Hope and Despair in the Warsaw Ghetto
Hope and Despair in the Warsaw Ghetto
7th June 1942: In the face of 'deportations' from which nobody is ever heard of again, only a few are capable of facing up to the dreadful reality
In the ghetto of Warsaw Chaim A. Kaplan1 continued to maintain his diary, his 'Scroll of Agony', his personal record of life under the Nazis. After enduring a terrible winter during which thousands had succumbed to starvation, disease and outright murder the ghetto now faced up to deportations. At its peak the small area of the ghetto has housed around 460,000 Jews but that number had now been reduced by about 100,000.
For the Nazis the death rate was not quick enough and trainloads from Warsaw were now being sent to the extermination site at Treblinka. Those departing were told that they were being ‘resettled’.
The residents of the Jewish ghettoes across Poland had no clear knowledge of where the deported were being sent to and every piece of apparent news was seized upon.
On the 7th June 1942 Kaplan records that many still clung to hope - that they really were destined for 're-settlement' somewhere.
Never were we so hopeful of the final Nazi downfall as during these days, days in which our tribulations grow worse from hour to hour. The transports do not cease, and the Nazi sword rests against our throats, wreaking havoc amongst us. But we were always a nation bound by hope - and so we shall remain. Jewish faith is marvellous; it can create states of mind that have nothing to do with reality.
Others listened to the news from outside the ghetto, the progress of the war. The optimistic were hopeful that they read the signs that the Nazis were being beaten, that the war might come to an end before they too were deported.
But others had a remarkably clear sighted view of their eventual fate:
Hirsch, my wise friend, is an exception. He is the only one who sits like a mourner among bridegrooms. ‘Idiots!’ he shouts, and his face becomes red with anger.
‘Your hope is vain; your trust a broken reed. All of you are already condemned to die, only the date of execution has yet to be set. We are doomed to pass from the World without seeing the Nazi downfall because the physical annihilation of European Jewry is one of Nazism’s cardinal principles. You have eyes and yet you do not see that the fulfilment of this horrible goal has already been started.
‘Jews have been deported from hundreds of small communities, and no one knows their whereabouts, simply because they were killed along the way and never reached a new destination.’
What hope do we have that it will not be carried out? Over half a million Jews who used to live in Poland have already been murdered; some by hunger, some by disease, some by the Nazi sword. Jews have been deported from hundreds of small communities, and no one knows their whereabouts, simply because they were killed along the way and never reached a new destination.
Optimistic fools! Where is the great community of Lublin, and the hundreds of other smaller communities? Where did their deportees settle? The Nazis created ghettos in order to annihilate us but their plan did not succeed. Now they have decided upon the ‘final solution’, annihilation through murder.
Those of you who are worried about money - it’s a futile concern; you trouble yourselves for naught since Warsaw will not escape the sword of the Nazis. As for the intellectuals who are busy acquiring rare books because they are inexpensive - it is truly amazing! Can you really prevent your eyes from seeing? What do you need books for if you will never live to read them. ’
And thus he goes on and on. Would that Hirsch’s predictions prove to be untrue.
