November 16th marks the 83rd anniversary of the closing of the Warsaw Ghetto gates. This event concluded the months-long process of creating the so-called Jewish Quarter in the city. A process accompanied by extensive Nazi propaganda, demonstrating that it was not only necessary but also the only rational solution to protect the remaining residents of Warsaw.
To isolate, to isolate, to fence off
Following the end of the September Campaign, the Germans began dividing the occupied Polish territories and establishing their own administration. In October 1939, the central part of the conquered territories was transformed into the General Government, part of the western territories of the Second Polish Republic were incorporated into the Third Reich, and the eastern territories were occupied by the Soviet Union. These actions were accompanied by the gradual introduction of new legislation. In the following weeks, regulations were promulgated that interfered with almost all spheres of life. These regulations significantly regulated and increasingly changed the situation of the Jewish population. These legal acts concerned finances and the use of property; forced labor and mobility; they also influenced religious matters and prohibited access to education. The order to mark Jews and the businesses or shops they ran with the Star of David was particularly stigmatizing. Over time, from legal separation and distinction from the non-Jewish community through the requirement to wear armbands, the Germans began physically separating Jews from other inhabitants of cities, towns, and villages.
The first ghetto in occupied Poland was established in October 1939 in Piotrków Trybunalski. Subsequent ghettos were established, including in the Radom district, until the end of the year. The ghettoization process, initiated then and continued in the following months of occupation, was justified, among other things, by the need to separate Jews from other residents. Nazi propaganda portrayed them as carriers of lice, bacteria, typhus, and other diseases, and isolation as a form of protection for the non-Jewish population. In many places, the so-called Jewish residential districts were marked with information boards reading "Typhoid Threatened Area" in Polish and German. This message was used to attack adults, children, and youth, hoping to arouse and deepen negative emotions toward Jews. Propaganda also explained the need for Jews to wear armbands as a sign of concern for Poles, who could thus avoid contact with them. Over time, this process intensified. Using the press, posters, leaflets, permanent and traveling exhibitions, loudspeaker broadcasts, and propaganda films, the Germans created a negative image of the Jewish community based on centuries-old stereotypes. A classic example was the poster reading "Jews—lice—typhus," which compared them to vermin and accused them of spreading disease. These posters, hung on walls, fences, and billboards, were intended to reinforce and perpetuate this message.
The separation of Jews, their confinement in ghettos, and their consequent absence from the streets, made them, in a sense, "invisible" to the rest of the town's inhabitants. The restriction and subsequent ban on contact between the ghetto and the so-called Aryan side deepened this process. The isolated Jewish population, in turn, felt lonely, abandoned, and left to their own devices. From then on, their lives were confined to a few streets, the small and cramped space of the so-called residential district. In most towns, the ghetto boundaries were marked by wooden fences, barbed wire fences, or specific streets. Only in a few towns was a wall built to further isolate them. The most famous example is the ghetto and the brick structure separating it in Warsaw.
Growing walls
The creation of a ghetto in the occupied capital was a process. The Germans planned to establish a so-called residential district for Jews in Warsaw as early as the autumn of 1939, citing sanitary concerns and fear of the spread of typhus. Although this plan was never implemented, rumors spread quickly among the Jewish community. During the winter of 1939 and 1940, further information about new dates for the ghetto's creation and potential locations appeared in Warsaw. One of these was the right-bank district of Praga, as Adam Czerniaków, chairman of the Judenrat, recalled in his diary. Even then, fences and barriers were being erected on some streets. Some of these barriers would eventually constitute the boundaries of the Jewish district. In mid-January 1940, Waldemar Schön arrived in Warsaw and was entrusted with the task of establishing a ghetto in the city. To this end, a Resettlement Department was established within the District Head's Office, and Schön became its head. The idea of creating a Jewish district in Praga was rejected. Relocating such a large group of people engaged in trade and crafts to the right bank of the Vistula would have negatively impacted the city's functioning.
In March 1940, the Germans established a typhus-prone area (Seuchensperrgebiet) in the so-called northern district of Warsaw. Soon, the designated area began to be separated from the rest of the city. Czerniaków wrote about this in his diary on March 18, 1940: "a demand that the Community erect a fence around the ghetto, drive in poles, etc., and then supervise it." The Warsaw Judenrat also received an official order to pay for the wall. When construction began, it was not yet entirely clear whether or when a ghetto would be established. In his memoirs, Ludwik Landau wrote of the mood and fears these actions aroused among Warsaw's Jewish residents: "The Jewish population of Warsaw looks with fear at the walls rising around their district. […] These walls are popularly referred to in Warsaw as a precursor to a ghetto; rumors of dividing the city into sections to facilitate police surveillance seem more likely."
Construction work was completed a few weeks later, in the first half of June 1940. In some places, the three-meter-high wall was reinforced with barbed wire and covered with a layer of glass shards. The structure was not continuous; in places, the ghetto's boundaries were formed by the walls of existing buildings or fire walls, wooden fences, and even fragments of fences or barbed wire entanglements. As Chaim Kapłan wrote, "These walls blocked the busiest streets to date," necessitating significant changes in traffic organization. This significantly impacted the lives of Warsaw residents. From then on, the Germans repeatedly changed the boundaries, first of the so-called typhus-threatened area, and later of the Warsaw ghetto. This also occurred after the closing of its gates, which led to its division into the so-called "small ghetto" between Sienna and Chłodna Streets, and the "large ghetto" between Chłodna and Stawki Streets.
Forced relocations
On October 12, 1940, the decree of Warsaw District Governor Ludwig Fischer, dated October 2nd, "On the Establishment of the Jewish Residential District," was announced over street loudspeakers. Emanuel Ringelblum, chronicler of the Warsaw Ghetto, noted this event: "Today, Saturday, October 12th, was terrible. The division of the city into three parts was announced over the loudspeaker: German, encompassing Śródmieście and Nowy Świat, Polish, and Jewish. By the end of October, everyone—except Germans—must move without furniture. Our tenement house is in despair. The owner of the house has lived in this apartment for 37 years, and she should leave it empty."
A period of mass population relocations ensued. Approximately 113 Poles were forced to leave the area of the future ghetto, while nearly 138 Jews living in various parts of the city were forced to move in. The city's streets and sidewalks were filled with luggage carts, horse-drawn carriages, and strollers, carrying some of the belongings. Small items were carried in bags, bundles, and packages, carried by hand or on backs. Attempts were made to sell some items or store them with friends on the so-called Aryan side.
The deadline for the end of forced relocations was successively postponed. The ghetto boundaries were also revised until the very last days. This forced the population to constantly concentrate and check whether their assigned apartments were still within the designated area. The exclusion of particular sections of streets or individual tenement houses meant another relocation. Ringelblum noted: "Today, October 23rd, the loudspeaker again announced that Waliców and Ceglana Streets had been excluded [from the ghetto] […]. People have lost their minds; no one knows where to move. No street is safe, because everywhere there is something that could expose it to danger." The next day, it turned out that the aforementioned locations were being returned to the ghetto. Ringelblum recalled extreme cases where people had to change apartments several times because of this: "Constant shuddering: once this way, once that way, and no one knows when it will all end. […] I was told about a certain [Jew] who moved seven times because of the changing ghetto borders. Another four times: evicted from Hoża, Freta, Grzybowska 68, and from there for the fourth time."
The closing of the ghetto gates marked the end of this phase. Over 400 Jews found themselves within the walls, and over time, the ghetto's population grew. November 16, 1940, fell on a Saturday – the Sabbath, the most important holiday for Jews. Warsaw Jews had to celebrate it in a completely new reality. From then on, any attempt to leave the ghetto without a pass was punished (from beatings to arrest and, later, the death penalty). "We went to sleep in the Jewish quarter, and the next morning we woke up in a closed Jewish ghetto – a ghetto par excellence," wrote Chaim Kapłan. The closing of the Warsaw ghetto gates in November 1940 marked the beginning of the extermination of the Jews trapped within the walls. Those who escaped death from disease and starvation were murdered in the gas chambers of the Treblinka extermination camp. Few survived.
