Judenrat

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Judenräte (singular Judenrat; German for "Jewish council") were administrative bodies that the Germans required Jews to form in each ghetto in General Government (the German occupied territory of Poland), and later in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union.

The Judenrat was an important extension of Hitler’s government and was charged with solving the problems that arose in the occupied community. The Judenrat operated post offices, hospitals, soup kitchens, day care centers, and vocational schools. They also collected taxes and paid salaries for certain types of work.

These bodies were responsible for local government in the ghetto, and stood between the Nazis and the ghetto population. They were generally composed of leaders of the Jewish community (with the exception of the Soviet Union, where Jewish organizations were eliminated in 1930s). They were forced by the Nazis to provide Jews for use as slave labor, and to assist in the deportation of Jews to extermination camps during the Holocaust. Those who refused to follow Nazi orders or were unable to cooperate fully were frequently rounded up and shot or deported to the extermination camps themselves.

In a number of cases, such as the Minsk ghetto and the Łachwa ghetto, Judenrats cooperated with the resistance movement. In other cases, Judenrats collaborated with the Nazis, on the basis that cooperation might save the lives of the ghetto inhabitants.^[1]

"The Community Council - the Judenrat, in the language of the Occupying Power – is an abomination in the eyes of the Warsaw Community…" — Chaim A. Kaplan, 23rd April 1941.

[edit] References

^ Learning Center.

Trunk, Isaiah Judenrat: the Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe under Nazi Occupation, with an introduction by Jacob Robinson. New York: Macmillan, 1972.