Warsaw: A City Divided (Warszawa: miasto podzielone)

There's nothing here to remind me of my birthplace.

There was once a beautiful square. Muranowski Square.

I remember trees, and benches.

I was born in Warsaw,

into a traditional Jewish family.

I went to a pre-school for Jewish children,

where they taught Polish.

At home we spoke Yiddish,

but I had no problem with Polish, as we spoke that too.

My parents and grandparents lived in Warsaw.

We lived at 91 Zelazna Street.

By the gate was a tiny shop,

owned by a Jew, our neighbor.

He used to impress us kids

by pretending to stitch his fingers together with a needle.

We'd be horrified.

He had a daughter Lonia,

who was a friend of my sister,

and we lived just like normal neighbors.

My mother was from Warsaw.

Her family had lived there for hundreds of years.

Nowolipie - that was my street.

I often see it more clearly than the Warsaw around me today.

It's still the same in my mind.

In the morning, warm pretzels would be delivered -

they were called bagels.

You won't find bagels like those today.

You could take one and untwist it.

My parents lived at 49 Marszalkowska St.

It was a so-called good neighborhood.

My nanny would take me to the Church of the Holiest Savior.

I remember we had to recite prayers.

Some children would say they didn't know the prayers.

And I would say I did, because my nanny taught me.

It was in the Jordan Garden on Bagatela St.

That the War began for me.

I was sitting in a sand box, and my mum came over.

There was a war on, she said, and what were we going to do now?

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 Gross

to come to Warsaw and build a German "Construction Department".

Hubert Gross was the architect who was

at that time head of the town planning office in Wurtzburg.

Gross joined the party in May ‘33

knowing that something great is coming up.

In contrast, my father, who became the chief architect of Hamburg,

joined the party like in fact most

architects in Germany on 1st May, 1937.

I started to call myself a private detective

and I was searching for the German architects

who worked in Poland during the War.

Gross upon the advice of Mr. Dengel developed a dream

of reducing Warsaw to next to nothing.

On the screen is a visualization from one of my projects.

It's based on fascist plans for the construction

of a new German city, die Neue Deutsche Stadt Warschau.

This is a virtual re-construction of that new Warsaw.

This is the city centre.

It's a relatively small city. Entrances were to be guarded

by watchtowers on all sides.

These are the main buildings.

On the Praga side, there was to be a district for Poles,

who were to 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 Führer has decided

that the reconstruction of that city as a major Polish metropolis

is absolutely out of the question.

The Führer's wish is that in accordance with plans for the development of the

General Government territory itself, Warsaw be reduced to the level of a provincial city.

From the diary of Governor General Hans Frank.

Once the Germans arrived, the terror began almost right away.

The official announcements and notices...

Everyone had to hand over all their valuables.

Jewelry,

radios, cameras, furs.

Anything of worth had to be turned in.

Jews were identified and

forced to wear arm-bands with the star of David.

It was very unpleasant.

In my mind,

this was a form of degradation.

At any moment I could be humiliated.

In the spring of 1940, consultations were begun

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 in the majority.

Dr Friedrich Gollert,

SS-Untersturmführer, Head, Division of Regional Planning,

Office of the Governor of the District of Warsaw.

Where was the Jewish neighborhood in Warsaw?

There were Jewish neighborhoods,

Nalewki, Nowolipki where it was almost all Jewish,

but 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.

The wall didn't suddenly appear.

Bits and pieces

started going up in April 1940.

These were sections of wall,

or barriers with barbed wire.

They popped up in various places.

They interfered with people's mobility,

but it was still possible to get around them.

The Schmidt & Münstermann Company

Concerning: The Jewish Housing District

1 linear meter of border wall

is equal to 1.3 cubic meters of wall.

Daily requirement for 100 masons:

12 cubic meters of white lime,

1,500 kg cement,

37,000 bricks.

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 home?

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.

I was distraught at being forced to live there.

I thought that every Jew had to look like that,

and I was so terribly humiliated by all this

that I said to my mum I didn't want to be a Jew anymore,

and I wanted to go back to Marszalkowska St.,

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

and all border streets are to be simultaneously closed off from it,

on both sides, as follows:

From Zielna to Krolewska and Zlota.

From Zlota to Zielna and Zelazna.

From Twarda to Zelazna and Srebrna.

From Srebrna to Twarda and Miedziana.

From Miedziana to Srebrna and Kazimierz Square. From Kazimierz Square North...

Poles could enter the Ghetto,

representatives of companies could enter,

and so could city workers.

Basically, it was for official matters.

We already lived in the area that was now the Ghetto,

as Muranowski Square fell within the Big Ghetto.

However, Jews who lived outside the Ghetto

had to move in,

and Poles who lived in the Ghetto had to move out.

This led to very painful situations for people.

They left their homes,

their furniture and possessions, carrying only a few small bundles.

The Ghetto became very crowded.

We see 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 things.

We were thrown out of Zelazna, because the Ghetto was created there.

We were moved to Brzeska Street, number 5, apartment 110.

It was a ruin.

Measures involved 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 Gollert,

SS-Untersturmführer, Head, Division of Regional Planning,

Office of the Governor of the District of Warsaw.

For people like me,

being outside the Ghetto wall

didn't mean life was easy.

We were given a single room to live in.

There were five of us.

The Jewish population

always looked for contacts outside the Ghetto wall

to get food.

At first, Lonia came to us on Brzeska St.,

though we weren't well off at the time.

We were three siblings, my mum, my dad.

Dad did smuggling, because there was no other way then.

But my mum put aside potatoes

and peelings for her.

I'm not sure what else she got, but we somehow shared.

Later, Lonia stopped coming.

Of course, we didn't know why.

Father kept rolls of banknotes.

I don't know if they were larger denominations then,

but the rolls grew smaller and smaller,

until there was no money left.

After that my sister simply disappeared.

I don't know how. She and my father just ceased to exist.

I don't remember any farewell

or any of the circumstances.

Maybe my memory rejected 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,