After a break of almost six months, MGW returns with the series "The Taste of Ghetto Life" by Agnieszka Witkowska-Krych, in which the author discusses, among other things, the issues of feeding the ghetto inhabitants, the activities of ad hoc feeding points for starving residents, and the Transferstelle, a 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
Department Store – Leszno 14
Before the war, the building at Leszno 14 housed a well-known boys' high school, founded in 1915 by Jakub Finkel , who served as its principal for years. It was an eight-grade institution with a humanities focus, with limited status as a state high school. The language of instruction was Polish, and the vast majority of teachers were Jewish. During the occupation, the high school building ceased to serve its educational purposes and became a location for various institutions, including aid organizations. These also operated in the ghetto. One of these was a self-sufficient community kitchen for social activists and officials. Abraham Lewin wrote that two types of dinners were served there: a more modest one, costing 2.25 zlotys and consisting of soup with vegetables, or a more substantial one, costing 3.50 zlotys and then sold with a small piece of meat (Ringelblum Archive, Diaries from the Warsaw Ghetto, vol. 23, Warsaw 2015, p. 70). The same Lewin, writing about the kitchens organized for the ghetto inhabitants, added that "a very small percentage of housewives cook dinners at home like in the good old days" (Ringelblum Archive, Diaries from the Warsaw Ghetto, vol. 23, Warsaw 2015, p. 70). Among the documents collected by Emanuel Ringelblum’s associates , there is a preserved letter from the end of June 1941 addressed to Icchak Giterman, in which the sender, Jakub Karo, who lived at that time at Żelazna Street, firstly thanks him for the help he has received so far in the form of a food parcel, and secondly asks for another parcel, but also for permission to grant him a discount on meals at the kitchen at 14 Leszno Street, which his entire family of four could benefit from (Ringelblum Archive. Jewish Social Self-Help, vol. 27, Warsaw 2017, p. 552).
In the kitchen at Leszno Street, apart from serving meals, various artistic events were held, including concerts (for example, in the first days of April 1942, an evening of the famous singer Chana Braz took place there, accompanied by other famous artists of the ghetto, including Anna Osser , Helena Ostrowska , and Michał Znicz ). In the same building, in the premises occupied by the Fuel Department, a chess tournament was also organized, the profits from which were to be donated to the "Winter Aid" campaign (Gazeta Żydowska 1942, no. 18, p. 2).
The building at 14 Leszno Street also housed a distribution store, where – as we read in surviving documents – in October 1941, ghetto residents were distributed bread, sugar, rye flour, oat and barley groats, wheat flour, lard, and bacon (Gazeta Żydowska 1942, no. 18, p. 708). In January 1942, the store was run by an unknown Zyskind , as reported in the Gazeta Żydowska (Gazeta Żydowska 1942, no. 6, p. 4).
This building, partly occupied by Jewish collaborators Moryc Kohn and Zelig Heller , also housed the department store they founded. It was this company that, as Abraham Lewin wrote, had a license to import fish into the ghetto (Ringelblum Archive. Diaries from the Warsaw Ghetto, vol. 23, Warsaw 2015, p. 225). The following scene is said to have taken place in front of this building: "A policeman stopped a boy who had snatched bread from someone. The policeman started screaming and started beating the boy. A man approached him and started shouting at him. Immediately a police officer arrived and tackled the one who had intervened. The man didn't hesitate and slapped the policeman across the face. When asked who he was, the answer came from all sides: 'It's Kohn,'" (Ringelblum Archive. Diaries from the Warsaw Ghetto, vol. 23, Warsaw 2015, p. 226).
Not everyone, however, had the opportunity to benefit from Kohn's protection. In his diary, Abraham Lewin recalled another event, which also took place at Leszno 14. He wrote: "Hunger and poverty in Warsaw are devouring everyone. The streets are still full of unconscious, swollen people. The city of Jews is dying, and there is no one to worry about it. I was at Leszno 14 in the courtyard. A young boy, eighteen years old, stands by the bins, eating from the garbage. This goes on for a long time. Two hours later I was back in the courtyard, and the boy still can't tear himself away from the garbage" (Ringelblum Archive. Diaries from the Warsaw Ghetto, vol. 23, Warsaw 2015, p. 225). Hunger was stronger than disgust.
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.
