Forced Labor

Forced labor eventually became a defining attribute of the ghettos, though this was only because the Nazis first prioritized abolishing normal economic and social life. After the Germans arrived in Czestochowa, Bender writes, “in a matter of days, 800 Jews were executed in Czestochowa. Using a list, Germans went from house to house rounding up doctors, engineers, intellectuals, and businessmen. They were executed on the spot; this was the core of the Jewish community” (Bender, VHA Interview). Such extreme actions so early on were meant to assert German domination, reduce the will of the Jewish community, and destroy their economic resources.

As Isaiah Trunk put it, “in pursuing their policy and practice of economic ruin for the Jewish masses, the Germans methodically drove the Jews out of many forms of economic life: trade, industry, handicrafts, and the professions” (Trunk, 68). In Lodz, Jews were forbidden from trading in textiles and leather, and textile factories still owned by Jews were only allowed to sell their merchandise to Jewish customers. The extreme measures taken by the Germans to remove Jews from Polish economic life explains why so many Jews were willing to adopt forced labor, despite the obvious fact that they were coerced to do so.

Both boys and girls were subject to forced labor under the Nazis. According to Abe Danko, Jews were only allowed out of the ghetto if they had proper paperwork and an armband sporting the Star of David; unexplained departures would result in on-site execution (Danko, VHA Interview). What’s more, the number of Jews working forced labor increased drastically throughout the years of the ghetto. Between 1940 and 1942, it went from 2,642 to 7,597 (USHMM Encyclopedia, 215).

Zylberberg, who dug bunkers at a German barracks in the Aryan part of the city, recalls waking up each morning to assemble with his two brothers and a handful of other Jews at the entrance to the ghetto, where a Jewish police officer would march them to the barracks. After nearly twelve hours of digging, they would be marched back to the ghetto. This labor was indisputably brutal, though it gave Zylberberg a routine that allowed him to maintain some form of normalcy. Given the dreadful circumstances of the ghetto and the fact that Zylberberg’s family’s textile factory had been shut down by the Nazis, the extra money he earned was also crucial to his family’s sustenance. Zylberberg also recalls working in the casino at the German barracks after being moved into the small ghetto, where he made sure the dining rooms were heated for the German soldiers. After 12 hour work days, he was marched back to the ghetto, where he would stop in stores and buy food with the money he had earned (Zylberberg, VHA Interview). This account not only highlights the stark contrast between the comfortable life the Nazis led and Zylberberg’s own, but also how important work was in securing the resources necessary to survive.

Abe Danko’s family produced suits and coats prior to the outbreak of the war in Poland. A few months into Nazi occupation, however, the SS seized all of the coats that the Dankos had recently produced in order to ship them to the front lines. In return for the fur coats, the Nazis only gave them a piece of paperwork (Danko, VHA Interview). As Adam Czerniakow described, the Nazis took nearly all of the Jews’ fur coats to send to soldiers on the front lines (Czerniakow, 317). With no material left to continue producing garments and his family’s trade gone overnight, Danko was similarly forced to get a job outside the ghetto. He worked at a restaurant that catered to Aryan Germans. Such a lifestyle was unsustainable for Danko: rent was unaffordable, there was no food—the potato farm was 20-25 miles outside the ghetto—and spending all day at the restaurant meant that Danko could not work menial jobs to find food for his family another way. He and his father were caught smuggling bread shortly thereafter, and he was then transferred to the Kochanowice work camp in Southern Poland (Danko, VHA Interview).

Gerson worked many odd jobs during her time in the ghetto. Having left her parents in Lodz, she stayed with her aunt and uncle in Czestochowa, who were quite wealthy. As a result, she did not need a job to survive during the ghetto’s early years, as her family had enough currency to buy food from peasants. Instead, she passed the time learning to speak English from her boyfriend and playing bridge with her aunt. Beginning in 1941, resources grew meager and Gerson was forced to get a job knitting for the Germans. She made dresses for the SS officers’ wives, once again highlighting the relative privilege of Aryan life in Czestochowa. While the twelve-hour work days were tedious and exhausting, she needed the money. In order to work, Gerson had to obtain a document of identification, or a work visa, as shown in the accompanying image, which she got through a Jewish counterfeiter in the ghetto. Jews had to be 18 years old to work, and while Barbara was only 16, the counterfeiter finagled her a card–for a price (Gerson, VHA Interview).

As the selections continued and Gerson lost her family, the Germans forced her to work in a garden, where she was given a cup of soup once a day as her only meal. She recalls being so hungry that she and the other women “ended up sucking on the flowers to have something inside of us.” Living in the small ghetto, she was forced to clean the apartments within the big ghettos that had now been liquidated. She was required to separate the pillows and quilts from the rest of the materials, as they would be repurposed into jackets and beds for Germans soldiers on the front lines. She even remembers emptying a good friend’s apartment that still had food on the stove; the family was suddenly evacuated during one of the selections and sent to camps. Gerson was 14 years old when the war broke out, but she recalls growing up within one year. Having to work long hours for days on end, hope began to dwindle (Gerson, VHA Interview). Like Bender, who was patiently waiting for the day of awakening, Gerson continued to think that she would return to her parents in Lodz and go back to school. By 1942, however, it became clear that this expectation was a fantasy. Jewish isolation in conditions that would inevitably increase mortality rates and mass executions were meant to reduce them to nothing more than working bodies. The psychological deterioration that forced labor was meant to create, coupled with mass-death in the ghetto, acted as a precursor to Nazi killing centers. Maintaining the will to live was especially challenging during this period.