Warsaw ghetto photos

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wm
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Re: Warsaw Uprising: Stroop photo

#76

Post by wm » 02 Apr 2013, 14:37

Just across the street from the hospital a single building survived to this day. It doesn't look much now, but at that time it was a newly built modern tenement, certainly more comfortable and livable than those old style tenements on the Nowolipie Street.

The highlighted part of the building was without any exaggeration the most evil place in the Warsaw Ghetto. It was the Befehlstelle, the command post of the Grossaktion - the deportation of about 300 thousand Ghetto residents to the extermination camp of Treblinka during the two months of summer 1942.
In the cellars under the post prisoners were held and interrogated, In its backyard thousands were executed.

On 23 April 1943 the Jewish fighters attacked that building trying to free the prisoners, the attack was repulsed with heavy losses.
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kw1.jpg
source: Google Earth
Last edited by wm on 02 Apr 2013, 15:12, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Warsaw Uprising: Stroop photo

#77

Post by wm » 02 Apr 2013, 14:40

the building in 1944:
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and now:
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The usual old junk is kept by the residents in the former torture cells:
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The dated language of the small memorial plaque there shows that it has been placed a long time ago:
In this house in 1943 in the dungeons of the Gestapo thousands of Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto were tormented to death.
WE SALUTE THEIR MEMORY.
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Re: Warsaw Uprising: Stroop photo

#78

Post by wm » 02 Apr 2013, 15:10

The place during the Warsaw Uprising:
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Re: Warsaw Uprising: Stroop photo

#79

Post by history1 » 02 Apr 2013, 15:52

Wonderful information and images, thanks wm!

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Re: Warsaw Uprising: Stroop photo

#80

Post by Cor » 02 Apr 2013, 19:24

indeed some nice research wm, i already had the impression this was one of the buildings that was maintained

do you also have more information about the building on the opposite of the hospital at zelenastreet 97 called i think "Generalny Zgromadzenia Sióstr Franciszkanek Rodziny Mary". I think this building was there too at that time period.

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Re: Warsaw Uprising: Stroop photo

#81

Post by wm » 03 Apr 2013, 12:09

It's rather a boring place that wasn't part of the ghetto. The nuns there were conducting rescue operations for Jewish children. It was destroyed during the Warsaw Uprising, later rebuilt - not quite faithfully though.
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The damage visible on the left side of the Befehlstelle building (and partially in the last "rockets away" picture) was famously photographed by Julien Bryan for Life Magazine in 1939. The destruction brought by a German shell was never repaired, but still the building was regarded as the most beautiful in the Ghetto. Unfortunately, it lost most of its beauty characteristics during reconstruction works after the war.
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kw-7.jpg

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Re: Warsaw Uprising: Stroop photo

#82

Post by wm » 03 Apr 2013, 16:48

More rocket porn, the same time and place:
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Cor
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Re: Warsaw Uprising: Stroop photo

#83

Post by Cor » 03 Apr 2013, 21:22

here a comparison from the building you referring to earlier in the thread, with the nice view at intersection nowolipie/zelazna.

http://www.shabbat-goy.com/?page_id=4334
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the-wall-of-the-ghetto-of-warsaw-at-zelazna-street-10.jpg

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Re: Warsaw Uprising: Stroop photo

#84

Post by wm » 06 Apr 2013, 20:07

These are some of the people who were evicted from that evil place - Żelazna 103 to make room for the command post of the Grossaktion. They had been married for no more than a year at that time.
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source

But that was only the beginning - later they would have to change their place of residence, and hiding, ten times avoiding the randomly cast Grossaktion's dragnet. Thankfully they weren't poor and had useful connections in the Ghetto. Those without money or useful friends were not going to survive.
Then it was time to leave the Ghetto - it was obvious it would eventually be completely "evacuated". On the other side of the wall the man - Władysław Regensberg engaged in a activity straight from Strugatsky brothers' masterpiece "Roadside Picnic".
As many others he was illegally entering the Ghetto through sewers seeking any saleable items left by its murdered inhabitants, carefully avoiding the hunting for them German patrols, Jewish teams from the KL Warschau razing the Ghetto to the ground and the usual dangers waiting inside damaged during the fighting buildings.
Those not careful enough were executed in the backyard of the already familiar Żelazna 103.

They blended perfectly into the native population because their looks and language didn't betray their Jewish origin. And they received perfectly genuine papers that only the Germans could provide - for a fee. In fact it seems there was too much perfection. They got arrested as dangerous Poles, and then there was string of concentration, labor and penal camps. And the woman - Izolda Furman lost almost all of her teeth during a 6 weeks long Gestapo interrogations. But it is another, not connected with that place story...

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Re: Warsaw Uprising: Stroop photo

#85

Post by sobel » 07 Apr 2013, 12:14

Just for slightly added interest, the original photo posted and another well known image, the soldier highlighted was Joseph Blosche, more details can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Bl%C3%B6sche

I read somewhere that the little boy with his hands in the air survived and lives in New York,
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Re: Warsaw Uprising: Stroop photo

#86

Post by Cor » 07 Apr 2013, 22:27

sobel wrote: I read somewhere that the little boy with his hands in the air survived and lives in New York,
here they have their doubts he was the little boy.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsvi_C._Nussbaum

this girl Malka Zdrojewicz on the right on the picture below has survived the war.

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Re: Warsaw Uprising: Stroop photo

#87

Post by sobel » 08 Apr 2013, 02:51

Hi Cor, thanks for the link, whether true or not it would be nice to think that had survived the terror he went through, at least one of his terrorisers eventually found his just deserts (J Blosche)

regards

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Re: Warsaw Uprising: Stroop photo

#88

Post by wm » 15 Apr 2013, 20:19

The life in that building at the Żelazna Street as told by Edward Reicher in his book "W ostrym świetle dnia. Dziennik żydowskiego lekarza 1939-1945" (Country of Ash: A Jewish Doctor in Poland, 1939-1945).
He was a specialist in skin diseases and venereologist. He had to flee the Łódź Ghetto because his life was under threat from its mad ruler - Mordechai Rumkowski. At Żelazna 103 he was treating the officers of the command post, usually for venereal diseases.
The architect of Operation Reinhard, Hermann Höfle, along with eighteen officers under his command, had established his headquarters at 103 Żelazna Street. Höfle lived there like a king, with his officers as his privy council. The Jewish Council catered to their every wish.
They had been given the finest house in the ghetto, with the most modem apartments. They were assigned workers, chambermaids, and cooks - the most beautiful women in the ghetto. There was even a Jewish orchestra to play soft Viennese waltzes while the murderers enjoyed their meals.
The commander and his officers ate well. It was here that orders were issued every day sending thousands of Jews to their deaths. After a hard day’s work, those who carried out the orders needed to rest, which was to be found at 103 Żelazna Street. This was the home of the man in charge of the destruction of the Jews, the Befehlsstelle, the headquarters for orders.
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Re: Warsaw Uprising: Stroop photo

#89

Post by wm » 15 Apr 2013, 20:26

But still during the Grossaktion in Warsaw no one was safe from deportation, it was prudent to take precautions:
Adjacent to that house, at 101 Żelazna, lived the Jews who worked at the Befehlsstelle. The janitor of that house, Mohn, had been a patient of mine for years. He wanted to help me find a place to hide. We no longer had a home after that terrible day at the Umschlagplatz. I went to see him. Mohn advised me to build a hiding place at 99 Żelazna. It was a good piece of advice: the building two doors down had been rented by death, who had turned it over to the organizers of this horror show. They ran it from behind a desk, drinking lots of wine. Mohn and I were standing in the entrance way to 101 Żelazna. “Go upstairs, doctor. This is your only chance.” I hesitated. I wasn't sure, because it was so close to the mouth of the lion.
“Perhaps I’ll wait. We might find something else,” I said.
“No place is as safe as this, right under the Germans’ nose. Go up and have a look. Then you can decide for yourself.”
99 Żelazna Street was on the comer of Nowolipie. It had been hit by a bomb when the Germans attacked Poland in 1939 and was partly destroyed and burned out. Only a small section of its flat roof remained. The building was higher than everything around it.
But how would we get up there?
“We’ll knock a hole through from my roof at Żelazna 101.”
“How?”
“You’ll see.”
And I did. In the attic wall of 101 that faced 99, we carefully made an opening that was just wide enough for a man to crawl through. And there, on that sixty-five square feet of roof, I built a hiding place, the best one imaginable. The idea was ingenious, and I thanked Mohn heartily.
We placed a heavy chest filled with sand in front of the hole in the attic at 101 Żelazna.
This chest completely covered up the hole. Then we nailed two brass rings to the chest so that when we were up on the roof we could pull the chest close to the hole. We fastened two hooks into the wall on the roof and tied the rings to the hooks using strong rope. No one in the attic in 101 could possibly suspect the existence of our hiding place across from them.
Once inside, we could only move about lying down and crawling. If we stood up, someone might have seen us from downstairs. As it was, we were invisible to anyone except airplanes.
Up there we were relatively happy, although we had only bread to eat. I made sure that we always had ten loaves of bread and two pails of water. If the bread grew stale, we dipped it in water and we ate it. That was our only food.
Ukrainians and SS men came up to the attic several times, but they never found us. We heard their voices and held our breath, and things ended well. Höfle and his employees never worked at night, so after dark we would go down to the Jewish workers’ apartments at 101 Żelazna to stretch our legs and replenish our water. We soon struck up new acquaintances and friendships. In times of danger they would bring their children up to our roof.
The hiding place:
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Re: Warsaw Uprising: Stroop photo

#90

Post by wm » 17 Apr 2013, 20:57

Żelazna 103, in Höfle's office:
All the rooms were richly decorated, and Höfle’s study was no exception: the finest furniture, carpets, upholstery, drapes, and light fixtures. Jewish interior designers had been commissioned to do it all by the Board. Everything there had been confiscated from rich Jews.
I was standing before Hermann Höfle, chief of staff of Operation Reinhard, and one of the most fearsome murderers after Eichmann. [...] He was a monster in human form, an accountant of death. He lived off those he killed. I had imagined him as brutal and savage. From everything I had heard, my image of him was correct.
I was gripped by fear when I saw him; not because of his terrifying appearance, but by the opposite: here was a man in his early thirties, with a round face, a jovial expression, and bright blue eyes. This was the creature who had already killed thousands of men.
Hermann Julius Hoefle.jpg
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As I was writing out my prescription, a thin man, about forty-five years old, walked in with a large German shepherd. There was something fox-like about his face. He swept the room with a harsh gaze. I recognized Brandt, head of the Warsaw Gestapo. He saluted Höfle, then strode to the window and opened it. I heard an excruciating scream that stopped my pen. It was a scream racked with desperation. Brandt looked down into the courtyard with a strange expression. Höfle joined him at the window. Neither of them was paying me the least attention. I stood up and saw an extraordinary scene.
The man who was screaming in pain had only pants on. His hands were bound above his head and tied to a hook in the wall. A huge SS man was beating him across the back with a long gridiron. I later learned that it was Scharführer Handke, head of the economic service, whose decisions spelled life and death for the Jews of the ghetto. His victim was moaning and groaning.
I knew this man. He was Meszalem Abramson, son of a chocolate factory owner, who had rented rooms in our house in Lodz for many years. I couldn't bear to witness this scene any longer. Why was he being tortured?
I gave Höfle his prescription, bowed slightly, and left the room. Höfle nodded his head and didn't extend his hand. I was already at the door when I heard Brandt’s voice: “The Jews are an abomination. I care more about my dog than all these Jews put together.”
I had to pay several more visits to that house, in secret or openly. Some time later I leamed that Handke’s victims were Jews suspected of having money or valuables. They were tortured until they revealed where they had hidden their treasure.
Edward Reicher "W ostrym świetle dnia. Dziennik żydowskiego lekarza 1939-1945"
Karl Georg Brandt.jpg
Karl Georg Brandt.jpg (16.16 KiB) Viewed 2291 times
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_H%C3%B6fle
http://collections.yadvashem.org/photos ... 48241.html

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