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McLellan Letter 17
17-Apr-1998 Jewish Ghetto Police
The policemen knew no mercy, even in regard to the
most respected man. If he could not pay, or if there were no relatives
ready to pay, he was shipped off. There were known cases when policemen
demanded payment in kind — the flesh of women in addition to cash.... One
was simply unable to comprehend the behavior of the policemen in the course of
"resettlements." — Emanuel Ringelblum
The
Honourable Anne McLellan, P.C., M.P.
Minister of Justice and Attorney General
of Canada
Room 360, Justice Building
239 Wellington Street
Ottawa,
Ontario
K1A 0H8
E-mail: mclela@parl.gc.ca
Dear Ms. McLellan:
In my previous letters to you, I have repeatedly accused your war crimes unit
of conducting its activities in response to political considerations, of
targeting East Europeans for prosecution while granting Jews immunity from
prosecution, and thus of violating the Canadian Charter of Rights and
Freedoms.
It seems not unreasonable for some Canadians to expect your war crimes unit
to refute the above accusations by including Jews among those targeted for
prosecution. I have already pointed out to you several categories of
Jewish war crimes and crimes against humanity that appear to provide suitable
material for war crimes proceedings, specifically in my letters to you of Feb 2[0], Mar 28, Mar 30, and Mar 31, 1998. In the present
letter, I will continue this line of argument by bringing to your attention some
of the crimes of the Jewish Ghetto Police during the Second World War. The
Jewish Ghetto Police offer the advantage that their activities most closely
resemble the activities of some of the non-Jewish auxiliary police forces that
appear to be one of the current foci of your war crimes proceedings.
All my quotations below are taken from Isaiah Trunk's book Judenrat: The
Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe Under Nazi Occupation, University of
Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 1972. Isaiah Trunk's work appears to be
thoroughly documented, even providing some photographic evidence (one example of
which I have attached to the present letter), and thus able to provide your war
crimes researchers with ample material from which to begin their
investigations. I make no attempt in the present letter to touch on the
full variety of Jewish crimes described in Isaiah Trunk's book, nor to provide
any overview of the many topics treated in that book, but only to offer a few
examples of actions of the Jewish Ghetto Police that might provide grounds for
war crimes proceedings. In all my quotations below, I omit footnotes, and
I change all Polish letters to the nearest English equivalent. I organize
my quotations according to the conclusion that they support.
As you read the quotations with commentary below, I ask you to keep one
thought constantly in mind. That thought is that none of the conclusions
and recommendations below are my own. Rather, they are conclusions and
recommendations that follow from a non-discriminatory application of the
policies of your war crimes unit. If some of these conclusions and
recommendations seem implausible or inadvisable, then please ask yourself why
you feel such implausibility or inadvisability only when the target is Jewish,
but not when he is Christian.
(1) Jewish prisoners were sometimes
commandeered into police service. Therefore, the Canadian
war crimes unit should ascertain the frequency with which this occurred, and
then possibly investigate Canadian Jews who had been Nazi prisoners to determine
whether they had performed police services.
| It also happened that people not in
the ghetto police were commandeered to assist the German authorities in
"actions" against the Jews. Thus in the Lublin Ghetto, for instance,
Jewish prisoners in the SS camp at Lipowa Street were forced to take part
in the raid ordered by Globocnik during the night of December 11-12, 1941,
with the aim of seizing Jews for the Majdanek camp; 320 Jews were rounded
up, and 150 were sent to Majdanek. (p.
477) |
(2) Service in the Jewish Ghetto Police was
voluntary, sometimes performed for payment, but sometimes "honorary." The
number of Jewish Ghetto policemen was large. Therefore, the
defense that Jewish Ghetto Police service was coerced will sometimes not
apply. Also, the argument that there were too few Jewish Ghetto Police to
justify searching for any in Canada will not apply either.
| However, there were ghettos where
service in the police was considered an honorary duty for which no salary
was paid. In the Warsaw ghetto, for instance, where salaries were
paid only to the commandant and 100 high-ranking functionaries ..., the
Council budget could not absorb an additional burden of more than 20,000
zlotys a month, a sum needed to pay the salaries of the 1,700 ghetto
policemen. According to a person well versed in events in that
ghetto, this was the primary cause of the negative selection of candidates
for the ghetto police. The prospect of work without remuneration
simply didn't attract well-qualified, honest people. Only dishonest
ones, seeing an opportunity to make money the easy way, applied in large
numbers. (Trunk, 1972, p. 498) |
(3) The services performed by the Jewish
Ghetto Police were diverse, and many of these services are of the sort that
would qualify as war crimes or crimes against humanity.
Therefore, there appears to be no difference between the services performed by
non-Jewish police functionaries who today are the targets of war crimes
proceedings in Canada and the United States, and the services performed by the
Jewish police functionaries who today seem to enjoy immunity from such war
crimes proceedings.
| The police collected cash
contributions and taxes; they assisted in raiding, guarding, and escorting
hungry, mentally exhausted people on their way to places of forced labor;
and it was the ghetto police who often were ordered to enforce discipline
in the presence of German officials. The ghetto police sentries
formed the inside guard at the ghetto fences, and in the minds of the
ghetto inhabitants they were identified with the German and Polish
sentries outside the fences. Both the Germans and the Councils used
the ghetto police to carry out confiscation of Jewish property and to
combat smuggling, the only means of overcoming constant hunger in the
ghettos. The Jewish police carried out raids against and arrests of
inmates for offenses against draconic ghetto rules. Last but not
least, in the final stages of the ghettos the Jewish police were called
upon to assist in "resettlement actions." In short, the ghetto
police came to be identified with the inhuman cruelty of the Nazi ghetto
regime. (Trunk, 1972, p. 499) |
(4) Some units of the Jewish Ghetto Police
attained a level of professional competence that led to their being employed
frequently and widely in anti-Jewish actions. Therefore,
Jewish collaboration cannot be excluded from prosecution on the assumption that
it was rendered reluctantly or was of brief duration:
| The police in some large ghettos
became such experienced "resettlement" experts that the Germans would send
them to adjacent ghettos to help in the "action." Thus squads of the
Lwow Ghetto police took part in the deportation of the inmates from
ghettos in Jaworow and Zloczow in April 1943, and in a number of small
ghettos in the vicinity of Lwow. The Jewish police of the Sosnowiec
and Bedzin Ghettos were dispatched to take part in "resettlements" in
small ghettos in Eastern Upper Silesia, such as in Olkusz in July
1942. (Trunk, 1972, p. 514) |
(5) Activities of the Jewish Ghetto Police
sometimes included killing. Therefore, it cannot be argued
that the Jewish Ghetto Police should be immune from prosecution on the grounds
that they participated only in the least culpable of the Nazi actions.
| The ghetto police also executed
punishments imposed by the Jewish Councils and ghetto courts, including
death sentences on rare occasions. For instance, in the Vilna Ghetto
the police hanged six persons on July 6, 1942, for the murder and robbery
of two Jews. A seventh person was sentenced to death for stabbing a
Jewish policeman and for informing on the Lida Jewish Council. All
were sentenced by the ghetto court. Sometimes the ghetto police were
forced to assist in the execution of death sentences imposed on Jews by
German courts. On German orders, participation of the ghetto police
in public execution of Jews took place in Zdunska Wola, Brzeziny, Leczyca,
Belchatow, Poddebice, Wielun, Piontki, Ozorkow (all between February and
April 1942), Bialystok (on December 31, 1943), and Lodz (where one
execution was performed by a Jewish executioner and his assistants).
(Trunk, 1972, pp. 482-483) |
A squad of Vilna Jewish policemen,
some 30 strong, was issued new uniforms and dispatched to Oszmiana in
October 1942, where Jews from Smorgonie, Soly, and other small ghettos in
the Vilna area were assembled. They were told that their task was
"to deliver certificates" to the inmates of those ghettos. They took
over from the Lithuanians the task of guarding the ghetto gate. On
October 23, 1942, the Jews were driven to the assembly place by the police
from the Vilna Ghetto accompanied by local policemen. They
"selected" 200 sick and 392 elderly people; 410 were sent off to
Zielkonka, some 7 or 8 kilometers from Oszmiana, in previously prepared
carts. They were put to death in the presence of several Vilna
Jewish policemen. According to Dvorzhetsky, the Jewish policemen
took part in the actual execution.
An eyewitness from the Debica
Ghetto relates that during the final "action" (on November 15, 1942) the
... Jewish camp Elder ordered the ghetto police to deliver some 50
"illegal" Jews, those who had escaped and somehow made it back to the camp
later on. These were detained in a room of the local Talmud Torah
and killed the same night, with the help of the ghetto police ("the men of
the Ordnungsdienst grabbed the hands of the victims and Gabler
[apparently the Lagerkommandant] shot them"). (Trunk, 1972,
p. 514) |
(6) The fulfillment of Jewish Ghetto Police
duties sometimes far exceeded minimal requirements.
Therefore, in some prosecutions of Jewish Ghetto Police, following orders would
not be available as a defense.
| In the Warsaw Ghetto ... the ghetto
police locked the gates of houses where tenants had been tardy in paying
taxes. Thus they imposed a kind of collective responsibility on all
tenants. At times they went so far as to take hostages from among
the members of house committees when a tenant assigned to forced-labor
duty failed to report. A taxpayer who stubbornly refused to pay
taxes was dragged from his home at night by the ghetto police. He
was maltreated, forced to clean the streets or to move into an asylum for
the homeless and made to do all kinds of degrading chores. (Trunk,
1972, p. 483) |
| Nihilism and lawlessness became
widespread among the ghetto police, leading to far-reaching collaboration
with the Germans. Little by little, more and more policemen adopted
the mores and morals of the Nazi oppressor. (Trunk, 1972, p.
500) |
| As much as it hurts, it has to be
mentioned that Jews at the assembly place were often beaten by their own
people ... the Jewish police and employees of the labor department.
(Lejb Garfunkel in Trunk, 1972, p. 501) |
| Severe, brutal treatment of Jewish
forced laborers (arrests and beatings) often accompanied by acts of
corruption (bribes for assignment to places of lighter work) are reported
by eyewitnesses in Gostynin (Wartheland), Bedzin, Zawiercie, Wlodzimierz,
Wolynksi, and Bransk, among many other places. (Trunk, 1972, p.
502) |
| The supreme test of the ghetto police
came at the time of the mass "resettlements" when, in accordance with
their tasks and prescribed functions, they had to take an active part in
deportations to the annihilation camps. Their participation ranged
in degree from assisting SS squads and local auxiliary police to actually
taking the job of collecting the victims and taking them to loading
places. ... People destined for deportation did not report at
assembly places for "selections," tried to escape from the ghetto, or hid
themselves within the ghetto. Brutal force had to be used.
... In the Lodz Ghetto, too, the Jewish police were in charge at the
start of the "action" against children, the elderly, and the sick that
lasted from September 5 to September 12, 1942. (Trunk, 1972, pp.
506-507) |
| Teeth were pulled out and limbs were
chopped off bodies by Jewish hands. (Josef Zelkowicz in Trunk, 1972,
p. 510) |
| The Jewish police enjoyed a bad
opinion even before the start of the "resettlements." ... But
their meanness reached a pinnacle in the course of the deportations.
No word of protest was issued [by the police] ... against carrying off
their own brethren to the slaughter. The police became mentally
conditioned to doing this dirty work and, therefore, performed it with
perfection. People are torturing themselves now, puzzling over how
it was possible for Jews, the majority of whom came from the
intelligentsia, to drag [in carts] children, women, elderly people, and
sick ones, knowing well that they were being taken for slaughter.
(Emanuel Ringelblum in Trunk, 1972, p. 510) |
| The ghetto police actively
participated in uncovering hidden Jews in many ghettos. Familiar
with the topography of the ghetto, the layout of the apartments, and the
nooks where people might try to hide, the ghetto police were given the
task of sniffing out Jews in hiding. No doubt a number of
well-camouflaged places in Warsaw, Cracow, Vilna, Kolomyja, Buczacz,
Skalat, and many other ghettos would not have been discovered
otherwise. (Trunk, 1972, p. 513) |
(7) The Jewish Ghetto Police sometimes used
their positions to extort money, valuables, or sexual favors, and sometimes
lived lives of luxury and dissipation in the midst of the Jewish
Holocaust. Therefore it is demonstrated that the Jewish
Ghetto Police acted voluntarily and overlaid the crimes of executing Nazi
designs with their own crimes arising from their own greed and lust.
Cash Contributions, Taxes, and Confiscations
It
has been reported from various ghettos that, in the course of collecting
taxes and imposed contributions in cash or valuables, the ghetto police
treated inmates without mercy, committed frauds, and appropriated large
quantities of cash and valuables. A survivor from the Drohiczyn
Ghetto complains in his memoirs that "people who had lost their
possessions and ruined their health at hard labor in a short time could
not forgive the Council members and the ghetto police for enriching
themselves after each enforced contribution or other affliction.
Every misfortune made them fatter. Jewish policemen got drunk, had a
good time, and traded with the non-Jewish police."
A witness
reports that in the Bransk Ghetto, "the more the Council raised the taxes,
the more the Jewish police carried out confiscations of the last pieces of
bedding, clothing, and whatever else they were able to lay their hands
on." A group of ghetto policemen in Lukow, headed by their
commandant, "denounced the Jews and whipped them, thus assisting the
Gestapo in forcing the Jews to surrender gold. Each new oppression
became a source of income for them. They became very rich in
partnership with the Germans." (Trunk, 1972, p.
502) |
| A survivor from the Grodno Ghetto
writes: "Because of these relations [with the German ghetto guard], the
Jewish police were in a position to make smuggling easier. But they
did this only in order to exact a large income for themselves. The
Jewish policemen are getting rich, enjoying a life of ease and
plenty. With few exceptions, they are the only patrons of the
expensive restaurants, and they lavishly buy food and drink at a time when
hundreds of Jews are starving." (Trunk, 1972, p.
503) |
| Right after the blockades stop for the
day [after 6 o'clock] the Jewish policemen, coming home, find in front of
their homes tense people waiting to plead for their relatives....
Each one brings something, cash or valuables, to get cooperation.
With eyes swollen from overflowing tears, they wait to be admitted.
Although their hearts are burning with hatred toward the "blue uniform
man" who may have assisted in dragging their relatives to the carts only a
short time ago, people beg in subdued voices for some sort of mediation,
trying not to vex the [man in] uniform. Lucky is the one from whom a
deposit is accepted on a later payment. At least he cherishes some
hope; but the majority go away empty-handed, for the policeman has no time
for them. One of these money-takers lives in our building, and the
heartbroken wailing of the relatives of deported people gathered in front
of his apartment can be heard all night long. (Pseudonym "Vladke,"
eyewitness in the Warsaw Ghetto in Trunk, 1972, p.
512) |
| Horrible stories are told about the
[Jewish] policemen at the Umschlagplatz. For them [the victims] were
not human beings but heads for which money could be extorted. Ransom
could be paid in cash, diamonds, gold, etc. The price of a head
ranged from 1,000 to 2,000 zlotys at the beginning, until it grew to
10,000 zlotys per head. The amount depended on a number of objective
circumstances.... The policemen knew no mercy, even in regard to the
most respected man. If he could not pay, or if there were no
relatives ready to pay, he was shipped off. There were known cases
when policemen demanded payment in kind — the flesh of women in addition
to cash.... One was simply unable to comprehend the behavior of the
policemen in the course of "resettlements." (Emanuel Ringelblum in
Trunk, 1972, p. 512) |
The appearance that your war crimes unit should be presenting is one of the
prosecution of war criminals by an impartial government. However, in
reviewing the evidence provided by Isaiah Trunk above, as well as the evidence
in my previous sixteen letters to you, one might be drawn to the conclusion that
the appearance that your war crimes unit is in fact presenting is one of the
prosecution of East Europeans by Jews. There are more than a few Canadians
of East European descent — and more than a few Canadians committed to the
equitable distribution of justice — who await your reversal of this
appearance.
Yours truly,
Lubomyr Prytulak
A group of Jewish policemen of the Lodz
Ghetto. (Trunk, 1972, p. 481)
The Sonderabteilung ("Special
Squad") of the Lodz Ghetto police ... enjoyed an unusually independent
position. It was given the task of confiscating merchandise, foreign
currency, and valuables (gold, silver, diamonds) from the ghetto inmates either
on their own authority, or on orders from Rumkowski, or in collaboration with
the German criminal police (Kripo). The Sonderabteilung also
carried out political intelligence work against opposition elements and had
secret agents for this purpose. (Trunk, 1972, p. 480)
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