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Warsaw: A Microcosm Of Polish Jewry — Eighty-five Years Since the Erection Of The Wall Of the Warsaw Ghetto
by S. Cohen
A map of the Warsaw Ghetto in its early days
The following is the third part of a four part article on Warsaw as a microcosm of Polish Jewry. In the first two parts, we provided background on Warsaw before the Holocaust, discussing the prominence of the kehilla of Warsaw in all respects. Warsaw boasted many talmidei chachomim, mosdos Torah and mosdos chesed. When the Germans arrived in 1939, nearly one quarter of a million Jews fell into their hands and by 1940 the Warsaw Ghetto was erected.
Subsequently, the Jews were driven into the Ghetto, and forced to exist under harrowing conditions. All Jewish valuables were plundered and starvation was rampant. Epidemics took the lives of many, and those who remained lived a life of quiet desperation.
For Part II of this series click here.
For Part IV of this series click here.
Part III
Spiritual Resistance In The Face of Adversity
While secular holocaust literature is replete with the illustration of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising — the physical resistance — much less is known to us about the intrepid spiritual resistance of Warsaw Jewry.
Military resistance is only one way of responding to an adversary. Spiritual resistance is certainly a more sublime and important type of resistance. The frum Jews' refusal to surrender their values, and their struggle against all odds to uphold the mitzvos and limud HaTorah is not commonly discussed but certainly, as we have said, it should be, for it was precisely in this area that our brethren in Nazi Hell truly brought nachas ruach leYotzrom.
It was really this spiritual resistance which undermined the very foundation of Nazi philosophy, even more than the armed struggle. The Nazis did not only seek to exterminate the Jewish people physically, but there is no doubt that the Nazis ym'sh also waged a spiritual attack on the Jews, seeking to break them and cause them chas vesholom to curse their Creator.
Nazi philosophy propagated "the thousand-year Reich," immortality and exclusive possession and power of one's surroundings. Hitler's writings reveal that he was deeply cognizant of the spiritual power of the Jews, and he wrote that it negated his own plans. Hitler believed that his Third Reich could only survive if the Jews would defy Hashem and relinquish their Jewishness. To this end, he brought about incredible suffering, particularly in the realm of Yiddishkeit. But the Jews resisted.
A child in the Warsaw Ghetto
Cutting Off Beards And Payos
One of the first forms of antisemitic aggression was cutting off Jewish beards and payos. Even before the Jews entered the ghetto, the Germans would publicly ridicule, beat and oppress the Jews at a beard-cutting ritual. The bearded Jew was forced to remain still as the Gestapo officers would wave their scissors near his eyes and then take a fast snip which was accompanied by a hearty laugh. Any resistance on his part led to severe beatings or even instant death. In this way, the Germans aimed to detach the Jew entirely from one of the most prominent symbols of his Yiddishkeit once he would be "beard-less."
For the same reason, in one town a public order was given for all Jews to appear in the market place. (This town was known as Zadorska-Valia.) On the given day, thousands of Jews were lined up to have their beards pulled out or shorn off and placed in one pile. The remains were reserved in a given place for the Polish riffraff to celebrate "a holiday." Eventually, poskim and rabbonim gave a heter for Jews to cut off their own beards to spare them the terrible beard-cutting ceremonies. Yet, despite all, the ehrlicher Jews did not bemoan his fate or lose emunah.
In Warsaw, the Gestapo publicly cut off the beards of Rav Shlomo Dovid Kahana and Rav Gutschachter. When the Gestapo came to pull out the beard of Rav Gutschachter, he whispered a silent tefillah, for which he was given many lashes. He then fainted.
In one case, a Jewish Rav in Warsaw attempted to secure his beard via Christian influence. The daughter of this rav begged the Polish priest to intervene on his behalf with the Gestapo. The priest agreed to do this because of his good relations with the rav. However, the priest's request was received with disgust, but the Gestapo ruled that the rav may redeem his beard with one hundred lashes! The rav consented for he did not want to lose his beard! When the aged rav was lashed thirty one times, he fainted and was hospitalized. He agonized in the hospital for more than two weeks, but his beard was not cut off.
The Gestapo forced the Admor of Sochotchov, HaRav Borenstein, to cut off his own beard and then accompanied the ceremony with public flogging and mockery.
Cutting off payos was another ceremony for the Gestapo. Boys of all ages were publicly ridiculed, beaten and tormented as their payos were shorn off. A child of ten years old, Avrahamale Vigalenik was seen with payos and dragged to a German hotel where his payos were shorn off and he was abused mercilessly.
Once, in a small town adjacent to Warsaw, all of the church bells began to toll and instantly all of the Polish police in the vicinity filled the marketplace. Rav Shmelka Atelka was seen wearing a kapote of silk and a streimel on his head. Two shochtim were being dragged along with Rav Shmelka draped in their talleisim. In the marketplace, in front of the entire assembly, the two shochtim were forced to cut off the beard of Rav Shmelka, and Rav Shmelka was forced to cut off the beards of the shochtim.
A map of Poland showing Warsaw
Mikvo'os
The problems in running a mikveh during the war were numerous and hazardous. During the period when the Germans bombed Poland in 1939, not one single mikveh was operating as there was no water in Warsaw. Instead the mikvo'os served as shelters from the heavy bombing.
Once the bombing terminated, the water supply into Warsaw was restored and the mikvo'os were once again activated. The mikvo'os were even used for personal washing as the debris in many homes made washing impossible. (Rabbonim were consulted on all matters.)
At this juncture, the mikvo'os were made available to men in the daytime, and to women in the evening.
In 1939, the renowned German antisemite Dr. Schrempf began investigating the mikvo'os on the premise that, as the Director of the Board of Health of Warsaw, he is responsible for its function. On the day following his visit to the mikvo'os, his analysis of the mikvo'os was published in the Cracower Tzeitung (a Cracow newspaper). He claimed that the mikvo'os in Warsaw were a definite health hazard and described the existing conditions of the mikvo'os in harsh terms.
"All contagious diseases germinate in the filthy water," he claimed. He ordered the closure of all mikvo'os in Warsaw.
In one case, Dr. Schrempf deliberately ordered the Jews to fill up the mikveh with stones and dirt but allowed the preparation rooms to remain open to the public as a spiteful measure, to encourage its use as a regular bath rather than as a halachic mikveh. The baalei hamikvo'os did not agree to these terms, and the entire mikveh was closed. On the closed door of each mikveh, a Nazi swastika was hung and the German writing beneath read:
"Use of this mikveh is forbidden and punishable with ten years imprisonment or death."
Jewish Warsaw remained without one single operating mikveh — just as in the days of the Romans. The frum women began travelling to the neighboring villages of Palnitz, Grodzisk and Prushkov and returned to Warsaw the same evening.
By the winter of 1940, leaving Warsaw via the electric train required an official certificate. This made travelling to mikvo'os even more difficult. Soon the Nazis forbade Jewish travel on most electric trains, even with a certificate, and the frum women in Warsaw could only travel to Rembratov, Prushkov and Piessestna.
Most of the women travelling to Rembratov were impoverished and could not afford the electric trains so they joined together to hire a horse and buggy.
Many women travelled via the electric train to Prushkov where Jewish travel was permitted without a certificate. Each afternoon, the public square in Warsaw was filled with hundreds of women waiting to enter the train to Prushkov. When the train arrived at the station of Prushkov, the mass movement of women leaving the train in the direction of the mikveh aroused the attention of the Poles on the train. They took the opportunity to jeer at the religious women, but the women hurried off in order to return to Warsaw before the evening curfew.
Some women in Warsaw travelled to Piessestna to use the local mikveh, however the water there was only heated once a week. The local Admor, Rav Yitzchok Shapiro, and Mr. Meshullam Kamina, saw the plight of the Warsaw Jews and collected funds to heat the water daily, after many women contacted pneumonia from the ice cold water.
Travel to Piessestna was only possible with a certificate. The rabbonim and admorim in Warsaw purchased many travel certificates for the women who wished to travel to Piessestna. The rabbonim arranged for these certificates to be distributed to all women requesting one.
In October 1940, when the Jews were forced to use the special Jewish Tramway instead of public transportation, the problem became even more acute. The Jewish Tramway only left Warsaw every four or five hours and even if a woman left Warsaw early to arrive in Prushkov early, she had to wait there for the zman tevilla and by then there was no return Jewish Tramway to Warsaw.
Soon the problem of mikvo'os affected the men as well. Fortunately, the owner of the mikveh on 14 Gzebov Street in Warsaw formulated an idea, and bribed the local Polish Commissioner not to reveal his secret. He drilled a hole in the basement bordering his mikveh and via this clandestine hole, Jews could enter. (One had to enter an underground tunnel which led to the hole leading into the mikva).
Hot water was another problem to tackle, but after much mesiras nefesh he managed this too. In the daytime, the men entered the underground tunnel and used the mikveh, and at night, the women did the same. Although on the front door of the mikveh, the sign warned of ten years imprisonment or death, the ardent ohavei Hashem continued to fulfill this important mitzvah.
When the Warsaw Ghetto was then sealed off in 1940, there was not one goy living there anymore. As such, the fear of being reported was much diminished. Three other baalei mikvo'os in Warsaw patterned themselves after the owner of 14 Gzebov Street and activated their mikvo'os in secrecy from 1940 to 1941. For another year and a half, the Yidden were moser nefesh to be mikayeim mitzvos under the fear of death. Almost to the time the very last Jews were deported from Warsaw to the camps, the mikvo'os continued to function.
A teshuva sefer from the Kovna ghetto
Chasunas, Divorces, Dinei Torah and Sheilos
How did the Yidden manage to adhere to all aspects of Yiddishkeit during the war, and particularly during the ghetto years? Obviously, only with tremendous strength. "Vitzidkosom omedes lo'ad."
In the first three weeks of the war, not one chasunah was held in Warsaw because of the bombing. Shortly afterwards, the problem of making a chasunah entailed seeking out the homes of the rabbonim in the bombed-out neighborhoods of Warsaw and its environs. The problem of getting official Polish marriage licenses intensified when public travel became forbidden as the government offices were quite a distance away.
Once the Jews were herded into the ghetto in Warsaw, an increasing number of chasunahs were held. Many men who has lost their wives in the war wished to remarry, and similarly for the women. Also, housing in the ghetto was hard to come by. So, instead of a kallah seeking a room to rent, and her chosson also seeking a room of his own to rent and postponing the marriage until after the war (which all believed would end soon), it became more practical to arrange the marriage and rent just one room.
From the outbreak of the war, these chasunahs were not joyous occasions and usually no seuda or celebration was made; it was only an official matter.
Divorces for reasons of marital discord were hardly given throughout the entire war. At a time when people were struggling for basic survival, no one could be concerned with petty matters. Also, it was practically impossible to survive the ghetto conditions alone, and even an individual without children felt he needed a partner. In some instances, if a man felt his life was endangered by a long journey where he might be lost or such, he would request permission from rabbonim to write up a get for his wife so that she would not remain an agunah.
Dinei Torah during the war were typical wartime dinei Torah. After the initial bombing of Poland in 1939, many people came to rabbonim with a similar problem: Monies, property or articles were given over to an acquaintance for safekeeping or loan and the recipient claimed that they had been burned or destroyed. The rabbonim had to give a psak halacha in these difficult cases and often they themselves were at loss to find the right answer.
Dinei Torah in the ghetto mostly were held between Poles and Jews concerning freeing of prisoners, confiscation of properties, (with the Poles, because with the Nazis it was impossible), and cases involving stolen goods.
The most common sheilos which were posed during the war related to shiva, aveilus, Kaddish, yahrtzeits and burial. Many people were simply "lost" since the outbreak of the war and their yahrtzeits were unknown.
Finding a burial plot became another major issue for the overworked chevra kadisha. Hespedim were rarely said, as there were simply so many meisim in the ghetto that it was an endless task.
Other sheilos raised in the ghetto directly related to the abject poverty. May one perform a Pesach seder without wine or matzos? Can eating on Yom Kippur be permitted for the weak and sick? In what cases may one be mechallel Shabbos for a choleh sheyaish bo sakanah? Can one give treif meat to a sickly person?
End of Part III
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