Cakes and famine - life in the Warsaw Ghetto

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Michael,

This is what is said of Juedische Selbsthilfe in Documents on the Holocaust, Selected Sources on the Destruction of the
Jews of Germany and Austria, Poland, and the Soviet Union, Y. Arad, Y. Gutman,
A. Margaliot (editors), Yad Vashem, 1981, p. 23

".....if it [the Jewish Self-Help] really wanted to do anything, it would have to have millions of zloty at its disposal every month, and it does not have them. It remains a proven fact that the people fed in the soup-kitchens will all die if they eat nothing but the soup supplied and the dry rationed bread. The question thus arises whether it would not serve the purpose better to reserve the available money for selected individuals, for those who are socially productive, for the intellectual elite, etc. But the situation is such that, first of all, the numbers even of such select individuals is quite considerable, and there would not be sufficient even for them. Secondly, the question arises why should one pronounce judgment on artisans, laborers and other useful persons, who were productive people back in their small towns. And only the ghetto and war have turned them into non-people, into scrap, into human dregs, candidates for mass graves. There is left a tragic dilemma: What shall one do? Shall one [hand out the food] with little spoons to everybody, and then no one will live, or in generous handfuls to just a few...?" May 26, 1942.

So, no, apparently ".....the official German ration, the food aid, and the earnings of the employed Jews, was" NOT "sufficient to keep all the inhabitants alive, if only just, provided it was equally distributed."

Cheers,

Sid

[michael mills]

Look at the date.

[wm]

An authentic joke straight from the Warsaw Ghetto (1940 - "Notes From The Warsaw Ghetto: The Journal Of Emmanuel Ringelblum"):

Hitler asked the Governor General [Hans Frank] what he has been doing to the Jews. 

The Governor mentions a number of calamities inflicted on them, but Hitler is disappointed.


In a panic, the Governor starts to mumble randomly: 
“I have set up a Jewish Social Self-Aid Organization.” 

“Fantastic! You need go no further!”

[wm]

What is the source of the statistics you posted about the daily distribution of soup to the inhabitants of the Warsaw Ghetto.

It's from the Ringelblum Archive but was summarized in "The Warsaw Ghetto" by Barbara Engelking, Jacek Leociak.

From the same source, deaths per month in the Warsaw Ghetto:

mortality in the Warsaw Ghetto.jpeg

[wm]

When appeals were made to the Warsaw rich to levy a tax on themselves for the benefit of the refugees, they replied:
"That won't help. The paupers will die out, anyway."
That's how they think; they won't give a groschen for the refugees—The release of Czerniakow is said to have cost the Jewish Council 20,000 zlotys. That much money is thrown away on drink every night at the Casanova nightclub.
Notes From The Warsaw Ghetto by Emmanuel Ringelblum

In May 1941, a group of representatives of political parties ... submitted a project to deprive the wealthy inhabitants of the Ghetto of 30,000 food cards for the starving.
Czerniaków had a favorable attitude towards the proposal and convened a meeting of the Judenrat on this matter, but the project was rejected by the majority vote.

The next initiative of the social activists was a forced collection for the hungry and displaced persons, undertaken in the summer of 1941 among the new "financial elite" of the Ghetto, something like obligatory taxation of the rich for the poor.
Severe sanctions were applied to those who resisted ... Such actions were met with protests from the affected communities.
Czerniaków initially supported the whole thing, but - as Ringelblum writes:
"all possible measures were taken to bury this action."

Although it brought about one million zlotys, according to a historian of the Warsaw Ghetto:
"it did not achieve the intended goal. Not much could be done with such a small sum. ...
The fact that it did not achieve the intended goal was the sole fault of the demoralized administrators of the Ghetto."
The Warsaw Ghetto by Barbara Engelking, Jacek Leociak [google translated]

[michael mills]

Those extracts from the Ringelblum Archive support the view that the major cause of starvation in the Warsaw Ghetto was the unequal distribution of the available food, which Ringelblum trenchantly criticised.

In drawing conclusions from sources such as the Ringelblum archive, it is crucial to have regard to the timeline of those sources, because major events such as the entry of the United States into the war against Germany had a drastic effect on the flow of food into Poland and subsequently into the Warsaw Ghetto and other ghettos. The criticism of the Jewish Social Self-Help posed by Sid is dated 26 May 1942, almost six months after the entry of the United States into the war, and thus at a time when the amount of food reaching the Warsaw Ghetto had been drastically reduced due to the cessation of private food aid from that country.

[Gorque]

It's from the Ringelblum Archive but was summarized in "The Warsaw Ghetto" by Barbara Engelking, Jacek Leociak.

From the same source, deaths per month in the Warsaw Ghetto:

mortality in the Warsaw Ghetto.jpeg

Hi wm:

An interesting graph in that one can correlate the establishment of the Ghetto (November 1940) with the sharp increase in the mortality rate. I'm sure the onset of colder weather played somewhat of a part with the sudden rise, but I'd venture that the vast majority of the rate increase was due to the lack of sufficient calories and proper nourishment.

[Gorque]

Those extracts from the Ringelblum Archive support the view that the major cause of starvation in the Warsaw Ghetto was the unequal distribution of the available food, which Ringelblum trenchantly criticised.

In drawing conclusions from sources such as the Ringelblum archive, it is crucial to have regard to the timeline of those sources, because major events such as the entry of the United States into the war against Germany had a drastic effect on the flow of food into Poland and subsequently into the Warsaw Ghetto and other ghettos. The criticism of the Jewish Social Self-Help posed by Sid is dated 26 May 1942, almost six months after the entry of the United States into the war, and thus at a time when the amount of food reaching the Warsaw Ghetto had been drastically reduced due to the cessation of private food aid from that country.

Hi Michael:

Perhaps I'm reading into the above too critically; The fact that Germany and United States were in a state of armed conflict in December 1941 does not absolve the occupying power from its obligation to the vanquished population's basic welfare, especially considering the enforced inability to seek additional food from outside of the Ghetto. Furthermore, this state of armed conflict between the aforementioned was only brought about by Germany.

PS: Thank you for the link to the doctoral dissertation.

[wm]

I found it in the introduction to "Ringelblum Archive, Volume 33."
The JDC received for the entire occupied Poland 17,699,187.50 zlotys in 24 months.
It was about 3000 - 9000 (? - depending on local price) loaves of bread per day, assuming all the money was spent on food, and they obviously weren't.

For comparison Jerzy Winkler estimates in the Archive that every month the Jews in the Getto sold (to survive) their furniture and clothes worth about 17 million zlotys.
btw The JDC existed post-Barbarrosa too; they financed their operations by borrowing money from wealthy Jews - to be paid off after the war...

[wm]

An interesting graph in that one can correlate the establishment of the Ghetto (November 1940) with the sharp increase in the mortality rate. I'm sure the onset of colder weather played somewhat of a part with the sudden rise, but I'd venture that the vast majority of the rate increase was due to the lack of sufficient calories and proper nourishment.

In 1940 the Germans allocated on average 413 calories per person per day; in 1941 - 253 calories.
People who didn't have money to buy the calories and the soup for the poor (you had to pay for both), and food on the black market didn't last long.

[michael mills]

Gorque, I am not interested in virtue-signalling. What interests me is the objective reality facing the German Government, which was that the total territory under its control could only produce 90% of the food requirements of the population of that territory. That meant that once all external sources of supply were cut off with the entry of the United States into the war against Germany and its concomitant enforcement of the blockade against that country, the German Government was faced with the situation of deciding which parts of that population would be adequately fed and which would not not.

The number one priority of the German Government was to keep the German population, both civilian and military, provided with food at as close to peacetime levels as possible, in order to avoid popular discontent and the emergence of an internal revolutionary situation like that of 1918, which was Hitler's worst nightmare. Once the German population was adequately provided for, the remaining available food was distributed among the rest of the population under German control, on a sliding scale according to the worthiness of each segment of that population in the eyes of the German Government. Since the Jewish population was considered the least worthy, it naturally was allocated the least food.

The importance of the food crisis in determining the German Government's decisions in regard to the treatment of the Jewish population under its control is illustrated by the actions of Hans Frank, the Governor-General of occupied Poland, in August 1942, as recorded in his official diary. At a meeting of his Cabinet, he informed its members that the looming food crisis necessitated a reduction in overall consumption, and in order to achieve that reduction, from that point on only the 300,000 Jews of the General-Government employed in the German war effort would continue to receive rations, and indeed those ration would be increased to maintain their ability to work. The remaining 1.2 million Jews would no longer receive any rations at all, and he stated quite openly that by this measure they were condemning 1.2 million people (he used the word "Menschen") to death.

There is another indication of the decisiveness if the food shortage in determining the fate of the Jews under German control. In late 1942 a message reached Jewish representative in Switzerland stating that early in that year Herbert Backe, the Reich Minister for Food Supply, had informed Hitler that the impending food crisis required a reduction in rations for the German population, if overall consumption could not be reduced, and that Hitler had then ordered that four million Jews should be put to death to reduce the number of consumers.

[wm]

It's evident German Europe wasn't food sufficient during ww1 and ww2.
In ww1, the Germans themselves paid the price for that during the famine called turnip winter.

In ww2, the Germans decided to export famine and hardship to the least valuable people - the Jews and the Poles. They sent all the food they could find from occupied Poland to Germany and Western Europe.

The problem is the laws of war strictly forbade it, so it was a massive war crime.

The occupying State shall be regarded only as administrator and usufructuary ... agricultural estates ... situated in the occupied country. It must safeguard the capital of these properties, and administer them in accordance with the rules of usufruct.
...
if in the territory occupied, the occupant collects the taxes, dues, and tolls ..., he shall do so ... to defray the expenses of the administration of the occupied territory to the same extent as the legitimate Government was so bound.
...
If ... the occupant levies ... money contributions in the occupied territory, this shall only be for the needs of the army or of the administration of the territory in question.
...
Private property cannot be confiscated.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Michael,

The fact remains that the responsibility of the German government was to keep EVERYONE in its custody alive. It failed to do so by virtue of differential decisions it made in food allocation. It is therefore culpable

As far as I am aware, there were no mass deaths of Germans due to starvation during the war. However, there are several well attested examples of mass starvation of other peoples in German custody, not just Jews. Again, Germany was culpable.

Yes, timing DOES matter. Jewish deaths in the Warsaw Ghetto were rising sharply BEFORE the US entered the war. In 1941 the death rate of Jews increased dramatically. Compared to 1938, the number of deaths among Poles increased nearly twofold and the number of Jews - nearly twelvefold. The USA joined the war in December 1941. Thus the exponential growth in Jewish deaths does NOT coincide with the entry of the USA into the war.

I can't find the monthly figures for Jewish deaths in the Warsaw Ghetto on line any more, just annualised ones. Do you have them? If so, perhaps you could put them up here?

Cheers,

Sid.

[wm]

Although, to be precise, the occupying power didn't have to keep everyone (or even anyone) alive; it was only required not to make the (existing) situation worse.
Economic exploitation was forbidden, humanitarian help wasn't required.

[Gorque]

Hi Michael:

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my post with a lengthy and detailed reply. I always look forward to reading your posts due to the details and/or the references included.

I am not interested in virtue-signalling.

I take the above as myself having been correct for being "critical" of your prior posting then.

The fact that Germany only had ~ 90% of the food necessary for providing the people within its Großraum is a problem solely of its own doing. Germany did not have to declare war on the United States, nor did it have to declare war on the Soviet Union. Both of the above actions were voluntary, short-sighted and, in each case, presented Germany with fewer options with which it could find the necessary food to sustain the populations under it purview. When it was faced with practically no other outside sources for additional food, it went down the path bereft of ethics and morals. Even at this point in the conflict, Germany still had other choices it could have taken instead of slow murder by intentional starvation. For example, if the Ghetto inhabitants could not be fed, then they should have been released in order to be given the opportunity to fend for themselves. Even the criminals being held in jails and camps were treated better.

Germany since the late thirties had chronic labor shortages and with the draft of able body men into the Wehrmacht, there were plenty of jobs available that needed filling. This is evidenced by the sweeps of the Soviet countryside for young women and the employment of Soviet POW's. After the fall of France, many French POW's were still toiling away for the Reich until the cessation of hostilities. The people in the Ghetto need not have been looked down upon as "useless mouths" but as laborers and craftspeople.

While the Germans may have cast the die, the roll needn't have resulted in snake-eyes.

Best regards