of Warsaw has also been only minimally
  72. affected by the creation of the Jewish housing district. In the interests of the Vermacht and the economy, great care was taken to ensure
  73. that certain main thorough affairs would remain crossable without obstruction to through traffic. Valdemar Shern SSandatenfura,
  74. Director of Department of Resettlement, Office of the Governor of the District of Warsaw.
  75. [Music] The German planners divided things up, each administering their division.
  76. They even designated which streets a tram would travel along to shorten its route through the ghetto. That created two ghettos. It was all a terrifying
  77. mishmash of evil. Street ended up dividing the Jewish district. The district was cut into two parts by
  78. the critically important tram line that ran along. The ghetto was divided into two parts, a small ghetto and a large one.
  79. In order for Jews to move back and forth between the small and the large ghetto, it was necessary to stop the flow of traffic at intervals. Since this was
  80. inconvenient for the Germans, Jews were given permission to cross over as infrequently as possible.
  81. As I walked along Jalashna, I would see from a distance the crowd milling at the corner of Quadna. People would be shifting restlessly on the spot, waiting
  82. for the German police to decide when the traffic on Guadnau was light enough and the crowd on Jalagna thick enough to warrant letting the Jews across the
  83. street. When the moment finally came, the police cordon would part and the impatient
  84. crowd would surge forward in both directions, pushing each other over in the panic to distance themselves from the dangerous German presence and melt
  85. once more into the depths of the two ghettos. A line in the pavement shows where the ghetto border ran, how the ghetto fit
  86. into Warsaw. It wasn't an isolated island surrounded by the unknown. It was embedded in the
  87. city. In each plaque, there's a marker showing where we are. The parts of downtown Warsaw that were torn away are elevated.
  88. Litz and my intention was to show the ghetto in real space how it was and where the boundary ran
  89. Come on. A Jew who didn't have a lot of money or didn't have a pole who was his friend
  90. didn't stand a chance. There was nothing he could do. He cared only about what he would eat the next day and what he would give his
  91. children. I was one of those who didn't have anything.
  92. About 80% of food in the ghetto came from smuggling, not from the official suppliers authorized by the Germans. If someone had money, they could get
  93. things into the ghetto somehow. I once witnessed a tram passing through Muranovski Square, and as it turned the corner, items were thrown out. It
  94. couldn't stop in the ghetto. This was how trade carried on. In some places, the ghetto walls did not come right down to the pavement at
  95. regular intervals. There were openings at ground level through which water flowed into drains running along the sidewalks. These openings were also used
  96. by children for smuggling. Tiny dark creatures with legs like matchsticks would converge on these openings from all sides. Terrified eyes darted from
  97. left to right and frail paws dragged through bundles that were often bigger than the tiny smugglers themselves.
  98. [Music] [Music]
  99. Notice any Jew unlawfully leaving the designated housing district is to be punished by death. The same punishment
  100. will apply to persons who consciously protect such Jews or in any way assist them. Warsaw, 10th of November, 1941. Dr. Fischer, Governor
  101. Sienna is a very important street for me. This is a street I was scared of and I still am to this day.
  102. I've never walked this street without feeling afraid. Behind this wall, I spent more than two years in the ghetto with my family.
  103. When I first found myself back here, I began looking obsessively for the hole through which my mom and I had escaped. I just stood there going back in time,
  104. trying to figure where that hole could be. But the hole was probably somewhere else further on.
  105. [Music] When I look back, I see two years of humiliation, imprisonment, hunger, and
  106. fear. As I said, I'm scared of Sienna Street. I still expect to either see or remember something terrible there.
  107. [Music] [Music]
  108. [Music] [Music]
  109. All around I could see handcarts and on them bodies of men, women, and children piled carelessly one on top of the other.
  110. I became aware of a strange, vaguely sweet and sickening odor I'd never smelled before.
  111. A Jewish policeman explained, "Next to the Jewish cemetery, there was once a large field. Today, it's one of the biggest mass graves ever, filled with
  112. the bodies of Jews from all corners of Europe. Could this be real? How was it possible that a human being of flesh and blood
  113. should have to die in such a pitiful fashion? The German occupation murdered 90% of the Jews here. It's heartbreaking.
  114. And then if you could imagine that not only does the wall go through the heart of the city right in the middle of a street, it stops. But on the other side
  115. of that wall, starvation, disease, and very soon after, deportation to death.
  116. [Music] For security reasons, I order that the ghetto of Warsaw be demolished. All
  117. utilizable building parts and other materials of any value are to first be salvaged. An overall plan for the raising of the ghetto is to be submitted
  118. to me. We must in any event ensure that the living space occupied until now by 500,000 subhumans and in no way fit for habitation by Germans disappears
  119. completely and that Warsaw, this city of 1 million, always a center of corruption and revolt, is reduced in size. Hinrich Himmler Reichfura SS.
  120. At the same time as an organized resistance group was preparing to fight, Jews in the ghetto were going into hiding.
  121. I went into that bunker in January 43 and in April the uprising broke out. My brothers left to take part in the uprising. This bunker was built around a
  122. basement that had been dug deeper with boarded up sides. The dugout earth was piled up all around and it provided some kind of insulation. When the fires
  123. started, everything in the neighboring basement collapsed and burned. But this bunker survived.
  124. [Music] I remember 1943 seeing uncanny clouds of smoke rising
  125. from the north fighting in the ghetto. Something was happening there.
  126. [Music] There is no longer a Jewish quarter of Warsaw.
  127. Jurgen Stro SS Grienfura. It still pains me that after all these years, I never got to mourn my family. I
  128. never even had time for that. I lost everyone. I had six brothers and a sister and parents. I'm the only one who survived it all. I was left as a
  129. witness. Without me, there'd be nobody. The value of life is in bearing witness. Yes.
  130. Water's geisha street concentration camp was set up to hold people needed to demolish the ghetto. It wasn't only blown up with dynamite but also
  131. dismantled. It was completely plundered and that camp was hell. People died there.
  132. On the ruins of the ghetto, the Nazis wanted to create a park for Germans, hence the demolition.
  133. The area was to be covered over with earth and turned into a garden paradise. The intention was to destroy the capital of what was formerly uh Poland. That was
  134. the main intention to destroy the idea alone of a capital because there was no more Poland.
  135. I spent almost a year on the Aryan side. There was a whole network of helpers. If things got dangerous, someone would come by and take you by the hand.
  136. [Music] On the 1st of August 1944, the uprising broke out. Twice I lived through the burning of Warsaw.
  137. All around the walls were almost redot and people were being herded along. On both sides of the streets, burning debris was coming down.
  138. Warsaw was on fire and you could feel it. [Music]
  139. after liberation in 1945. you couldn't live in Warsaw really and slowly trying to rebuild and then getting again undermined by Soviet occupation
  140. and oppression It's difficult to imagine what was here before the war. This area has changed so
  141. much. Certain streets and squares ceased to exist. Names were changed. Directions were altered. No more than a dozen or so original buildings have survived.
  142. This area has many layers. Underneath the ground is a second layer which shows itself when workers dig down to lay pipes.
  143. Then the remains of the past are uncovered. In 1949, the architect Bhan Lad created a housing estate which was to be a
  144. memorial space. What was unique was that the bricks of the buildings were made from rubble on
  145. top of whatever else that was in the rubble, including human remains. The buildings stand on concrete foundations made using rubble. They rise
  146. from these strange little hills. That stands out because Warsaw is a flat city.
  147. People calling me and saying, "There are spirits in my apartment. I'm in the old ghetto. Can you do something?
  148. Well, I have that's beyond my competence. But I did go and I said psalms because if a person feels I can make them if I
  149. can make someone feel more at peace, then I'm happy to do so. [Music]
  150. [Music] [Music]
  151. [Music] [Music]
  152. [Music] This line shows where Muranovska Street would have run. Your building was here
  153. on the corner number 10. Yes. On this map, I've marked the location of your former home, superimposing it on the current image.
  154. It was on this street at the intersection. That's where your home used to be.
  155. I was born here. [Music]
  156. [Music] the memory of the ghetto. It's beginning to really return into the memory into
  157. the soul of Warsaw. Give people a chance to remember and chances are they will remember.
  158. [Music] April 19th, the anniversary of the Wasto uprising.
  159. While we're moving farther away from the event, actually the number of people coming is growing. That's a sign of hope.
  160. [Music] [Music]
  161. [Music] [Music]
  162. [Music]

Zum Nachlesen

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