Podkast_Katarzyna Person_ Epidemics in the Oyneg Shabes Archive _Karolina Zagórska_GEOP

[00:00:00] Welcome to What's New What's Next? Jewish Studies in a Time of Pandemic podcast series. My name is Kaatrzyna Person. I'm a historian working the Jewish historical Institute in Warsaw, and today I will look at typhus epidemic in the Warsaw Ghetto as experienced by its inhabitants, and I will look at it through the lens of documents from the underground archive of the Warsaw Ghetto. The underground archive of the Warsaw Ghetto, also known as the Ringelblum Archive, was a unique clandestine operation which was organized by Dr. Emanuel Ringelblum. Ringelblum was a historian, social activist and a teacher. And the project was aimed at documenting sociological and demographic changes taking place in the Warsaw Ghetto and then later more widely during the Holocaust in Poland. The outcome was functioning from the ceiling of the ghetto. So from November 1940 until early 1943. It was hidden and then uncovered. The first part in 1946, the second part in 1950, and it's now the most important collection regarding life in the ghettos in occupied Poland. And one of the most most important collections dealing with social life during the Holocaust. The collection numbers thirty five thousand pages of documents which ranged from egodocuments such as personal writings, diaries, letters to official documentation coming from the Judenrat. So the Jewish Council, from German authorities, from the Jewish self-help, newspapers, both official and underground, but also drawings, photographs and posters. Fight against typhus is one of the topics which is widely covered by the archive as one of the key phenomenons affected daily life ghetto inhabitants.

[00:01:46] Documents which speak of it ranged from official statistics from the health council, from the hospitals, from house committees, as well as reports which remind us who stands behind those those numbers. So essays, interviews, also poems, which are in-depth micro histories of families and individuals affected by the epidemic. This shows that even though when we think of death in the Warsaw Ghetto, we usually associated with the summer of 1942, so the politicians, Treblinka or later the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943, death being the shape of typhus, but also tuberculosis and starvation was constant in the lives of Jewish inhabitants of the ghetto from the moment of its closure. Typhus was also important for creators of the underground archive of the Warsaw Ghetto because of its role in Nazi propaganda, with links between Jews and epidemics becoming one of the key arguments for sealing off of the ghetto. By showing everyday life in the Warsaw Ghetto. Documents from the underground archive allow us to peer through Nazi neologisms for the language of propaganda used to describe what is nothing more than another way of persecution, another type of repressive measures against ghetto inhabitants, the so-called fight against epidemics. So let's consider a phrase the disinfection of apartments, the basic method of combating typhus imposed on the ghetto by German authorities.

[00:03:26] In reality time, this infection amounted to extortions, destruction of apartments and theft, as well as violence, especially in the bathhouses to which residents were brought to be disinfected. The disinfection of an apartment block had to be unexpected so that those sick with typhus could not be removed from the homes by the neighbors ahead of it. In theory, the Sanitary Commission was to make a round of flats and take all the sick with typhus to the hospital. Those were dirty and lies infested would be escorted to barfs and dirty flats will be qualified for disinfection. That was the theory. In reality, the Jewish Order Service blocked the entire building in addition to specific apartments in which the sick person live. They then escorted them and other residents of the apartment, the quarantine site and remaining building residents to the bathhouse.

[00:04:22] We also have to remember about conditions in which this took place. In the winter, they had to escort people in above freezing temperatures, often of minus 15 or 20 centigrade. People who are not dressed, who are starving to the point they were too weak to walk. Should also be noted that in hospitals, conditions were really terrible, a number of patients was put in the same bed, the daily ration of food for typhus patients in some cases consisted of two portions of meatless soup day and 20 grams of bread. Patients who will not get any news from home, and it should be noted that it was usually impossible as the family were in quarantine were likely to die from starvation or in the hospital.

[00:05:06] One of the most infamous cases of the so-called fight against epidemic was the blockade of apartment buildings, which took place on Krochmalna Street on August 28 and 29, 1941. This topic is also widely covered in the Ringelblum Archive. This happened, as I said, in August 1941, which was the height of epidemic in the Warsaw Ghetto, and Krochmalna was a center of epidemic. It was one of the poorest streets in the ghetto, a center of poverty which was repeatedly subjected to brutal laws and desinfections prior to that. The action in August 1941 was politically brutal. It was organized by the Department of Health of the Jewish Council on the orders of the German authorities. According to one witness, more than one hundred functionaries of the Jewish order service took part in it alongside members of ARPA and the Polish policemen. The building selected for this infection were inhabited mainly by the poorest member of the population, people who did not have money for a bribe so that they can be let go. A member of the archive described this following, and I quote, At five o'clock in the morning, the German gendarmerie, the Polish police and the other service closed Krochmalna Street between the cross section of Chipewyan and Cover.

[00:06:35] All residents were ordered to leave their flats. Within one hour several thousand frightened people gathered on the market square: woman, man, children. People are overcome of panic because they were convinced that they were to be deported. There were even rumors that everyone will be shot, end of quote. The floods, left without any supervision, became hunting grounds for thiefs. The operation was supposedly organized, but in practice it turned out to be completely chaotic. From time to time, 100 or more people were taken to bathhouse, people were selected at random who to close by, whether they were men or women. By the evening, the organizers still had not managed to send everyone to the bath. Residence of the house were kept in the street all night long in the rain without food. The Jewish service officers noted in the report. A dead five year old boy was taken from his mother's arms. A 20 year old young woman was found dead in front of the market hall. Women of children in the arms walked all night because it was impossible to lay on the asphalt. After returning home, the inhabitants of Krochmalna Street found their apartments looted and the remaining belongings destroyed during  desinfection.

[00:07:51] The Jewish ordered service of members of the health department were almost uniformly and as we think today, wrongly accused of failing to intervene and to warn residents about the planned disinfection. As we can see, those disinfection actions not only affect the well-being of ghetto inhabitants, but also destroyed the cohesion of the ghetto community. It led ones to stop, stop trusting the others. The archive speaks of events as Krochmalna for the eyes of its victims, as we can see, but also for the eyes of members of disinfection squads. Showing us choices which those people had to face. This is important because this was an important part of our lives work to gather as many votes as possible, to show as wider a picture as possible. Members of the disinfection squads are fully aware that ghetto residents regard them as directly responsible for the occupiers orders. At the same time. However, the bribes which they can collect during disinfection, the fees which they get cost to the foundation of their existence and the only chance for them to provide for the families. They aren't, and as one of their disinfection members put it, a logical iron necessity. One of the members of underground archive of the Warsaw Ghetto for the needs of the archive conducted an interview with a member of the disinfection squad. And I quote, The campaign, according to my colleague, did not achieve any positive results whatsoever. The population was kept frightened and hungry on the square from early morning until late at night, and some even were held for the night and the next day and attended flats fell prey to thieves. And in many of them, windows and doors were broken. The only positive outcome of the operation was that all the corpses were cleared that day from Krochmalna and all people infected with typhus were taken to the hospital. The description of the action at Krochmalna showed us a wide picture of a suffering of many people living in those apartment buildings.

[00:10:12] However, as I said, the archive also consists of individual stories, of stories of individuals and families affected by typhus. And one such story is the story of Mrs. K. Disturbed Mrs. K. Is contained and the wider story of Jewish women, which is written for the Ghetto Archive by Cecylia Ślepak . It's a longer essay which contains interviews with Jewish women coming from all walks of life and which describes the fate from the outbreak of the war until the spring of 1942. When the interviews were conducted. And Mrs. K. used to be a vendor before the war. She worked on a large market in Warsaw selling fruit. In September 1939, during the so-called defense of Warsaw, her house was bombarded. This was not unusual. A large part of Warsaw also was actually destroyed at that point, and that is especially affected the traditional Jewish quarter of Warsaw. So Mrs. K. moved her family into her brother's flat. During that time, the burden of supporting the family fell almost entirely on her shoulders. Her husband lost his job. He wasn't able to find anything else. He was also scared of going out in the street, fearing being captured for forced labor. So he decided to stay at home and look after children while she was earning the living. Mrs. K. did not have any money left. She lost everything, the bombardment, but. She joined forces with her two sisters and all three sisters together, began selling fish, vegetables and fruit. Around the same time her marriage fell apart, her husband could no longer cope with the change, real change of roles, however, as Cecylia Ślepak writes, the separation from her husband did not overwhelm her loneliness, the presence of her sisters and her financial success fueled her self-confidence and soften the blow to her morally.

[00:12:31] A real blow came in November 1940 with the sealing off of the ghetto. Mrs. K. was at that point separated from her market, from her market stall, which remained on the other side of the wall. However, painting a picture of a woman who's extremely entrepreneurial and very strong, Cecilia Ślepak, writes as following, and I quote, Mrs. K. closely follows the new phenomenon of the ghetto life and concluded trading bread could be a powerful financial revival. Consequently, she will have her staff on the market to the sidewalk outside a tenement where she lived and took up trading bread with her sisters. The work was hard. She got up at the crack of dawn and rushed with one of her sisters, the baker, to get bread, white, brown and wholemeal. They carried the baskets loaded with bread themselves, panting and sweaty. They brought them home. In the meantime, the third sister set up the store outside the gate and laid out the merchandise while the two of them rushed back for more bread. They made three or four rounds every day. During rush hour they had so many customers that the three of them had to stand by the stall.

[00:13:52] And this is the point when typhus enters Mrs. K. Life.

[00:13:58] In August 1941, so at the height of typhus epidemic in Warsaw Ghetto, K. Came down with typhus. She had no money for treatment of a proper diet. A doctor came to see her, but she had no money to buy prescribed expensive medications. She recovered on her own in her room with some help from her neighbors.

[00:14:26] She got up after two weeks and held herself back to work, she was again up at five a.m. She rushed the Bakers once, twice, three times a day. She carried heavy baskets of bread and helped her sister with the stall. It didn't last long after several days, she was so weak that she was again bedridden for another two weeks. As soon as she felt better her sister came down with typhus. Mrs. K. started to borrow money to provide her of proper diet, even though she had no money for a doctor or for the medication.

[00:15:05] That however complications happen and a few days later, her sister died. A week later, another sister came down with typhus. This time, Mrs. K. borrowed a large amount of money to insure her sister's admission to hospital. Yet despite medical assistance, her sister died after nine days, at that point, Mrs. K was left alone with six children. There were two children of her own and four children of her deceased sisters.

[00:15:43] As to Cecylia Ślepak, writes, and I quote, They stayed at home of poor hygiene and no medical assistance, Mrs. K. took care of them herself after her sister's death, she liquidated her stall. She had no bread to sell. She sold clothes, underwear, bedding and furniture in order to save the children to buy them some white bread and cook them a hot meal. And then further on, she sold everything except her last shirt, the only one she owns. All the children recovered, but Mrs K. posses nothing, at the point except her own life, and as as Cecylia Ślepak writes this was necessary to fill and sustain her and her children's life. And she writes she gets further on. So her home was plagued by hunger, cold darkness and want. All went to Mrs. K, made no fire in the stove because she couldn't afford neither would no coal. She had no money for a candle, not kerosene for the lamp that should not leave the bed. They lay under a heap of rugs and their clothes and they stayed the whole time when Mrs. K. was at work. End of quote. When Cecylia Ślepak met Mrs. K., she was sitting on a small stall outside her apartment building trying to sell some vegetables. As Cecylia Ślepak writes, her face is tired, gaunt and sallow. Her eyes are delighted by flesh of hunger.

[00:17:08] End of quote.

[00:17:11] There's no doubt that Mrs. K. died soon after that interview was conducted. Most likely the six children she was looking after also soon died. What this story shows us is what Barbara Engelking and Jacek Leociak refer to as the march of death in the Warsaw Ghetto. Typhus, starvation, and then often tuberculosis, the three main plagues of the Warsaw Ghetto. They also show us that typhus statistics were not just numbers, they were real people. Those who died, but also those those who survived and who are forever affected by the illness. And for documents like this that the star of Mrs. K, that we can see death in the Warsaw Ghetto even before the deportations in the summer of 1942.

[00:18:02] Thank you for listening to what's new. What's Next? Jewish Studies in the time of Pandemic. Check out POLIN Museum's website for new podcasts in this series. For regular updates

[00:18:14] email GEOP@polin.pl. That's GEOP G,E,O,P, @, POLIN, dot P.L..

[00:18:26] This podcast series is a part of the Global Education Outreach Program supported by Taube the William K.Bowes Junior Foundation and the Association of the Jewish Historical Institute of Poland.