We continue Agnieszka Witkowska-Krych's "Taste of Ghetto Life" series, in which the author explores, among other things, the issues of feeding the ghetto's inhabitants, the activities of ad hoc feeding stations for starving residents, and the Transferstelle, a kitchen feeding 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 publish columns on our website weekly. 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 a 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
Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary – Leszno 32
The Warsaw Ghetto contained three Roman Catholic churches. One was the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, built between 1682 and 1732 as a church adjacent to the monastery of the Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, commonly known as the Calced Carmelites. The first service was held here on September 8, 1682, in a chapel set up on the acquired property, before a painting by an unknown artist depicting the Virgin Mary. This painting was later placed on the church's main altar. A monastery was built next to it, later converted into a prison.
The church on Leszno Street, along with All Saints' Church located in Grzybowski Square, operated "old-fashioned" within the Warsaw Ghetto. This meant that within the walls of these two buildings, regular services were held for Catholic Jews, who, according to the occupier's orders, were also to be confined within the walls of the closed district. In addition to Sunday Masses, various activities were also organized for the church's residents. Furthermore, weddings were also celebrated there. Ruth Cyprys was invited to one of these (Ruth Cyprys, Leap for Life: A Memoir from the Occupation of Poland, Warsaw 2000, pp. 31-32).
Baptized Jews were not particularly esteemed among the other inhabitants of the ghetto. They were often considered conformists who, by taking advantage of the opportunity of baptism, sought special protection from the Church, and particularly from the Caritas organization operating within its structure. It is true that this institution supported its followers. One of those aided, although more closely associated with All Saints' Church in Grzybowski Square, was Professor Ludwik Hirszfeld. He wrote about his connection with this place: "In August 1941, we received our own apartment in the rectory of All Saints' Church […]. Unlike the church in Leszno, where almost only priests lived in the parish house, in this parish house all the rooms and apartments, with the exception of the apartment of Prelate [Marceli] Godlewski, were given over to the use of the parishioners. […] It was a strange life. I had never had such close contact with the Church as during my stay in the closed district. […] On Sundays, all Christians, not just Catholics, went to Mass. Everyone attended: doctors, lawyers, those for whom baptism was an expression of faith, those for whom it was a national symbol, and those who baptized for business" (Ludwik Hirszfeld, Historia jedno życie, Warsaw 2000, p. 363).
Hirszfeld recalled the existence of a soup kitchen for Christian Jews run by Caritas at All Saints' Church after the war: "The inhabitants of the parish building [...] differed from the rest of the ghetto population in that they were in a better housing situation. Within the parish, there was a Caritas soup kitchen, which used allocations from the Jewish Social Welfare Society and the Supply Department. The soup kitchen, intended for impoverished Catholic Jews and their families, also served the Jewish poor, making no distinction in this regard" (JHI Archives, file no. 301/4151). Emanuel Ringelblum also wrote about this broad – regardless of religious denomination – activity of Caritas in September 1941: "The neophytes […] receive as many meals as they want, even the wealthy receive meals. […] The neophytes have recently done us a favor: their Caritas accepts Jewish consumers. They also receive more products than others. Recently, four or six kilograms of sugar each" (Emanuel Ringelblum, Chronicle of the Warsaw Ghetto, Warsaw 1983, pp. 317-318). Apparently, as Ringelblum wrote, some of these gifts were also sold to other needy residents of the ghetto (Ibidem, p. 229).
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.
Photo: Leszno 32, Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, before 1939 (Gazeta Wyborcza) and in 2010 (author: Anna Kucharska); Agnieszka Witkowska-Krych and Jarosław Abramow-Newerly during the History Book Fair in the Kubicki Arcades in December 2019 with our columnist's book "Less Fear. The Last Moments with Janusz Korczak", honored with one of the KLIO awards
