The establishment of the ghetto and the living conditions

The Lwów ghetto was established in the autumn of 1941. On 18^th September 1941, Governor Karl Lasch was to issue a decision on the creation of a Jewish quarter. According to other sources, the decision to create it was to be taken on 7^th September, 8^th October or even 8^th November. The Jewish population was to move there by December 15, 1941. 

The area in the north-west of the city, in Zamarstynów and Kleparów, was designated as a ghetto. A few months later, in August 1942, the area of the ghetto was restricted. Its new boundaries were: the eastern boundary – ul. Zamarstynowska, southern boundary - the railway embankment leading from the bridge on Zamarstynowska to ul. Tetmajera, the western boundary – ul. Tetmajera Street and the northern bundary, the building at ul. Zamarstynowska 105.

This area was inhabited primarily by the Lwów poor, and the buildings were primitive. In 1941, the non-Jewish population was displaced from the area. Jews were forced to leave their homes in other parts of the city. The occupation authorities allowed them to take only 25 kg of luggage. Many displaced people were unable to find a new place, instead camping in the streets and yards out of necessity. In the area where 20,000-30,000 people previously lived, 135,000 Jews were now crammed together. The official allocation of three square metres of space per person was an illusion. On average, ten people were crowded into one room.

Due to the sanitary conditions, an epidemic broke out in the ghetto as early as the end of 1941. Its consequence was to postpone, until the spring of 1942, the complete resettlement of the Jewish population in the ghetto.

After the war, Adam Landserg described the conditions in the ghetto as follows:

"In the allocated flat, it was so cramped and there were so many people living there, that it was impossible to get any spot for oneself. [...] We slept on the stairs or on the porches. Then, my uncle took us to the attic of the house where he lived. It was terrible at the time. Typhus reigned, people were dying like flies, corpses were lying in the streets"[1.1].

Jews, who resettled in the ghetto, found themselves in a completely new economic situation. For the most part, they were deprived of earning opportunities, with little or often no savings, and faced destitution. It is worth mentioning that, in 1941, the occupation authorities imposed two massive financial tax contributions upon the Jewish population of Lwów. A third contribution of 10 million zloty was imposed in July 1942.

The lack of food was a huge problem. Jews were cut off from purchasing on the free market, and the prices of food products increased several times. Filip Friedman, in his pamphlet The Holocaust of the Jews of Lwów , wrote:

 "Food rations for the Jewish population were ridiculously small, amounting to about 10% of the German rations and 50% of the Polish and Ukrainian rations. Jews were given 100 gram of bread per day (later these amounts were reduced to 50 gram of bread per week), 100 gram of sugar per month (these items were rarely supplied), from time to time, on average once every three months, half a kilo of black salt, 200-400 gram of stale flour ("Judenmehl"), 200 gram of marmalade, half a litre of vinegar"[1.2].

In the autumn of 1942, the ghetto was fenced off. The borders of the new 'Jewish quarter' were policed by Ukrainian police and crossing them was strictly prohibited. Only Jewish workers, working for the Third Reich in factories located on the "Aryan side", were allowed to leave the ghetto.

The Germans entrusted the administration of the ghetto to the subordinate Jewish Council. Its first president was Józef Parnas. His tenure did not last long, as he was already assassinated in the autumn of 1941. His duties were taken over by his former deputy, Adolf Rotfeld. The subsequent presidents of the Judenrat were Henryk Landsberg and Edward Eberson.

Order in the ghetto was maintained by the Jewish Order Service which, by the end of 1941, had about 500 members. The Jewish policemen received the uniforms of the Polish police with caps marked with the Star of David and the letters “JOD” (“Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst”). Within the Service, there were divisions: order, criminal, gendarmerie, special. The ghetto was divided into four commissariats.

Forced labour

Ghetto inhabitants were divided into two categories: those useful to the Third Reich and others. The first group consisted of engineers, specialists in various trades, workers employed in German factories, pharmacists, doctors, members of the Judenrat and officers of the Jewish Order Service. "Usefulness" was confirmed by the relevant documents.

Jews were forced to perform hard labour for the occupying forces. They worked in factories outside the ghetto and within the ghetto, including Schwartz and Kremin. The daily wage of 5 zloty per man and 4 zloty per woman was paid into the accounts of the SS command and the district police.

There were five forced labour camps in the ghetto, the largest of which was the camp in the former Steinhaus mill machinery construction factory at ul. Janowskiska 134, acquired by the German company Deutsche Ausrüstungswerke (DAW). In July 1942, the facility came under the administration of the SS and, in the autumn, it was converted into a concentration camp, which existed until mid-1944. Due to the high mortality rate of prisoners, the Janowskiska camp is often referred to as a "death camp" in post-war literature. (For more, see Virtual Shtetl, Lviv, places of martyrdom - Janow camp).

Terror

Practically, from the moment of the occupation of Lwów by German troops, Jews lived in constant danger. Ad hoc executions became regular. Many people were already killed during their resettlement into the ghetto. The infamous railway viaduct, over ul. Peltewna, became colloquially referred to as the “bridge of death”, due to the number of people killed by the guards from the post next to it. Hundreds of people were shot at the so-called "Piaski" located next to the camp. In order to maintain regime in the ghetto, the Germans carried out public executions. Among others, in the autumn of 1942, several members of the Judenrat were hanged along with the president Henryk Landsberg. The bodies of the victims were on display for several days.

The Germans looted property and forced people to hand over their furs and overcoats. Round-ups were carried out and those people, who were captured, were sent to labour camps. On several occasions, “campaigns” were held to “cleanse” the city of old people and beggars.

Resistance movement

In 1942, a resistance group was formed in the Lwów ghetto by socialist activists - these included M. Breit, J. Rappaport, A. Erlich, J. Beis, A. Gorwicz, J. Blumental. Members of the organisation set themselves the goal of acquiring weapons, escaping into the surrounding forests and fighting as partisans. Some of them succeeded in this task. The organ of the resistance movement was the underground periodical "Tygodnik Lwowski", edited by M. Breit and M. Kantor. After the deportation in March 1942, leaflets were distributed, calling on the ghetto population to build bunkers and collect weapons.

Ghetto liquidation

One of the largest deportation operations in the Lwów ghetto took place in March 1942. For more than two weeks, groups made up of Judenrat employees, Jewish policemen and German soldiers entered flats, searching for the elderly, sick, non-working and welfare recipients. The Germans lied to them, assuring them that they would be transported to a labour camp, while allowing them to take luggage weighing up to 25kg, 200 zloty and food. T

he victims were concentrated in a rallying point at the Sobieski School on ul.  Zamarstynowska. They were then stripped of their luggage and taken, by trains, to the Bełżec death camp. As a result of the crowded conditions, weakness and lack of water and food, many people died in the wagons. The operation ended on 1^st April 1942, on the day of Passover. As a result of the March deportation, some 15,000 people, deported in ten transports, lost their lives in the gas chambers of Bełżec.

Another operation, the “Blitz” – called 'blitz' – was carried out on 24^th June 1942. On this day, around midday, a flying SS brigade, supported by Ukrainian police, Sonderdienst and Schupo unexpectedly invaded the city. People began to be thrown out of their homes - mostly women, old people and children. They were directed to a camp on ul. Janowskiska and executed there. Some of them were taken to Bełżec. Between 5,000 and 8,000 people were exterminated during the operation.

On 10^th–29^th August 1942, the “Great Operation” [“Wielka Akcja”] took place and was carried out under the slogan "fighting the enemies of the regime". For more than two weeks, with enormous brutality and cruelty, the Germans and their collaborators dragged people out of their homes and carried out street roundups. The places of concentrating the Jewish population again became the school on ul. Zamarstynowska and plac Teodor.

From there, the Germans directed columns of Jews to the trains at the Kleparów station. Huge groups of people were crammed into the carriages. During the filling of the wagons, which lasted for many hours, people forced into them fainted and died as the result of weakness, lack of water and food. During the "akcja", many people were shot, their corpses marking the ghetto and station area. The bodies of those killed were thrown into wagons along with those being deported. Once the wagons were filled, the trains set off for Bełżec.

Alexander Kruglov, in his study Deportations of the Jewish Population to the Bełżec Death Camp, quoted an excerpt from the May 1945 testimony of Obersturmführer SS Kurt Gerstein who, in August 1942, witnessed the arrival of the Jews of Lwów at Bełżec:

"A train arrived from Lwów: 45 wagons with 6700 Jews, 1,450 of whom were already dead. The train stopped. Two hundred Ukrainians pushed back the doors and, beating the Jews with leather whips, forced them out of the carriages. Further orders were relayed through a megaphone - undress completely, including dentures, glasses, etc., hand over valuables, tie shoes neatly. Women and girls were then directed to the barber, who cut their hair in two to three movements and threw it into potato sacks.

“The procession then set off. In the front - a young girl, pretty as a picture. That is how everyone walked - stark naked, men, women, children. Mothers with babies in their arms slowly entered the gas chambers. [...] In the end, the chambers filled up very tightly. People stood one next to the other: 700-800 people in 25 square metres. The SS crowded them together as much as possible. The door was closed, the others waited, naked outside, for their turn.

“People were supposed to be killed by a diesel engine exhaust. The engine, however, did not work. [...] It was only after 2 hours and 49 minutes that the engine started to run. Another 25 minutes passed. Now surely most are dead. This could be seen through a small window, when the chambers were briefly illuminated. After 28 minutes, only a few people are breathing. In the end, after 32 minutes, no one is alive.

“The men of the work commando open the wooden door on the opposite side. [...] Corpses, wet with sweat and urine, with legs stained with faeces and blood, are dragged outside. The corpses of children are discarded. Ukrainians' nagaika - leather whips - wheeze among the kommando. [...] Dentists use pincers or hammers to break gold teeth and crowns from the dead people's jaws. Commander Wirth strolled nearby. He was in his element. Several workers searched for gold, diamonds and valuables in the genitals and rectum. The naked corpses were carried on stretchers to a pit measuring 100 x 20 x 12 metres"[1.3].

The “Great Operation” claimed some 50,000 human lives.

In November, another deportation took place. Under the guise of document control, the Germans detained around 10,000 people. They, too, died a cruel death in the Bełżec gas chambers.

In January 1943, the Germans officially transformed the ghetto into the “Jewish Camp” (Jüdischer Lager), abbreviated as Julag. At the same time, another deportation action took place. Julag was liquidated in June 1943. On 1^st June, police units, supported by troops equipped with flamethrowers, entered the Jewish quarter. This time, however, members of the underground resistance decided to take up arms. To the Germans' surprise, the Jews - despite inadequate combat training and equipment - defended themselves fiercely for days, shelling and pelting enemy positions with grenades. However, the scales of victory were inevitably tipping in favour of the occupiers. The Germans destroyed bunkers hidden in the buildings using, among other things, flamethrowers. Some of the Jewish fighters were killed while trying to break through to the outside of the Julag area. It took almost a month to liquidate the resistance points.

The Lwów ghetto was one of the largest ghettos in the occupied territories. It is estimated that on its territory - including the Janowski camp - the Germans killed around 40,000 people. Approximately 65,000 people died in the gas chambers of the extermination camp. The remainder - some 15,000 people - died of starvation, disease or were sent to forced labour camps. Only a few managed to escape and live to see liberation.

In 1992, behind the viaduct on Vyacheslav Chornovol prospect (the historic ul. Pełtewna) a monument to the victims of the Lwów ghetto was unveiled. The authors of the monument were J. Szmukler and L. Szternsztajn.

Sources:

• Friedman F., Holocaust of the Jews of Lwów, Łódź 1945.
• Honigsman J., Zagłada Żydów lwowskich (1941-1944), Warsaw 2007.
• Jones E.,Jews of Lviv during the Occupation 1939-1945, Łódź, 1999.
• Kessler E., Surviving the Holocaust in Lviv,Warsaw 2007.
• Krugłow A., Deportacje ludności żydowskiej z dystryktu Galicja do obozu zagłady w Bełżcu w 1942 r., "Bulletin of the Jewish Historical Institute" 1989, No. 151, pp. 101-118.