We invite you to read another column by Agnieszka Witkowska-Krych from the series "Life in the Ghetto," in which the author discusses, among other things, the feeding of ghetto residents, the activities of ad hoc feeding stations for starving residents, and the Transferstelle, a soup kitchen for children and infants.
The author tells the story of the courthouses, which served as a transit point for food smugglers, Janusz Korczak's efforts to obtain aid for the Main House of Refuge, the so-called house committees, and the people and institutions that had to face the nearly impossible task of feeding the poor and saving them from starvation. We invite you to read this challenging book, based on a diverse and solid source base.
Warsaw-born Bogdan (Dawid) Wojdowski , who as a teenager found himself in the Warsaw Ghetto, in his moving novel "Bread for the Dead," based on facts and his own experiences , paints a picture of hunger for the inhabitants of the closed district: "The first days of hunger are the worst, then it becomes bearable. First comes weariness, arms and legs feel heavy, every word grows into a painful clamor in the ears. The colors do not please the eyes, and the light hurts them. (...) One is constantly thirsty, cracked lips dry up. The jaw clenches of its own accord, and pain erupts behind the ears at the sight of a tin spoon abandoned on the table. Then thoughts of food begin, terrible, exhausting fantasies. The stomach works like a siphon. The thought of a piece of turnip is enough for him, and his teeth crunch through the fibrous pulp, and the juice, faintly reminiscent of black turnip, milder in taste and sweetish, flows down his throat and moistens the swollen tongue, leaving a tart residue in the mouth. (...) The thought breaks away from the turnip and soars high. "When will they bring that bread?" (1971, pp. 24-25).
Bread – the object of desire for tens, hundreds of thousands of people crammed into a small area carved out of the so-called Northern District. The vast majority of whom died of hunger, disease, and exhaustion during the deportation operations and in the Treblinka extermination camp. Food: in the ghetto, alongside those craving bread and dreaming of turnips, there were also those who dined at the "L'Ourse" café, and the "Gazeta Żydowska" of August 1, 1941, reported that the kitchen at 11 Leszno Street "will distribute candy for adults and an additional 50 grams for children." This, however, does not change the overall picture of a place where obtaining food was a matter of paramount importance – a condition for, though not a guarantee of, survival.
Prof. Konrad Zieliński, head of the research department of the Warsaw Ghetto Museum
Cafe "L'Ourse" – Leszno 58
Among the ghetto cafes, the "L'Ourse" was considered one of the most beautiful , located at 58 Leszno Street, in the same building where the Warsaw Emergency Medical Service, operating under the auspices of the Society for Emergency Medical Assistance, had operated since 1903 before the war. "L'Ourse" attracted customers for several reasons, primarily its spaciousness, its convenient location in the central part of the ghetto, and the fact that it was frequented by a relatively "better" clientele. Stanisław Różycki described this place and its atmosphere as follows: "When you first enter, you really get the impression that it's pre-war. Apart from the armbands, there are no traces of war, captivity, or the ghetto. The faces are not at all haggard, on the contrary, normal, well-nourished" (Stanisław Różycki, Images of the Ghetto, [in:] Archiwum Ringelbluma. Getto warszawskie, vol. V, Warsaw 2011, p. 69).
This is surprising to him, because the image of the café's patrons differs fundamentally from that of the people on the streets of the ghetto. He writes about the patrons of "L'Ourse" as follows: "As I sit down in the middle of the largest room, surrounded by overflowing tables, I begin to get a better idea of the audience. It's mixed, mostly wealthier, but not uniformly so. You see grocery store owners, policemen, a few doctors, a lot of young people, the bourgeoisie, perhaps not involved in business, but living off capital. But it's certain that the vast majority are relatively wealthy, well-fed. Many eat two or three pastries; here and there on the table you see an apple, a ham sandwich, some alcoholic beverage" (Ibidem, p. 70). Różycki, whose goal is to write the most accurate text possible, tries to gather as much information as possible about the café's regulars: "I learn that there are guests who come every day, drink coffee, sit in silence, sadness, or indifference. The waitresses don't know who they are, but they have learned that some of them are rich, very rich speculators" (Ibidem, p. 71).
The patrons of the café at 58 Leszno Street certainly didn't fully reflect the social profile of the Warsaw Ghetto's inhabitants. Those who could afford even a glass of café tea or another beverage served at one of the ghetto's eateries constituted a small percentage of the entire Jewish population of Warsaw. Their presence and often ostentatious behavior often aroused hostility or criticism from other ghetto residents. This was especially true given that the capital's gated district also housed establishments of rather dubious provenance and notoriety. One of these, as one ghetto resident also noted, was the Hotel Britannia , which housed, among other things, a ghetto dance club. We read about it as: "the headquarters of the 'Thirteenth' party, dancers in evening gowns, servants, an orchestra, tables, alcoholic suppers, wafting cigarette and cigar smoke. Men, not just the Thirteenth party members, but also their guests from the other side, Germans and Poles. The orchestra plays, dances, laughter, fun..." (ŻIH Archives, file no. 302/129). This description, completely at odds with the common image of the ghetto, largely based on well-known street photos of people dying (or already dead...) of hunger, is on the one hand puzzling and perhaps even outrageous, but on the other hand it is proof that even in hell one could find places where laughter and music could be heard. However, these places were not accessible to everyone.
Agnieszka Witkowska-Krych – cultural anthropologist, Hebraist, sociologist, in recent years a curator at the Museum of Warsaw, researcher of the life and legacy of Janusz Korczak, collaborator of the Forum for Dialogue Foundation and the Center for Yiddish Culture, author of texts on "last matters" – the last journey of Korczak and his charges, the last performance of the pupils of the Jewish Orphanage and the last notes in Korczak's Diary.
