ALEXANDER KIMEL - HOLOCAUST UNDERSTANDING & PREVENTION

The ghettos were tightly sealed, and the Jews reverted to ingenious smuggling of food and supplies into the Ghetto. Smuggling was a dangerous undertaking, to be caught meant death. Ringelblum notes in his diary:

"The smuggling of goods continues, resulting everyday in the sacrifice of large number of wounded and dead. Often minors and children are among the victims. There is one policeman who is renowned as a model German. Nicknamed "the Gentlemen", he is the soul of honesty. He permits wagons through the gates of the Wall, refusing to take a bribe. He also permits Jewish children to pass to the Other side by the dozen to buy food, for most part potatoes and other vegetables. Examples of his wondrous decency and honesty are recounted daily. He plays all sorts of games with the smuggler children. He lines them up, commands them to sing, and marches them through the gates."

Everyday the borders of the ghetto were witnessing high drama, people caught and shot, even the children felt the drama. In his diary, Janush Korczak a renown educator, quotes a passage from the diary of his pupil, Shalma:

"A widow sits at home and weeps. Perhaps the older son will bring something home from his smuggling. She does not know that a gendarme has shot her son death...But do you know that soon everything will be all right again?"

"Among the Jewish smuggler victims were scores of Jewish children aged five or six, whom the German bandit shot down en masse at the exits or near the walls....And yet, in spite of these victims smuggling did not stop of a moment. While the pavement was still slippery with fresh blood, other comrades would set out on the job again... Smuggling was done: 1) across the walls; 2) at the exit points; 3) through underground tunnels; 4) through the sewers; and 5) through the houses on the borderline, Smuggling through the exit gates was the most important, as it was carried on almost officially, in view of everyone. A "fiddler" (Jewish policeman who bribed gendarmes) would make contact with the Gendarmerie and the Polish police, and they would then fix a lump sum for the period a particular gendarme was on duty or, more frequently, a sum according to the number of carloads smuggled in".

kimel@systec.com