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education and intelligence
combine to make him some
thing of a nincompoop; it is
only through the misfortune of
his people that he has risen
to such eminence. Never be
fore has he been so successful
as in these evil hours.”
Most diaries and memoirs of
the Warsaw ghetto are filled
with derogatory remarks about
the Judenrat and its chairman.
These accounts, however, tend
to minimize or ignore the role
Czerniakow played in the
Jewish community in Poland
between the two world wars.
For decades Czerniakow had
been active in Jewish life in
Warsaw. At the turn of the
century, he had been one of
the young Jewish professionals
who spread the idea of pro-
ductivization of the Jewish
masses in Poland. He was a
pioneer in organizing vocation
al schools in the leading Jew
ish centers of Poland. In 1916
he became the chairman of the
Central Federation of Jewish
Artisans and valiantly fought
discrimination against Jews by
Polish guilds. In 1928 he was
elected to the City Council of
Warsaw and a year later to
the Polish Senate. . .
At the outbreak of World
War II, the chairman of the
Jewish Community Council
(Kehilah) was Maurycy Maj-
zel. who left the capital to
gether with other Jewish lead
ers, following in the footsteps
of the Polish Government,
which had gone into exile.
The president of the Warsaw
City Council, Stefan Starzvn-
ski. in organizing the heroic
resistance of the capital’s pop
ulation—Poles and Jews—ap
pointed Czerniakow chairman
of the Jewish Community
Council. . .
On October 4. 1939. only a
few days after the Nazis en
tered Warsaw, the Gestapo
summoned Czerniakow and
ordered him to appoint a new
council of 24 members. The
new council, or Judenrat, like
the pre-war Kehilah, was made
up of representatives of all
social and economic groups
and political parties—Zionist,
Orthodox, merchants, artisans,
small shopkeepers. . .
The Warsaw Judenrat was
charged with functions that
the ghetto population for the
municipal and national gov
ernments set up by the Nazis.
To provide its own financial
resources, the Judenrat collect
ed a head tax and fees for such
things as ration cards and em
ployment registration cards.
The income was used to ope
rate hospitals, soup kitchens
and to maintain the families of
members of the labor bat-
was forced to supply to the oc
cupying power.
In Czerniakow’s diary there
is no trace of an attempt to
justify his personal role in all
these activities. Still, there are
brief entries that throw a new
light on what he was trying to
do . . . and on the hopes he
pinned on his daily interven
tions with the Nazi administra
tion.
Quoted below are .excepts
from . . . Czerniakow’s diary.. .
for one of the last days of his
life, hour by hour:
“In view of the fact that the
employees (of the Judenrat),
their wives and children have
been exempted from deporta
tion, I have requested the in
clusion also of the employees
of the Craftsmen’s Association,
the garbage collectors and
others, to which they have
agreed. . . The most urgent
problem is the children in
orphanges, etc. I have spoken
about it, perhaps we shall
succeed.
“5:30. One of the Nazi of
ficers has arrived with an
order that Ehrlich should be
deputy to Lejkin (chief of the
Judenrat’s police—S.L.S.) He
is already wearing three stars.
. . (This is not Czerniakow’s
only sarcastic remark about
the Jewish police.—S.L.S.)
“Sturmbahnfuehrer Hoefle,
in charge of deportations in
vited me to his office and
stated that my wife is free for
the time being, but in the
event deportations do n o t
reach their quota she will be
the first hostage to be shot. . .
“They have sent me arm-
bands with the Star of David.
So I have received a new dec
oration. but under different
circumstances than my Hun
garian medal. I have instruct
ed the community to order a
rubber stamp with the Star of
David. My wife went out into
the street wearing the new
armband. I could not stand
it. . .”
. . . There are frequent re
marks in Czerniakow’s diary
about his lack of fear of death.
As the deportations accelerat
ed and he began losing the il
lusion that his dealings with
the Nazis could save Jewish
lives, he apparently took to
carrying poison on his person.
The great mass deportations
of Jews from the Warsaw
Ghetto began on July 23. 1942,
the eve of Tisha b’Av (the fast
of Av). . . It was then that the
Jewish underground forces
challenged the formidable Nazi
war machine, thus beginning
the heroic uprising that lasted
for 42 days.
When the first order for a
mass deportation appeared
there were still more than
talions the Jewish community 350.000 Jews in the ghetto. In
The Southern Israelite
24
