ABSTRACT
In the past few days the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto has begun . . . On 22 July [1942], notices were posted on the walls of the ghetto, according to which 6,000 Jews from Warsaw were to be resettled daily in the east. This undoubtedly signifi es shipment to a place of execution. The ‘resettlees’ have the right to take with them 15 kg of baggage and any jewellery. The resettlement does not include employees of the community or hospitals, doctors, order police, holders of work cards, and persons certifi ed by the medical commission as fi t for work (no such commission was established). After the resettlement has been carried out, those Jews remaining in the ghetto will be quartered in barracks and put to work. That same day machine guns were stationed at the ghetto gates, and in the streets ‘thugs’ – Lithuanians, Latvians, Ukrainians – appeared. Shooting began at passers-by. The deportation action is carried out in the following manner: A closed apartment building is picked at random, and the Jewish police pull everyone out of it, without regard to age or state of health. After the elimination of those not subject to deportation, the remaining are transported by lorry or tram to a waiting train. Several trains (of open cars enclosed with barbed wire) have already left. Blocking off of apartment buildings is going on at several points in the city. Independently of this, acts of hooliganism – so far sporadic – have begun. The thugs force their way into apartments and shoot all present . . . The victims of the fi rst day of the ‘resettlement’ action were mainly old and sick people, invalids, children, infants, women, and a large percentage of foreign Jews. The young people attempted to hide. The terrifi ed population runs into the streets or wanders from apartment to apartment. Complete depression. Many suicides . . .
