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GHETTOS— IDENTIFICATION AND ISOLATION The beginning of World War II brought with it a totally different situation for the Jews of Europe. Under the mantle of war,with its heightened intensity and its daily routine of violence and destruction, it was much easier to radicalize and disguise anti-Jewish measures. Gone were the normal restraints of peacetime. Across Europe, the circumstances of the Jews from 1939 to 1945 varied with each country. The eventual fate of the Jews was largely dependent on the timing and degree of control that the Germans had over a particular area. In general, where control was absolute, the Jews were almost completely annihilated. Where there was less coitrol,or where German allies were more reluctant to collaborate in anti-Jewish actions, the Jews fared somewhat better. In Poland, German control was absolute. Jews had lived in Poland for centuries and developed a community life of great vitality, one that valued learning and religious expression. As of World War I, approximately 3 million Jews lived in Poland, representing about ten percent of the total population. Jews were scattered throughout the country in large and small settlements, although the majority were concentrated in the major cities. By 1939, about 597,000 Jews lived in Warsaw and Lodz.Although Poland's economy was largely agrarian, relatively few Jews worked in agriculture.Most were employed in retail trade and commerce , while about 42 percent worked as labourers and craftsmen. A fair number worked in medicine, social welfare, journalism,and publishing. Jews supported a variety of political perspectives within their community and were in the forefront in the struggle for minority rights.Jews had been the target of much antisemitic activity during the 1930s as the nationalistminded Polish government attempted to purge them from the economy. The Nazis built upon this entrenched anti-Jewish attitude immediately after their invasion.1 The German attack on Poland on 1September 1939 was followed by the 17 September Soviet invasion of Poland from the east. On 28 September in compl ance with the German/Soviet non-aggression pact of August, Poland was divided in half between the two countries.The border between these two areas was formed mainly by the Bug River and, further south, the San River.Ely October, the German-occupied areas of Poland officially consisted of the following: l.The Wartheland (western area of Poland),which includ1 . Leni Yahil, The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 186-193. (Hereafter,Yahil, Holocaust.^ 169 2. On 1August 1941,Eastern Galicia became the fifth district of the General Government. 3. Nuremberg Document PS-630. Hitler signed the euthanasia order in October and predated it to September. See Nazi Mass Murder: A Documentary History of the Use of Poison Gas, edited by Eugene Kogon, Herman Langbein,and Adalbert Ruckerl (New Haven and London:Yale University Press, 1993), 16. (Hereafter, Kogon,Nazi Mass Murder.) For a recent comprehensive study of Nazi euthanasia, see Henry Friedlander, The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1995). In 1940 and 1941, at least 70,270 people were killed in the euthanasia programme and it is estimated that an equal number were murdered from 1942 to 1945. Friedlander, Origins of Nazi Genocide, 109,110,112. 4. On these two points, see Friedlander, Origins of Nazi Genocide, 22,39,166,190,237,243-245,281-282, 284,296-301. 5. Nuremberg Document L-361. 6. Nuremberg Documents L-185 and L219 . 7. See Ronald Headland, Messages of Murder: A Study of the Reports of the Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and the Security Service, 19417943 (Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1992), 17-26, for a brief overview of police power and the RSHA. ed the Poznan Province, most of the Lodz Province, five counties of the Pomorze Province,and one county of the Warsaw Province.The Wartheland was incorporated directly into the Reich and was administered as a German territory. 2. Danzig-WestPrussia, which was situated north of the Wartheland and included the remainingregion of Pomorze Province.It, too, became a Reichsgau and was incorporated into the Reich.3.The General Government (Generalgouvernement),which encompassed the central and southern parts of Poland.The eastern border was formed by the Bug and San rivers. In 1939 the General Government was divided into four districts: Warsaw, Lublin, Krakow, and Radom.2 This area was not incorporated into the Reich but was administered by Hans...

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