ABSTRACT
By the end of 1940, the largest ghetto had been established in Warsaw. Ultimately, nearly half a million Jews would be imprisoned there. Two years later, 70 percent of the Jews of Poland had been exterminated and most of the ghettos liquidated. Before the war was over, almost three million Polish Jews perished. Few people are aware that any Americans were in the Warsaw ghetto. On October 10, 1939, Mary Berg's family learned the Germans had broken through the Polish front lines and were moving toward Lodz. They did not know where to flee—toward Warsaw or Brzeziny. Mary's mother received word from the American consulate in Berlin her passport would be ready at a certain date. It no longer mattered. As an American, Mary's mother was allowed to leave the ghetto. Once a month, American citizens could pick up a package of foodstuffs from the American colony relief office in Warsaw.
