always managed to hit some of them. This harassment did not deter Jews from making avail of the gendarmes’ inattention and getting to the other side, where one could buy cheaper food. This was particularly the case with swarms of children and with various male and female beggars. But the most terrible thing began when the gendarmes started to shoot. During December and January, and even later, every couple of days and sometimes even [7] every day there were instances of the gendarmes shooting one or even several people at a time. For self-defence, or perhaps also for profit, the Jewish population engaged in smuggling on a large scale. The smuggling went on through the exits, over walls and over fences, through the ruins of buildings and certain walk-through tenements (which were later excluded from the ghetto). Often putting their lives at risk, those people transported food to the Jewish side, thus saving perhaps thousands of people from death. Attorney Berenson43 stressed several times, and not as a joke, that a monument to the unknown smuggler should be one of the first monuments to be erected after the war.
In late January, the Jewish district was completely sealed off. But the Jews got to the so-called Aryan side in various ways, particularly through the Court44 and over low walls.
ARG I 485 (Ring. I/361).
Description: duplicate (three copies), handwritten, pencil, Polish, 150x210 mm, minor damage and fragments missing, 21 sheets, 21 pages. Edition based on the original: 7 sheets, 7 pages. Published in: Selected Documents, 143–145.
