Help in a Hopeless World: Social Workers in the Warsaw Ghetto

Above: The lack of rations in the Warsaw Ghetto resulted in thousands of Jews starving to death.

When World War II began in 1939, Eastern Europe experienced extreme anti-Semitism, which directly led to the Holocaust and the extermination of six million Jewish people. The Jews were relocated to ghettos – of which the Warsaw Ghetto is the most well known – where conditions were harsh and life difficult. Services of social workers participating in the Polish underground systems aided the survival of many Jews living in the Warsaw Ghetto. Despite the miserable conditions and extremely low standard of living in the Warsaw Ghetto, many of its occupants survived due to the selfless efforts of these social workers.

In times of great need, social workers often secured food and other essentials for the Jews living in the Warsaw Ghetto. The ghetto was so overpopulated that there was not enough food for its occupants to survive on. In “The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising”, the author describes the streets filled with “ridiculously swollen, log shaped bodies” of children, begging to obtain a scrap of food (Edelman). Because the Jews living in the Warsaw Ghetto received no rations, social workers frequently secretly sneaked food and water into the ghetto. To aid the survival of the Jews, the social workers often illegally obtained food from the black market at high prices (“Zegota”). Thus, despite dealing with fear of being caught, social workers of the Polish underground provided many of the essentials that the Warsaw Ghetto lacked to sustain life. Though many Jewish people died from starvation, the efforts of these social workers helped hundreds of Jews to live to see another day.

In addition to providing material aid to the Jews living in the Warsaw Ghetto, social workers also provided services as well. The Polish underground workers opened schools in secrecy within the Warsaw Ghetto. Underground organizations opened soup kitchens in the ghetto, supplying food to the Jewish community away from the watchful eyes of the Nazi police. According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance, social workers operated over a hundred soup kitchens in the ghetto, as well as schools, shelters, and medical care facilities (Polen). In addition, “House Committees” functioned in nearly all residences, providing healthcare, welfare, and sanitation for those living within the apartments (Polen). In some cases, social workers offered laundry services and even provided and cleaned toilet buckets for those Jews living in the ghetto (“Zegota”). For many Jewish individuals, these efforts made the difference between life and death – particularly in case of healthcare services – and without them, many would not have survived the horrors of the ghetto.

When life became unbearable for in the Warsaw Ghetto, social workers of the Polish underground saved thousands Jewish lives by hiding them or disguising them as Christian Poles. Because the German Nazis were extraordinarily organized – recording lists of nearly every activity that took place during the Holocaust – this was not an easy task. Those who escaped lived in fear of the Nazi authorities, which “terrorized the population in various ways – by arrests, murder in the streets, public and secret executions…and random seizures of persons for deportation” (“Warsaw”). Despite all of this, the Warsaw Ghetto social workers found ways to protect the Jews in hiding. Since most of the social workers had ties to the Polish underground, “they had contacts with secret organizations that forged identification documents” of the “highest quality” to pass along to the Jews who escaped the ghetto (“Zegota”). According to Wikipedia, these social workers persuaded the exiled Polish government to “appeal to the Polish population to help the persecuted Jews” (“Council”). Not only did the social workers help the Jews escape from the Warsaw Ghetto, they also protected the Jews as well. These underground rescuers even “issued death sentence[s] on those who denounced Jews” (“Zegota”). Almost singlehandedly, the social workers rescued thousands of Jewish individuals in this manner – by hiding and transporting them into safer communities. These social workers devoted time, energy, money, and risked their lives and the lives of their families to aid those living in the Warsaw Ghetto.

While the efforts of the Polish underground social workers provided food, services and aid for those in hiding, they provided something else as well: hope. The social workers in the Warsaw Ghetto saved thousands of Jewish lives with their efforts, but more importantly, they provided hope that the people might live to see the end of the Holocaust. Although many Jewish people perished in the Warsaw Ghetto, the social workers of the Polish underground provided enough so that thousands of those Jews would live.

Note: After reading about Irena Sendler’s efforts to help the children of the Warsaw Ghetto, I decided to research others like her, who also aided the Jews’ survival in the ghetto. Because Irena entered the ghetto daily as a social worker, I finally decided to write my paper about the efforts of social workers that secretly aided the Jewish inhabitants of the Warsaw Ghetto. The rest of my project is solely focused on Irena herself, so I hope that this paper demonstrates that more than just one person made an effort to save those Jews living in miserable conditions.