Ghettos

“We lived crammed together. My parents had a bed and I was sleeping on the floor, on a blanket. That was just the beginning. We were given some food rations, but it was not enough…. [M]any people were dying, some of them from hunger, particularly little kids. I was always hungry. There were epidemics of typhus and dysentery; there was never enough drinkable water….

In spite of the terrible conditions, my father insisted that I study. He found a teacher, and we went to cheder in a little room, five or six of us. When my father said I had to go, I had to go. It was non-negotiable. I was afraid. If the Nazis found us studying, they would shoot us because it wasn’t allowed. Yet, I enjoyed studying because I felt that maybe I was doing something good, something worthwhile.”

“School was a world without war and without Germans. Cold and hunger were forgotten. We were eager to learn. Our teachers were gentle and understood us. They, too, were hungry and cold. They were completely devoted to their work, and they encouraged us and gave us hope. But the ghetto schools had a short life. The Germans did not want Jewish children to study, to attend school or even to have a little fun. Everyone had to work and children from the age of ten became part of the workforce…

The schools went underground….I was given a group of young children to teach. I taught them mostly at work during breaks since my group of five children worked at the same factory. It was then that I promised myself that if I survived the war, I would dedicate my professional life to teaching Yiddish to children.”

Report on educational issues in the Warsaw ghetto, written for the Ringelblum archive in December 1941:

“One of the major concerns of our lives in Warsaw is the complete lack of education for Jewish children. For the past eighteen months, our children have been deprived of that ever so important atmosphere found in school, and are thereby isolated from the source of knowledge…. [T]he Jewish Community’s Council of Elders will certainly address this issue with due attention and appeal to the German authorities for permission to launch a school system.”

“We gathered every morning in the attic of a shoemaker’s shop and were taught almost one-on-one in this ‘classroom’ — just two bench­es and a long table. Our lessons included English, mathematics and geography….

The danger was that members of the Jewish police and the Pol­ish police would come into the shop periodically for shoe repairs. It would have been disastrous for everyone if the school were dis­covered, so the shoemaker devised a signal system. When the police were coming, he would take his shoe hammer and hit it three times in quick succession on a metal anvil. With this warning we would go into ‘silent mode.’ When it was safe to talk again, he would strike the anvil once and we could resume our class.”

“My parents learned that five shanties down the street from us lived a woman named Mme Victor who used to be a teacher. For a while, I went with four girls from different families and different towns in Romania to Mme Victor’s shanty and sat on her dirt floor three times a week as she taught us about geography and history. There were no books, no pencils and no paper. We were the ‘People of the Book’ without any books.”

In some ghettos, the Jewish leadership believed that if Jews had practical work skills then there was hope that the Nazis might spare their lives.

They established trade schools to teach young Jews skills that were vital for the German war effort. Jews trained as metalworkers, carpenters, garment workers and electricians. This type of education later helped some Jews stay alive.