Ian Baxter - The Ghettos of Nazi-Occupied Poland

IMAGES OF WAR

RARE PHOTOGRAPHS FROM WARTIME ARCHIVES

Ian Baxter

First published in Great Britain in 2020 by

PEN & SWORD MILITARY

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

47 Church Street

Barnsley

South Yorkshire

S70 2AS

Copyright Ian Baxter, 2020

ISBN 978-1-52676-180-4

eISBN 978-1-52676-181-1

Mobi ISBN 978-1-5267-618-2-8

The right of Ian Baxter to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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About the Author

I an Baxter is a military historian who specialises in German twentieth-century military history. He has written more than fifty books including Poland The Eighteen Day Victory March , Panzers In North Africa , The Ardennes Offensive , The Western Campaign , The 12th SS Panzer-Division Hitlerjugend , The Waffen-SS on the Western Front , The Waffen-SS on the Eastern Front , The Red Army at Stalingrad , Elite German Forces of World War II , Armoured Warfare , German Tanks of War , Blitzkrieg , Panzer-Divisions at War , Hitlers Panzers , German Armoured Vehicles of World War Two , Last Two Years of the Waffen-SS at War , German Soldier Uniforms and Insignia , German Guns of the Third Reich , Defeat to Retreat: The Last Years of the German Army At War 194345 , Operation Bagration the Destruction of Army Group Centre , German Guns of the Third Reich , Rommel and the Afrika Korps , U-Boat War , and most recently The Sixth Army and the Road to Stalingrad . He has written over a hundred articles including Last days of Hitler, Wolfs Lair, The Story of the V1 and V2 Rocket Programme, Secret Aircraft of World War Two, Rommel at Tobruk, Hitlers War With his Generals, Secret British Plans to Assassinate Hitler, The SS at Arnhem, Hitlerjugend, Battle of Caen 1944, Gebirgsjager at War, Panzer Crews, Hitlerjugend Guerrillas, Last Battles in the East, The Battle of Berlin, and many more. He has also reviewed numerous military studies for publication, supplied thousands of photographs and important documents to various publishers and film production companies worldwide, and lectures to various schools, colleges and universities throughout the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.

I t was my intention to write no more about the treatment of the Jews by the Nazis: I believed there were already enough books on the subject. It was my 12-year-old son Felix who suggested I write about the ghettos. I looked into the idea and found he was right: there was room for another book, especially one with pictures and captions. The Holocaust has placed an indelible mark upon the twentieth century and on our consciousness. As I researched I became increasingly interested in how the Nazi government planned to control the Jewish population, forcing them to live in special restricted sections of towns.

The Nazi leadership in Berlin saw the ghettos as a provisional measure to control and segregate Jews while they deliberated on their fate. Their decision was to transport them to various labour or death camps around Europe where almost all of them would die.

There were around a thousand ghettos in Europe during the early period of thewar, but my focus in the book was mainly on the Polish ghettos of Warsaw, d, and Krakw. For these I was able to find sufficient material including many images, thebulk of which I have obtained from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM).

The photographs in this book were mostly taken by German soldiers with a passion for photography who were stationed in the surrounding towns and cities and given access to the ghettos. For instance, Willy Georg, radio operator: while stationed in Warsaw he supplemented his income by taking pictures of his comrades, and during the summer of 1941 he was issued a pass by one of his officers and given instructions to enter the ghetto and bring back photos of what he saw.

Sergeant Heinrich Joest was also stationed in Warsaw in 1941. With his Rolleiflex camera he was given permission to enter the ghetto and in just one day he shot 140 images of life there, some of which are revealed in this book.

There is also a collection of unique colour slides taken by Walter Genewein. Genewein was head of the d ghetto economy serving under Hans Biebow. He was a keen amateur photographer, and with his camera took chilling photographs of life in the d ghetto including disturbing photos of Jews being prepared for transportation to labour or death camps.

I hope that this book will become a valuable addition to Holocaust studies, and we all hope that we never have to encounter such an abhorrent regime as that of the Nazis ever again.

W ith Adolf Hitlers swift victory over Poland in September 1939 the Germans acquired territory with a population of 20 million, of whom 17 million were Polish and 675,000 were German. His plan had always been to clear the Poles and Jews from these territories and replace them with German settlers. What followed was a period of unrestrained terror in Poland, particularly in the incorporated territories. The areas not incorporated contained a population of some 11 million. These included the provinces of Lublin and parts of Warsaw and Krakw. Initially they were collectively termed the General Government of the Occupied Polish Areas and in 1940 were renamed the General Government. This large area was used as the dumping ground for all those deemed undesirable and enemies of the state. It was here that the first Poles and Jews were deported in their thousands.

During the first cold months of 1940 the General Government forced thousands of homeless and penniless people into an already overpopulated area. In their place came thousands of ethnic Germans, all of whom had to be provided with suitable housing. The scale of the relocation was enormous and chaotic.

By the end of January the immense problems of simultaneously attempting to relocate Poles, Jews and ethnic Germans had become such an administrative nightmare that it was agreed that all Jews should be forced to live in ghettos. The first ghetto was established on 8 October 1939 at Piotrkow Trybunalski, just days after the defeat of Poland. Two months later another had been erected in Tuliszkow. The Nazis saw that the ghettos would not only relieve the burden of the resettlement programme, but it was also a way of temporarily getting rid of the Jewish problem. The Nazis hated and feared the Jews, and believed that Eastern Jews in particular were carriers of disease; to isolate them in ghettos was deemed immediately practicable. Plans were put into practice across the General Government to create an extensive network of ghettos, while the rest of the country outside these isolated areas continued to endure harsh Nazi policies.