“deportation”. The course of the “selection” was the same almost everywhere,
with a few exceptions; for instance, in one workshop everybody was ordered
to kneel on the street. The sluggish ones were executed on the spot and their
corpses were left lying in the row next to the living. All that took place accompanied
by German curses. No objective criteria were applied.
The fate of women and children was the most tragic. The Germans were
implacable towards them. In exceptional cases fathers managed to rescue
their children in sacks. It was done in the following way: a father put the
sack with his child on his back and, having bribed a Ukrainian guard, he
carried the precious burden outside. After the “registration” the incomplete
crews returned to their workshops and quarters. On the streets, in residential
buildings, on squares, and among the rubble there were still many Jews
who had gone into hiding and thus avoided deportation to Treblinka. They
were trying to leave that area and sneak back into their workshops, hoping
to obtain legalisation after some time; that is, to be re-entered on the list of
the workshop workers. On Wednesday, after the registration had officially
concluded, Ukrainian patrols began to traverse the streets of the new ghetto
with the explicit order to shoot Jews on any pretext. The clatter of SMGs and
rifle salvos could be heard non-stop. There were also blockades of residential
buildings and they were extremely brutal. Jews in hiding were shot unceremoniously
and mercilessly, irrespective of sex or age. [23] On Friday a German
patrol rushed into a certain hideout on Niska Street, where 60 people were
hiding, all of whom were killed.
During that period many Jews died of hunger and thirst because they
had no food supplies and feared leaving their hideouts lest they revealed these
places to the Ukrainians.
Table of deaths among Jews in Warsaw during the “registration” period.⁹⁵⁴
