The Warsaw Jewish Council
(1939–1943)
Summary
The volume ‘The Warsaw Jewish Council’ includes documents issued by the
Warsaw Jewish Council, as well as those sent thereto. Also included in this volume
are the German documents – the vast majority of which are of a normative nature,
defining the ‘legal’ (in the Nazi sense of the word) competence of the Jewish Council. The volume also contains ephemera issued by the Jewish Council (such as an invitation to an artistic event organised by the Supply Section, a pass out of the ghetto, or food coupons) or other institutions (a blank identity card form, a tram
ticket issued by the Municipal Board, or a heating allowance card). Texts presented
here document the work of the institution administering the largest concentration
of Jews in occupied Europe.
This volume contains almost all the documents related to the Warsaw Judenrat,
preserved in the Underground Warsaw Ghetto Archive. Not included are only a handful of items already published in other volumes in the Ringelblum Archive series.
The volume is divided into two principal parts: Part One – the Jewish Council
until July 22, 1942, and Part Two – the Jewish Council after July 22, 1942. The
date of the commencement of the so-called Großaktion, the great killing operation,
became a tragic turning point not only in the lives of the residents of the Warsaw
ghetto, but also in the history of the institution of the Jewish Council. Part One
documents the struggle for survival of the Jewish community, while Part Two illustrates the circumstances of the deaths of the Warsaw ghetto inhabitants. The two stages of the ghetto are separated by the dates of the 22nd and the 23rd of July 1942 – the date of the beginning of deportations of the ghetto dwellers to the Treblinka extermination camp and the date of Adam Czerniaków’s suicide.
The documents are arranged within the main sections that are based on the
organisational structure of the Council, with the hierarchical system of the Council
replaced by the alphabetical order (due to the complex structure of the Council, such
