In the meantime, other minor resettlement campaigns were conducted,
e.g.: 1) the expulsion of Jews from Płock to Częstochowa, Bodzentyn,
Suchedniów, and other small towns in the Kielce area,⁸⁶⁸ 2) [the expulsion]
of Jews from Kraków into the Lublin area,⁸⁶⁹ 3) [the expulsion] of Jews from
Miłosna, Marki, Okuniew, Pustelnik, and recently (May 1942)⁸⁷⁰ also of those
living in Tłuszcz near Warsaw.
No less effective are the constant changes of the ghetto borders or actually
the constant reduction of its area. Even though the Warsaw ghetto borders
have been changed three times, the Germans have still not uttered their
final word. Aside from the nervous exhaustion of the Jewish population there
has also been a deepening of pauperisation, intensified by the uncertainty of
the roof over one’s head. The Germans need this constant uncertainty to effectively
exercise their power. Thus they wish to crush the Jews’ moral resistance,
their only weapon in the struggle against the occupier. (The length of
the walls circling the Warsaw ghetto is 16 kilometres.)⁸⁷¹
The German administration’s food-provision policy for the Jewish population
of the General Government is intended to starve the Jews to death
by means of strict bans on bringing in food products, particularly fat and
with the use of the existing closed ghettos, which are constantly watched
and controlled by the gendarmerie and Sonderdienst members. The most
horrible consequences of this policy are the steadily increasing prices
and hunger.
Hunger as a social problem – hunger manifested in the most dramatic
ways possible, leading from exhaustion, through tuberculosis or hunger
oedema, [12] to death by starvation – is one of the most dangerous threats to
the existence of Jews in the General Government. The sight of swollen children
and adults covered with ulcers is “normal” in larger ghettos. Over the
last 6 months the problem of hunger also appeared in the provinces, mostly in
the Galicia District. To illustrate, a table is provided that compares the prices
of basic foodstuffs before the war and in April 1942 (these are free market
868 See Michał Grynberg, Żydzi w rejencji ciechanowskiej 1939–1942 (Warsaw, 1984), pp. 90–97.
869 See Janina Kiełboń, “Deportacje Żydów do dystryktu lubelskiego (1939–1943)”, in Akcja
Reinhardt, pp. 161–181.
870 “1940” in the ARG copy (a mistake).
871 “11 kilometres” in the copy in the ARG.
