the “General Government” authorities had decided that the Warsaw ghetto
would not be closed because it was high-profile and work-oriented. News about
the extermination of entire Jewish centres in the Lublin region, which was
spread by the agency of Jews who had miraculously survived (Lublin, Zamość,
Końskowola, Izbica on the River Wieprz, Hrubieszów, and Włodawa),⁹⁰⁵ were
compensated for with dozens of fabricated pieces of news regarding letters
purportedly sent by deportees from Bessarabia, Ukraine, or other places.
Nonetheless, positive ordinances were still implemented: the Judenrat
was allowed to open new elementary schools for children. The department of
technical training of Jews was allowed to start new courses. Children theatre
performances were organised, many playgrounds for children were opened
in the ghetto and here and there one heard favourable comments regarding
Jewish labour. It was even said that the Warsaw Jews, with their vocational
qualifications in all branches of production, constituted an entirely different
type of Jew. So familiar to Jews of Warsaw from the past years, this year’s
roundups to forced labour camps did not have the stamp of randomness and
lawlessness. An appropriate document – a registration card with a seal of the
Department of Labour – was a guarantee of safety.
The fact that some groups of Jews resettled from Germany were left
in Warsaw made the institution of the Warsaw ghetto seem inviolable and
permanent.⁹⁰⁶
In mid-June 1942 the ghetto was reduced by blocks of flats enclosed by
the border running along Bonifraterska, Muranowska, and Pokorna Streets.
That strengthened the widespread conviction that the Germans would
let the Warsaw ghetto survive. The curfew was moved from 9 to 10 p.m.
The Warsaw “idyll” was disturbed by the recording of a film about the life of
the Warsaw ghetto in the style and spirit of Stürmer.⁹⁰⁷ Its purpose was all too
clear and explicit. Its aim was to prove that all Jews were but a band of idlers,
loafers, thieves, and smugglers, while Jewish women were depraved and corrupt
and all they did was participate in sexual orgies.
905 Testimonies of refugees from Lublin, Zamość, Izbica, and Hrubieszów to be published
in: The Ringelblum Archive. Accounts from the General Government.
906 In April 1942 approximately 4,000 Jews from Germany, from Frankfurt, Hannover, and
Berlin arrived in the Warsaw ghetto. See ARG I 445/4 (Ring. I/503/1).
907 Der Stürmer – German propaganda weekly of the Nazi Party, published 1923–1945.
