The Warsaw Ghetto | DW Documentary

[Music] there's nothing here to remind me of my birthplace there was once a beautiful square morinovsky square i remember trees and benches i was born in warsaw into a traditional jewish family i went to a preschool for jewish children where they taught polish at home we spoke yiddish but i had no problem with the polish language we he had this trick where he'd pretend to stitch his fingers together with a needle of course he made a huge impression on us kids would be horrified he had a daughter called lonya who was friends with my sister sometimes i can see it more clearly than the warsaw around me today in my memory it's still the same in the morning warm pretzels would be delivered they were called bagels you won't find bagels like those anywhere these days you could take one and untwist it my parents lived at 49 it was a so-called i remember we had to recite prayers some children would say they didn't know the prayers i was sitting in a sand pit and my mum came over she said there's a war what are we going to do [Music] it's the special quality of the nazi system people who had the energy to develop something had the power to do it when mr dengel took over in warsaw in early december 39 he had the idea to invite hubert cross to come to warsaw and build a german baufa vailton growth upon the advice of mr dengle developed a dream of reducing warsaw to next to nothing on the screen is the visualization from one of my projects it's based on fascist plans for the construction of a new german city the neues this is a virtual reconstruction of that new warsaw this is the city center it's a relatively small city the entrances were to be guarded by watchtowers on all sides these are the main buildings of the new german warsaw deutsche state varsity there was to be a district for poles who would be slowly exterminated the new german city of warsaw was to be inhabited only by germans there was to be no jewish population with regard to warsaw the fuhrer has decided that the reconstruction of that city as a major polish metropolis is absolutely out of the question the fuhrer's wish is that in accordance with plans for the territory's development under the general government warsaw be reduced to the level of a provincial city from the diary of governor general hunts frank once the germans arrived the terror began almost right away with various official announcements and notices all jews were forced to wear armbands with the star of david it was offered in my mind this was a form of degradation at any moment i could be humiliated in the spring of 1940 consultations began with a view to creating one or more jewish housing districts within the city of warsaw in the end however it was decided that a single district should be established in the area where jews were traditionally the majority dr friedrich s s untersturmfuhrer head of division of regional planning office of the governor of the district of warsaw [Music] where was the jewish neighborhood in warsaw there were jewish neighborhoods yeah lefke novolipki where it was almost all jewish but when you when you're a third of the city you're all over the city and the interaction with non-jews was a normal daily event that comes to a crashing halt with the building of the warsaw ghetto wall which goes through the heart of the city and divides jews from non-jews as they were never divided before [Music] the wall didn't appear suddenly bits and pieces of wall started to be built from april 1940. these were sections of wall or barriers with barbed wire they popped up in various places [Music] i had no idea i was jewish so first i was asking why do we have to move and later what does it mean that i'm jewish and why do we have to leave our homes [Music] yes when we arrived in the ghetto the first thing i saw was a horrible poster i didn't want to be like that jew on the poster and i was distraught at being forced to live there i thought that every jew had to look like that i was so terribly humiliated by all this i said to my mum i didn't want to be a jew anymore that i wanted to go back to martial street and why was all this happening anyway notice by order of the district governor and effective immediately a self-contained jewish quarter is to be created in the district of warsaw with a view to preventing the spread of disease in the city of warsaw a boundary running around the jewish quarter has been established all border streets are to be closed off from it on both sides as follows from gielna to krulevska and zwata from zwata to jielna and jalasna from tuvada to jalasna and srebrena from srebrena to tavada and miyajana from miyajana to srebrena and kajimiresh square so so so so we already lived in the area that was now the ghetto because moronowski square was inside the area jews who lived outside the ghetto had to move in and polls who lived in the ghetto had to move out this led to very painful situations for people they left their homes they left their furniture and possessions carrying only a few small bundles with them the ghetto became very crowded [Music] we've all seen the images of the expulsion of the jewish community something similar happened the other way around too there were tens of thousands of people like us i remember sitting on a cart full of our [Music] things [Music] [Music] apartment 110. measures involve the resettlement of around 700 ethnic germans 113 000 poles and 138 000 jews the warsaw jewish housing district is an enclosed area cut off from its surroundings by walls fences and so on movement of persons and goods in and out of the area is by special permit only dr friedrich golett s s untersturmfuhrer head of division of regional planning office of the governor of the district of warsaw [Music] the jewish population always looked for contacts but my mother put aside potatoes and feelings for her later lania stopped coming she and my father just ceased to exist i don't remember any farewell or any of the circumstances maybe my memories suppressed it because it was too terrible the city center was cut off and ceased to function normally when you see which part of the city made up the ghetto you realize it was really the heart of warsaw if you take into account that the germans also carved off a piece for themselves what was left of warsaw for other residents was just a small part the german housing district has been created for the protection of the german population at their request the police cannot guarantee germans living outside of this district the same degree of personal safety as is provided to those living within it hans fliegner nazi party star slighter warsaw [Music] night and day by rail in carts and buses jews arrive here from polish towns and villages the individual vanishes in this enormous human mass people are crammed in individual faces are unrecognizable [Music] the german army and civilians must in any event be protected from the jews immune carriers of disease the separation of jews from the rest of the population polish as well as ethnic germans is a moral and political imperative traffic in the centre of warsaw has also been only minimally affected by the creation of the jewish housing district in the interests of the wehrmacht and the economy great care was taken to ensure that certain main thoroughfares would remain crossable without obstruction to through traffic valdemarchon s s standard fura director of department of resettlement office of the governor of the district of warsaw [Music] the german planners divided things up each administering their division they even designated which streets a tram would travel along to shorten its route through the ghetto that created two ghettos it was all a terrifying mishmash of evil wadna street ended up dividing the jewish district the district was cut into two parts by the critically important tram line that ran along the ghetto was divided into two parts a small ghetto and a large one in order for jews to move back and forth between the small and the large ghetto it was necessary to stop the flow of traffic at intervals since this was inconvenient for the germans jews were given permission to cross over as infrequently as possible as i walked along jalajna i would see from a distance the crowd milling at the corner of kodner people would be shifting restlessly on the spot waiting for the german police to decide when the traffic on kwatner was light enough and the crowd on zalajna thick enough to warrant letting the jews across the street when the moment finally came the police cordon would part and the impatient crowd would surge forward in both directions pushing each other over in the panic to distance themselves from the dangerous german presence and melt once more into the depths of the two ghettos a line in the pavement shows where the ghetto border ran how the ghetto fit into warsaw it wasn't an isolated island surrounded by the unknown it was embedded in the city in each plaque there's a marker showing where we are the parts of downtown warsaw that were torn away are elevated and my intention was to show the ghetto in real space how it was and where the boundary ranked who didn't have a lot of money or didn't have a pole who was his friend didn't stand a chance there was nothing he could do he cared only about what he would eat the next day and what he would give his children about 80 of food in the ghetto came from smuggling not from the official suppliers authorized by the germans if someone had money they could get things into the ghetto somehow i once witnessed a tram passing through muranowski square and as it turned the corner items were thrown out it couldn't stop in the ghetto this was how trade carried on in some places the ghetto walls did not come right down to the pavement at regular intervals there were openings at ground level through which water flowed into drains running along the sidewalks these openings were also used by children for smuggling tiny dark creatures with legs like matchsticks would converge on these openings from all sides terrified eyes darted from left to right and frail paws dragged through bundles that were often bigger than the tiny smugglers themselves so so [Music] [Music] notice any jew unlawfully leaving the designated housing district is to be punished by death the same punishment will apply to persons who consciously protect such jews or in any way assist them warsaw 10th of november 1941 dr fisher governor is a very important street for me this is a street i was scared of and i still am to this day i've never walked this street without feeling afraid behind this wall i spent more than two years in the ghetto with my family when i first found myself back here i began looking obsessively for the hole through which my mum and i had escaped i just stood there going back in time trying to figure where that hole could be but the hole was probably somewhere else further on i see two years of humiliation imprisonment hunger i still expect to either see or remember something terrible there [Music] [Music] so [Music] so all around i could see handcarts and on them bodies of men women and children piled carelessly one on top of the other i became aware of a strange vaguely sweet and sickening odor but never smelled before [Music] a jewish policeman explained next to the jewish cemetery there was once a large field today it's one of the biggest mass graves ever filled with the bodies of jews from all corners of europe could this be real how is it possible that a human being of flesh and blood should have to die in such a pitiful fashion the german occupation murdered 90 of the jews here it's heartbreaking and then if you could imagine that not only does the wall go through the heart of the city right in the middle of a street it stops but on the other side of that wall starvation disease and very soon after deportation to death for security reasons i order that the ghetto of warsaw be demolished all utilizable building parts and other materials of any value are to first be salvaged an overall plan for the raising of the ghetto is to be submitted to me we must in any event ensure that the living space occupied until now by five hundred thousand sub-humans and in no way fit for habitation by germans disappears completely and that warsaw this city of one million always a center of corruption and revolt is reduced in size heinrich himmler reichsfuhrer ss at the same time as an organized resistance group was preparing to fight jews in the ghetto were going into i went into that bunker in january 43 and in april the uprising broke out my brothers left to take part in the uprising this bunker was built around a basement that had been dug deeper with boarded up sides the dugout earth was piled up all around and it provided some kind of insulation when the fires started everything in the neighboring basements collapsed and burned but this bunker survived [Music] i remember 1943 seeing uncanny clouds of smoke rising from the north fighting in the ghetto something was happening there [Music] there is no longer a jewish quarter of warsaw jurgen stroup s s gruppenfuhrer it still pains me that after all these years i never got to mourn my family i never even had time for that i lost everyone i had six brothers and a sister and parents i'm the only one who survived it all i was left as a witness without me there'd be nobody the value of life is in bearing witness street concentration camp was set up to hold people needed to demolish the ghetto it wasn't only blown up with dynamite but also dismantled it was completely plundered and that camp was hell people died there on the ruins of the ghetto the nazis wanted to create a park for germans hence the demolition the area was to be covered over with earth and turned into a garden paradise the intention was to destroy the capital of what was formerly poland that was the main intention to destroy the idea alone of a capital because there was no more poland i spent almost a year on the aryan side there was a whole network of helpers if things got dangerous someone would come by and take you by the hand [Music] on the 1st of august 1944 the uprising broke out twice i lived through the burning of warsaw all around the walls were almost red-hot and people were being herded along on both sides of the streets burning debris was coming down warsaw was on fire and you could feel it [Music] after liberation in 1945 you couldn't live in warsaw really and slowly trying to rebuild and then getting again undermined by soviet occupation and oppression it's difficult to imagine what was here before the war this area has changed so much certain streets and squares ceased to exist names were changed directions were altered no more than a dozen or so original buildings have survived this area has many layers underneath the ground is a second layer which shows itself when workers dig down to lay pipes then the remains of the past are uncovered in 1949 the architect created a housing estate which was to be a memorial space what was unique was that the bricks of the buildings were made from rubble on top of whatever else that was in the rubble including human remains that stands out because warsaw is a flat city [Music] people calling me and saying there are spirits in my apartment i'm in the old ghetto can you do something well i have this that's beyond my competence but i did go and i said psalms because if a person feels i could make them if i make someone feel more at peace then i'm happy to do so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] on this map i've marked the location of your former home superimposing it on the current image it was on this street at the intersection that's where your home used to be i was born here [Music] [Music] the memory of the ghetto it's beginning to really return into the memory into the soul of warsaw give people a chance to remember and chances are they will remember april 19th the anniversary of the warsaw uprising while we're moving farther away from the event actually the number of people coming is growing that's a sign of hope [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: DW Documentary

Views: 1,135,004

Keywords: Documentary, Documentaries, documentaries, DW documentary, full documentary, DW, documentary 2020, documentary, Holocaust, Shoah, Warsaw Ghetto, Jewish life, Warsaw, Poland, National Socialism, World War II, Holocaust Remembrance Day, holocaust memorial day 2021, holocaust remembrance day, 25th holocaust remembrance day, 25th day of remembrance, German history, European history

Id: V8QmqHfy-EI

Length: 42min 25sec (2545 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 27 2021