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In
every country that the Germans controlled during the war, they
established a Jewish leadership organization commonly known as a
Judenrat (Jewish Council) or an Aeltestenrat (Council of Elders).
Many German allies, such as Slovakia, established similar
institutions. The objective in establishing the councils was to have
a tool by which to control the Jews, isolate them from the outside
world, and implement various decrees. In general, the authorities
tried to pack the councils with recognized prewar Jewish leaders and
respected public figures. The councils were tragically torn between
their desire to meet the Jews' needs and the harsh demands of the
authorities.
Jewish
councils attempted to adopt various policies to help their Jews,
from active support for underground groups and armed resistance to
nearly total cooperation with the authorities in carrying out their
policies, in the hope thereby of preventing measures worse than
those already applied. With the coming of the mass deportations and
the sense among many Jewish leaders that they would be murderous,
the issue of obeying or disobeying Nazi commands assumed a much
greater significance. The chairman of the Warsaw Judenrat, Adam
Czerniakow, committed suicide rather than give into Nazi demands
that he provide them with Jews for deportation. In Lodz, the
chairman of the Judenrat, Mordechai Haim Rumkowski, chose to
continue obeying Nazi demands. Hoping to save at least part of the
ghetto population, primarily workers who he believed had a better
chance of being spared, he provided lists of Jews for the Nazis and
even pleaded with mothers to give up their small children. In
contrast to the situation in Lodz, in the small ghetto of Tuchin the
Judenrat planned and attempted armed resistance and mass escape –
although with little success.
Because
of their diversity, it is extremely hard to characterize the
behavior of Jewish leaders under the Nazis in general terms. In the
end, regardless of the policies of a given council, it was the
German authorities who were in control and who determined the fate
of the Jewish communities. |
