On November 16, 1940, the gates of the so-called Jewish district in Warsaw were closed. Preparations had begun in the spring, but at the time, almost no one believed it was possible to enclose such a large Jewish community within the walls of a large city. Ludwik Landau, in his diary written during the occupation, noted: "All this is uncertain and undefined not only for the average person but also for the most competent authorities, because German plans, put forward by various institutions, appear on the horizon and disappear with impressive speed."
Progressive ghettoization
The Germans fenced off areas inhabited mostly by Jews under the pretext of protection from typhus. This is where the signs and signs visible in many photos of occupied Warsaw come from – "Area at risk of typhus. Passage only permitted." Such signs were intended to deter Warsaw residents from entering areas designated for Jews and to prevent them from having any contact with them. The ghetto was not established and sealed off immediately. Although in November 1939, the Germans first announced to the newly established Judenrat (Jewish Council) their intention to close the Jewish quarter due to the alleged threat of typhus, these plans were postponed. First, discriminatory legislation was introduced. During these months, Jews were gradually and meticulously "eliminated" from Warsaw's public spaces. Among other things, they were banned from train travel, using public libraries, entering certain streets and parks, practicing law, and a number of other professions. In addition, they were required to wear armbands with the Star of David and were required to work.
Initially, the so-called "Sperrgebiet," or Jewish residential area, was surrounded by walls. It wasn't until August 1940 that the decision was made to establish a Jewish quarter within its boundaries, announced in October, just one month before the planned closure of the borders. All of this was preceded by various initiatives aimed at physically isolating Jews from the city's so-called Aryan community. Furthermore, in an event now known as the Easter Pogrom, Polish youth militias attacked Jews in March 1940 during Holy Week. This provided the occupiers with another spurious reason for building ghetto walls, as Judenrat chairman Adam Czerniaków wrote, "to protect Jews from excesses." The closure of the ghettos was therefore preceded by the separation of Jews from non-Jewish citizens, aimed at morally oppressing them and fueling anti-Semitic rhetoric within society. The German Nazis aimed to eliminate Jews from economic, social, and cultural life. And the issue of the typhus epidemic and anti-Jewish riots were pretexts for this.
The walls themselves were erected from April 1940. The construction costs were borne by the Judenrat, which had repeatedly opposed the idea of a gated district and was in poor financial shape, partly due to Nazi restrictions on Jewish bank accounts and income generation. The ghetto boundaries intersected courtyards, streets, tram lines, not to mention other infrastructure. The imposition of artificial boundaries destroyed, often permanently, the local fabric of the city, neighborhoods, and districts. A total of approximately 138,000 Jews and 113,000 Poles were forced to leave their homes by November 1940. Nearly 400,000 Jews were concentrated in an area of less than 4 square kilometers. The average occupancy per apartment was 15,1 people, with each room holding 6-7 people. At its peak, approximately 450,000 people were confined within the walls. From October 1941, the penalty for leaving the ghetto walls and entering the so-called Aryan territories without a pass was death. Among the greatest problems faced by ghetto residents were appalling sanitary conditions, typhus, starvation, overcrowding, infectious diseases, and forced labor imposed by the occupiers. Jews from territories incorporated into the Reich and from other locations in the General Government were also resettled in the Warsaw Ghetto.
Former neighbors
The Warsaw Ghetto Museum holds a unique document that offers a personal perspective on the tragedy of the creation of the ghetto. The Tolsdorfs and the Wajngartens, a Polish and Jewish family, lived on the same street. Their buildings, at 48 and 62 Twarda Streets, were no more than a few dozen meters apart. However, during the German occupation, their fates diverged dramatically.
From 1919, the Tolsdorf family (Mieczysław and Józefa for the time being; their only son, Janusz, would be born in 1925) lived at Twarda 48. Mieczysław worked his entire life, including the occupation years, as a locksmith at the Warszawa Zachodnia railway station. His wife, Józefa, took care of the house. The family survived the war virtually unscathed.
Unlike the Tolsdorf family, the Wajngartens of 62 Twarda Street had lived at this address since at least the first decade of the 5th century. Address books dating back to 1908 mention a "distribution" or "tobacco shop" run by the family's father, Srul Wajngarten, at this address. Srul, who later used the name Izrael, married Chaja Genendla at the age of 27, and two years later, in 1904, their son, Lejb (meaning "lion" in Yiddish), was born. They most likely had two more children. A document from the MGW collection indicates that a total of five people lived in the Wajngarten family apartment.
According to German regulations from October 1940, both families were required to report to one of several Housing Change Points organized by the Municipal Housing Office in Warsaw. The document signed between Mieczysław Tolsdorf and Izrael Wajngarten stipulated that the Wajngarten family would move into the Tolsdorfs' apartment, which was to be located beyond the wall of the planned ghetto. In November 1940, the border ran between Twarda Street 50 and 52. The Tolsdorfs, in turn, took over the Wajngarten family's apartment, on the so-called Aryan side. Such apartment exchanges were to be based on the principle of greatest similarity: they would swap apartments as closely as possible, with similar layouts and furnishings. Most likely, on October 25th, the Wajngarten family left their family home and moved into the future ghetto. For several months, one of the entrance gates to the so-called closed district stood right next to Twarda Street 48. The Wajngarten family could probably look out from the windows of their new apartment at the newly established, "Aryan" part of Warsaw. Twarda Street, their address for decades, had changed beyond recognition before their eyes.
The Wajngarten family survived in apartment no. 18 at 48 Twarda Street for almost a year. They were not destined to find a permanent shelter. Already on October 5, 1941, the commissioner for the Jewish district in Warsaw, Heinz Auerswald, demanded that Adam Czerniaków change the ghetto's boundaries once again. As the president of the Judenrat noted, "the Jews—residing on the odd-numbered side of Sienna Street, including Jews from Twarda, Sosnowa, and Wielka Streets south of Sienna—move to 5 X 41, north of the ghetto, beyond Chłodna Street. […] Panic in the city." We know almost nothing about their subsequent fate in the ghetto, except that Srul and Lejb survived the typhus epidemic that swept the Jewish district in waves. The ghetto's expansion resulted in a dramatic deterioration of already difficult sanitary conditions and overcrowding. Despite this, in October 1941 the streets were once again filled with displaced people.
Unfortunately, the fate of the Wajngarten family after 1941 is largely unknown. Information about the family's father, Srul Wajngarten, and his son, Lejb, can be found in the collections of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Moszek Strykowski's testimony indicates that both men were deported to Magdeburg, where they perished. Srul starved to death in October 1943, and Lejb was shot by the Germans in the summer of 1944. Their cousin, Chaim Hersz Wajngarten, survived the war. The fate of Chaja Genendla and the two people who lived with them in the family apartment is unknown. They were consumed by the Holocaust.
After the war, the Tolsdorf family continued to live at Twarda 62. Józefa's relatives remained at this address until the 70s.
Memory after years
The only tangible testimony to the Wajngarten family's history and the tragedy that unfolded on their doorstep is the surviving tenement building at 62 Twarda Street. Listed as a historic monument in the Mazovian Voivodeship in 2023, it was closed for use in 2012 due to its poor technical condition and has been empty for over 10 years. Since at least 1908, Srul Wajngarten ran his tobacco shop in this building, supporting his family, who lived in apartment number 14. Srul, Lejb, Chaja Genendla, two other family members, their next apartment at 48 Twarda Street, the ghetto wall that began their journey into the nightmare that was the Warsaw Ghetto and the German occupation, and their former neighbors and ghetto residents are long gone. Eighty-three years after the ghetto gates were closed, researchers are still finding priceless traces of their presence: objects and accounts of life in the closed district. This imposed division of Warsaw's inhabitants is still subject to historical and archaeological research. The memory of the people who shaped pre-war Warsaw also remains, and preserving it is our natural duty.
