Rabbi David Berman – research specialist at the MGW – writes about the difficulties that Jews began to face due to the introduction of new, discriminatory laws by the Germans.
A significant percentage of the ghetto's residents observed, in one way or another, Jewish religious laws and traditions related to food. One of their main concerns was obtaining kosher meat, which was prepared in accordance with halakha—Jewish religious law.
In the years before the war, there were twenty-six poultry butchers in Warsaw, operating at 44 Zamenhofa Street, 1 Twarda Street, and several other locations. Additionally, there were slaughterhouses in Praga, Wola, and other suburban locations.
With the advent of war and the bombing of Warsaw, kosher production declined dramatically, and by the end of the second week of the war, only twenty percent of the usual amount had been produced. On the eve of the Jewish New Year in 1939, only five hundred birds were slaughtered, as opposed to the customary ten thousand geese, twenty thousand chickens, and so on.
On October 6, 1939, Jewish ritual slaughter was officially banned by the German occupation forces. Initially, the ban applied only to cattle, but shochetim (poultry butchers) were afraid to continue trading. They feared not so much the Germans, unaware of the slaughterhouses' locations and the identities of those involved, but rather that the local police would report their activities to the occupation authorities. An organized bribery system was developed, in which the chief of each police district was paid to secure cooperation. These bribes absorbed a huge portion of the income from various slaughterhouses, sometimes as much as seventy to eighty percent. Furthermore, they concealed their activities with signs posted on the slaughterhouse walls stating that ritual slaughter was not performed, and various tools used by non-kosher butchers were strategically placed in case of inspection by the authorities.
This situation continued throughout the winter of 1939-1940, but by the summer of 1940, production had fallen to about one percent of its pre-war level. After the ghetto was sealed, live birds could no longer be imported, and all production ceased. As can be read in the letters of Rabbi Szymon Huberband , who recorded events in the ghetto, religious Jews refrained from eating poultry and only ate smuggled meat.
In the case of cattle slaughter, as with poultry, production was severely disrupted by the outbreak of hostilities. With the German invasion, production resumed in various locations. After the ban on ritual slaughter was announced in the German press and the Kurier Warszawski on October 6, 1939, many shochets stopped working. This work was performed clandestinely by younger workers, including among the ruins of Niska, Miła, and Stawki Streets, as well as Grzybowska, Waliców, and Krochmalna Streets in Praga and Wola. Sellers hid meat for sale among vegetables and other items and removed it at the request of customers. Rigorous pre-war rabbinical supervision and certification were abandoned, causing those strictly observant to refrain from eating meat unless it was obtained from a reliable source. Local police became aware that ritual slaughter was still being carried out and were bribed to gain their favor. Bribed policemen carried shochet knives from place to place and escorted workers home after curfew, claiming they were taking them to the police station. Gentile tanners worked alongside Jewish ones. Some fifty to sixty large cattle and a similar number of small animals were slaughtered weekly, with work performed primarily in the evenings.
When the ghetto was sealed, slaughtering cattle became impossible. Many people managed to bribe some guards to allow cattle to be smuggled in. However, the number of cattle was so small that butchers began organizing ritual slaughter outside the ghetto and smuggling the prepared beef for sale to its residents. To accomplish this, shochets had to be escorted out of the ghetto in disguise, shaving their beards and donning non-Jewish clothing. A shochet typically stayed outside the ghetto for about two weeks, in the home of a non-Jew, where he performed his work.
This type of activity was carried out in Pelcowizna, Ochota, Bródno, and Malicze, among other places. Meat was gradually smuggled into the ghetto in vehicles providing electricity, gas, medical, and sanitary services. Guards and Volksdeutsche were bribed, allowing production to continue unimpeded.
Orthodox Jews, for various reasons, were dissatisfied with the quality of ritual slaughter performed by shochets and eventually stopped purchasing meat from such sources, leading to traders abandoning the practice of using shochets altogether and selling meat that was kosher in name only.
Kosher meat from Otwock, considered a product of higher quality and therefore widely accepted, posed serious competition for Warsaw merchants. Local vendors responded by smuggling live cattle into the ghetto several times a week, which were then slaughtered and prepared specifically for Orthodox Jews. The activities of shochets were punishable by death.
Sources: accounts by Rabbi Szymon Huberband (1909-1942)
Photo: Hans Frank's regulation of 26 October 1939 on the ban on ritual slaughter (Wikipedia: B. Engelking, J. Leociak, D. Libionka, Province of the Night. The Life and Extermination of Jews in the Warsaw District, IFiS PAN Publishing House, Warsaw 2007)
