“Council of Elders”
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The name Judenrat refers to the Jewish Councils established on German orders in the Jewish Communities of Nazi occupied Europe. Jewish councils were first instituted in occupied Poland following instructions given by Reinhard Heydrich on 21 September 1939, and through an order promulgated by Hans Frank, the Gouvenor of the General Government, on 18 November 1939 and subsequently in other countries occupied by the Nazis.
The Jewish Councils did not have a uniform structure, some of them held authority in one location only, whilst others administered Jewish communities throughout a district or even an entire country. The role played by the Judenrat in Jewish public life during the holocaust is one of the most controversial issues.
Some historians believe that the Judenrat had a debilitating effect on the strength of the Jewish communities, whereas other historians argue that the Judenrat reinforced the Jews power of endurance in their struggle against the Nazi onslaught.
On the basis of Heydrich’s instructions Jewish Councils were set up over the course of a few weeks in September and October 1939 in the communities of central and western Poland. The guidelines stipulated that the Jewish Council would be fully responsible for the implementation of German policy regarding the Jews and would be made up of influential people and rabbis.
In this way, the Jewish communities had forced on them a body whose function was to receive German orders and decrees and be responsible for carrying them out. The inclusion of prominent personalities in the Jewish council had a dual purpose to ensure that German orders were implemented in full and to discredit Jewish leadership in the eyes of the Jewish population.
Under Hans Frank’s order, in places where the Jewish population did not exceed ten thousand the Judenrat was to have twelve members, and in larger towns or cities it was to consist of twenty – four members. Adam Czerniakow the Chairman of the Warsaw Judenrat wrote in his diary on the 4 October 1939:
“Unfortunately, before I could enter the building I was stopped by the police and for the time being I can do nothing. I was driven to Szucha Avenue – the location of the Security Police and was ordered to co-opt 24 men for the Community Council and to assume its leadership. I prepared a statistical questionnaire.”
The councils were to be elected by the members of their community and were themselves to elect their chairman and vice-chairman. The process of electing the Judenrat and their top two officers was to be completed by 31 December 1939.
The results were subject to the approval of the German Kreishauptmann or in the cities, of the German Stadthauptmann. This last provision meant in effect that the elections provided for in Frank’s order were quite meaningless, and that the Germans never intended to have the composition of the Jewish councils determined by elections.
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German intervention in the process, however, was not absolute and on a number of occasions active members of the Jewish community had a say in determining the composition of the council. In some cases, Jewish activists refused to join the Judenrat because they were suspicious of the true German’s intentions regarding the Jewish councils.
Generally, however, local Jewish leaders did become members of the council’s, this corresponded to the wishes of the Jewish population, who felt the traditional, experienced leaders of the community who were best equipped to represent them in the day to day dealings with the German authorities.
Thus in the initial stages of their existence, the Jewish Councils preserved the continuity of local leadership, but in some instances some members of the Jewish councils had no previous experience of public affairs.
Once the Judenrat were established, the Germans lost no time in presenting them with urgent tasks, such as drafting people for forced labour, undertaking a census of the Jewish population, evacuating apartments and handing them over to Germans, paying fines and ransoms, confiscating valuables owned by Jews, and paying for the construction of ghetto walls, etc.
Read more here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ghettos/judenrat.html
The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team
www.HolocaustResearchProject.org
Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009
