The Ringelblum Archive. Warsaw Ghetto. Everyday Life. 545
the voices of those affected by parówki, but also members of the disinfection squads involved in administrating anti–typhus measures.
Chapter Six: Economics of the Ghetto looks at the under–researched topic of the clandestine ghetto economy. Materials gathered in this chapter focus primarily on smuggling, showing it as an aspect of civil disobedience as, for thousands, carrying a couple of potatoes or a piece of bread over the ghetto wall became a way of fighting for the lives of their families. At the same time, for others, among them numerous German collaborators, smuggling became a business opportunity, allowing them to amass considerable wealth, later spent ostentatiously in ghetto cafes and night clubs.
Chapter Seven: Education looks at the education of Jewish youth in occupied Warsaw. Alongside descriptive studies, the chapter includes projects and proposals drafted by teachers and educational specialists.
Chapter Eight: Jews and Poles, Assimilationists and Converts. This chapter looks at various aspects of Polish–Jewish relations, from Warsaw inhabitants selflessly offering help to Jewish refugees to stones being thrown from outside the ghetto wall into the windows of Jewish hospitals. Numerous texts in this chapter depict the fate of converted and assimilated Jews who, despite their Polish identity, were classified by German racial laws as Jews and found themselves in the completely alien environment of the Warsaw Ghetto.
Chapter Nine: Jews and Germans. This chapter is probably the most striking example of the Archive’s attempt at reaching full objectivity. Even though the majority of texts focus on the cruelty of German soldiers and forced–labor camp guards, they also point out examples of gendarmes assisting Jewish children in organizing smuggling, often being more positively inclined towards them then towards the Jewish Order Service or the Polish “navy blue” police.
Chapter Ten: The Jewish Order Service looks at one of the most controversial aspects of ghetto life — the Jewish police. Even though their first appearance engendered widespread hope for the autonomy of the Jewish quarter, the overall reception of the Order Service in the ghetto was decidedly negative. The police became synonymous with bribery and abuse of power and, even before its involvement in the 1942 deportations, they were widely regarded with hatred. The Ringelblum Archive provides a unique opportunity to look at the Order Service through the eyes of the policemen themselves, young Jewish professionals and intelligentsia, for whom participation in the Service was often the only way to provide for themselves and for their families.
