prices, and one should stress that prices in ghettos are 20–25 per cent higher
than on the Aryan side).
One understands how catastrophic the food-supply situation of the Jewish
population is through comparing prices with average earnings in the ghetto.
The prices of food products have increased 40 times on average in comparison
ewith the pre-war level,e872 while the salaries and wages of a small group of
people increased only 2 times. (Binding German regulations require earnings
to be fkept on the levelf873 at which they were before the war.) Besides, most
ghetto inhabitants do not live on what they earn but subsist on selling the
remainder of their spare clothes and furniture. (The Warsaw ghetto exports
clothes and furniture to the Aryan side for 17 million zlotys per month.)
The official issues (contingents) are: two kg of bread per month [13] per
person (in the Warsaw ghetto), small amounts of sugar, plus other articles,
with complete omission of meat and fats. The caloric value of these articles
is a little more than 100 per day. (According to German norms, a minimum
requirement for an adult is 2,200 calories per day.)
With regard to food provision the situation of Jews under the ghetto conditions
is clearly tragic. On the one hand, Jews are isolated from economic
life, and are forbidden to operate commercial or industrial enterprises and
872 e–e Hersh Wasser’s handwritten annotation on the AAN copy; fragment not included in
the ARG copy.
873 f-f “Maintained on the level” in the ARG copy.
