Dabrowa

The ghetto in Dabrowa in southern Poland was established in the poorest section of town in November 1939.  It remained an open ghetto until August 1942, when liquidation began.

I showed this postcard during my talk at AMREIPEX in Chicago 1986, and after the talk, a gentleman commented that he never heard from his family after he was sent to a camp at the age of 13. However, when he saw this postcard, he recognized that his sister had written it. The next day I brought the card and presented it to him as a gift.

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Sokolow Podlaski

In the second half of September 1939, a Red Army unit occupied the Polish town of Sokolow Podlaski, but after a week they with drew according to the Molotov-Ribentrop Pact. Many Jewish youngsters left town with the retreating Red Army. Soon after, the German Wehrmacht marched into town. On the first days of the German occupation Jewish males were kidnapped for slave labor and abuse.

An open ghetto was established in two streets around the main synagogue. Jews, newly evicted from their homes, were forced to move to those two streets. Traffic in and out of the ghetto was permitted, and the Jews could buy products from nearby Polish farmers.

However, the situation deteriorated. On the evening of Yom Kippur 5703 (10 October, 1942) the Sokolow Ghetto was liquidated. The Jews were herded to the market square and transported in sealed cattlecars directly to nearby Treblinka, where they were promptly exterminated upon arrival.

This postal card (with 2 extra stamps) has an angular September 29, 1942, date stamp to mark when it was sent from Paris. It was received in nearby Kosow Lacki on October 8, 1942 but was returned because by the time it arrived in Sokolow Podlaski, the ghetto had been liquidated.

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Kreh Brothers

The Kreh brothers were dry-goods wholesalers who ran a mail-order business out of Genoa, Italy. They sold religious items, etrogim (citron) and lulavim (palm fronds), for the Jewish holiday of Succoth. The etrogim grown in Genoa were considered the best in the world, and the brothers shipped them all over Europe, including to Poland. Because they could not send money internationally, many Polish Jews sent cards and letters to the brothers during the war, asking them to send the etrogim with promise of payment after the war. If the brothers sent the packages, they rarely got through.

This postal card was sent to the Kreh Brothers from Warsaw. It has a machine Warsaw C1 cancel dated March 10, 1942 and a small rectangular Judenrat Warschau (Warsaw Jewish Council) stamp.

This cover, sent to the Kreh brothers, has a circular Cracow date stamp of September 9, 1941, and a ghetto censor marking on the back from the Cracow Judenrat.

This censor marking is from the Cracow Judenrat.

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Polish Red Cross

This post inquiry card was mailed from Litzmannstadt to the Polish Red Cross in Cracow. It bears a circular date stamp of December 9, 1940, and an advertising cancel.

Litzmannstadt

Lodz, or Litzmannstadt, was the only ghetto to survive the entire war. To organize and implement Nazi policy within the ghetto, the Nazis chose a Jew named Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski. At the time Rumkowski was appointed the Älteste der Juden (Elder of the Jews), he was 62 years old, with billowy, white hair.

Rumkowski was a firm believer in the autonomy of the ghetto. He started many programs that replaced outside bureaucracy with his own. Rumkowski replaced the German currency with ghetto money that bore his image and signature–soon referred to as “Rumkies.” He also created a post office (and stamps with his image, but they never were used for postage). Because the ghetto had no sewage system, he also established a sewage clean-up department.

Rumkowski created jobs and workshops to employ the residents and worked with the Nazis so they would leave him and the ghetto alone. On June 10, 1944, Heinrich Himmler ordered the liquidation of the Lodz ghetto. Rather than tell residents what was happening, Rumkowski told them that workers were needed in Germany to repair the damages caused by air raids. The first transport left on June 23, with many others following until July 15. On July 15, the transports halted.

By August 1944, the Lodz ghetto had been liquidated. Only a few remaining workers were retained by the Nazis to finish confiscating materials and valuables left in the ghetto. Even Rumkowski and his family were included in these last transports to Auschwitz.

When the Soviets liberated the ghetto on January 19, 1945, they found that only 877 Jews remained of the roughly 245,000 who had lived there.

Piaski

In the Polish town of Piaski, the Nazi established an open ghetto in March 1940 with an associated work camp. Overcrowding was severe, with 20 people assigned to one room. The ghetto was liquidated in March 1943.

This postal card written has the return address of Anna “Sara” Riess, a German-Jewish woman who had been born in Piaski. When the invasion of Poland took place, all of the naturalized Jews were sent back to their birthplaces in Poland. While the card was written in Piaski, it was posted in Warsaw. It is possible that Riess had made her way there before mailing the card.

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Ghettos

The term ghetto originated in Italy in the sixteenth century; this was the name given to the Jewish quarter in Venice. During World War II ghettoization of the Jews occurred between the years of 1939 to 1942. Most of the ghettos were in Poland, inside the Nazi administrative region called the Generalgouvernement (General Government). Usually the a poor section of a city or town was designated for the ghetto, and the Jews were required to leave, taking only what they could carry to the ghetto. Once all the Jews entered the ghetto area it was sealed off from the rest of the city.

There was much overcrowding, starvation, and death. There were virtually no jobs and little money to go around. Some ghettos tried to work with the Nazis to create jobs. Within the ghetto, a Judenrat, or Jewish council, was established by the Nazis, and the head of the Judenrat was called the Älteste der Juden (Elder of the Jews). He was in charge of the ghetto government and had to work with the Nazis in governing.

In January 1942 at the Wannsee Conference, the “Final Solution” was formulated. This “solution,” which involved the complete destruction of  Jewish people in Europe and Poland, signaled the end of the ghettos. After January of 1942 the Nazis began to liquidate the ghettos and send the residents to the six death camps set up in the Generalgouvernement.

The reverse is an inquiry for Hilel Lizband. The card is stamped JUDEN (Jew) and Zurück (return to sender). The card was returned without any action taken on it.

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This postcard, sent from Litzmanstadt, has a circular April 15, 1942, cancel and a return address from the Aelteste der Juden in Litzmannstadt. It was addressed to a Jewish individual in Vienna, Austria, who uses the “Israel” middle name.