P.T. - abbreviation for pleno titulo, (Latin) full title; a formula used when addressing
and honouring the public-at-large and when using everyone’s proper title would be
impossible.
PARÓWKA (Polish: steaming) – pseudo-hygienic measure against the epidemic of
typhus, applied obligatorily to Jews.
PICKETS, PICKETING, picketeers – groups of young Polish nationalists who blocked doors to Jewish stores.
PLACÓWKA, pl. placówki (Polish: work site) – detail work site(s), usually outside ghettos.
POALEI TSIYON (Hebrew: labourers of Zion) – socialist-Zionist party established in 1906 aimed at creation of the socialist Jewish society in Palestine; promoted national-cultural autonomy of the Jews in Poland. In 1920, it split into two groups, Poalei Tsiyon Left, related to communist ideals, and Poalei Tsiyon Right, related to a socialist movement.
POLISH POLICE – police of the General Government, established by the Germans on 17 December 1939, obligatory for functionaries of the pre-war State Police. It reported to local commanders of the German Ordnungspolizei; responsible for many anti-Jewish actions, while largely cooperating with the Polish patriotic underground.
PRZEPUSTKA, pl. przepustki (Polish) – pass (es).
PYZIAK (Polish: from Russian pidzhak, meaning jacket) – popular name of the Sonderdienst functionaries, named for their manner of dress.
REFUGEE CENTRES – shelters for the resettled and refugees in the Warsaw ghetto. Due to shortage of appropriate spaces, the centres were located in prayer rooms, cinema halls, or private quarters. They were very overcrowded and usually devoid of hygienic conditions, contributing to very high mortality rates.
REICHSDEUTSCHE (German) – ethnic Germans living in the territory of the German Reich after 1871.
REICHSMARK, MARK, RM, Rmk – German currency.
RESETTLEMENT – expulsion of large groups of people, sometimes entire communities, especially from the territories annexed to the Third Reich, moved to the General Government at the start of German occupation of Poland. Later it meant expulsion of Jews from the small towns of the Warsaw District to the Warsaw ghetto. Its meaning changed again to refer to deportation and death in the death camps at Treblinka, Bełżec, Sobibór, Majdanek (in GG territory), Kulmhof and Auschwitz (in Third Reich territory).
