rolled on the ground. Those excesses attracted significant attention and it was
rumoured that the news reached Berlin. A special commission even came from
Ciechanów. Anyhow, it calmed down after that and labourers were treated in
a humane way.
At the same time, soup kitchens were established by order of the authorities.
Throughout their operation they were the apple of the Germans’ eye for
they were trying to introduce a collective lifestyle among the Jews (their aspiration
was also later manifested in the establishment of cooperatives) and
they were very surprised that not everybody used them. For instance, one day,
an SS-man was looking for the Judenrat chairman and when he learned that
the chairman was eating midday meal at home, he asked with astonishment,
Ist er denn nicht in der Küche Mittage?¹⁶⁹⁴ The soup kitchen subsisted mostly
on subsidies from the Joint, but it also received 10 per cent of the wages of
Jews working on German work details. (The division of wages was as follows:
of every mark earned, labourers received 40 rpf, the kitchen 10 rpf, and the
rest was deposited with the municipality in a special fund for an unknown
purpose, which purportedly reached 100,000 marks and vanished after the
resettlement of the Jews from Płock.)
This situation lasted unchanged until November 1940, that is, until the
establishment of the Jewish residential quarter. By the way, [5] those moving
there were allowed to take all their belongings.
The ghetto in Płock was quite unusual. The Jews were forbidden to leave
it unless they had special Strassenscheine¹⁶⁹⁵ yet the Poles could enter it without
difficulties, at least at the beginning. There were no food ration cards;
everything could be purchased on the free market, if one can talk about free
trade in this case at all, for it must be said that all private shops and workshops
were closed and only the cooperatives were operating and there was
a multitude of them: a food one, a shoemakers,’ a tailors,’ a hairdressers,’ the
outpatient clinic, etc.
The fate of the Płock synagogue also shows some rather considerable
departure from the formula. It would surely be difficult for one
to imagine that it was not only not burnt down, but also that there were
1694 (German, incorrect) So he is not eating his midday meal in the kitchen then?
1695 (German) literally: street ticket, special pass issued to the Jews appointed for forced labour by the Judenrat or those working for the Germans. See Żydzi w rejencji, p. 47.
