Occupation
General-Government of the Occupied Polish Territories
Much of German-occupied Poland was simply incorporated into Greater Germany. However, a large area that stretched from Warsaw in the north to Krakow in the west to Lublin and the Rzeszow-Jaroslaw area in the east was set off in an independent division called the Generalgouvernement or "General-Government." The long-range German plan for this area was to replace the current population of 12 million Poles, Jews and others with about one-third as many Germans, over a period of about a decade. Some Poles would be retained in the Reich as servants, serfs and slaves. Meanwhile, during this massive Germanization program, the existing population would be used largely as slave labor and as tools of providing supplies to German troops. By the end of 1939, the General-Government contained more than 1.2 million Jews, more than half of all the Jews in Germany and German-controlled territories at that time.
Zolynia was part of a new district adminstered out of the city of Jaroslaw, about 19 miles (31 km) to the east and south, where there was a Gestapo office. The General-Government was headquartered at Krakow.
Decrees
The initial "Instructions by [SS Chief Reinhard] Heydrich on Policy and Operations Concerning Jews in the Occupied Territories," issued to Einsatzgruppen chiefs on September 21, 1939, made clear that whatever policies were enacted in the short-term, some kind of permanent solution to the Jewish Question would eventually be worked out over time. In the meantime, throughout the fall of 1939 and early 1940, a series of regulations and decrees severely restricted or ended the ability of Jews to work, earn, travel or socialize.
Within four months of the arrival of the Germans: The payment of cash to Jews is severely limited and the withdrawl of funds from all bank accounts limited to a small amount each week, preventing shopkeepers from purchasing goods. All Jews over the age of ten must wear a white armband marked with the Star of David in blue. Jews must have written authorization to be on public streets, paths and squares between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. Jews must not change their lodgings without authorization. Jews may not use the railroad without written permission from the SS.
This is just a selection of the regulations. The occupation was a hardship to everyone in Zolynia, but for the village's Jews, virtually all of the ordinary, familiar and mundane activities of daily life were essentially abolished. Violations of many regulations were punishable by "prolonged hard forced labor" and in some cases by summary execution. The authorities emphasized that "instigators and helpers will be punished like the culprits," so the Polish population was at risk if they conducted any kind of business with the wrong person in the wrong way.
In late January 1940, it was ordered that all Jewish personal property must be presented to the authorities and registered. Any other property found later would be confiscated. Families tried to hide small or valuable possessions, or quickly sell them to neighbors. Religious items and family keepsakes were hidden in and around houses. For the rest of the occupation, Jewish homes were subject to sudden police searches by the police for hidden possessions.
The Jews of Zolynia were consolidated into the neighborhood around the market square, and some of the smaller colonies of Jews in the outlying villages were moved into this area. Housing was crowded as families and friends shared homes. Many non-Jews even of good faith were no longer renting houses to Jews, due to the difficulties Jews now had in raising cash, the potential for trouble if some regulation was violated, and even possible future damage to their property from some German action. German policy was geared toward physically, economically and socially separating Jews from Poles and even exacerbating tensions between the groups, reducing the chances that they might join in common resistance.
The Judenrat and the Ordnungsdienst
The Germans realized early on that they simply did not have enough people to coordinate every aspect of daily life in the occupied zones. The directive of November 28, 1939 set up a local Jewish Council (Jundenrat) "composed of the remaining authoritative personalities and rabbis" who would to be chosen by the Jews themselves with the approval of the Gestapo, or by the Gestapo directly if Jews did not come forward. This council was "fully responsible, in the direct sense of the word, for the exact and prompt implementation of all directives," under threat of "the most severe measures" for any perceived insubordination or sabatoge. In municipalities the size of Zolynia, the council would be made up of twelve people. The Council was specifically responsible for counting and tracking Jews in the village, housing Jews moved into the village from the countryside or other villages and providing enough men for labor details. There was also a central county Judenrat which met at Jaroslaw.
In Zolynia, the Judenrat collected special fees and taxes imposed on the Jewish community by the German authorities and was the conduit for bribes paid to Germans for work and travel permits, job assignments and releases from the jail (arrests were made for suspicion of black market activities). The council was ordered to hire a Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst, a Jewish Order Service, to enforce regulations and help fill labor quotas. Members of the Judenrat urged Zholiners to make payments in order to keep peace with the Germans, a strategy that failed. There was frequent harrassment and even occassional killings despite payments and cooperation, especially when Gestapo agents from Jaroslaw arrived for inspections, usually once or twice a week.
It is known, for example, that In April 1940, six people in Zolynia were shot by the Germans. Many of the adult Jewish men stayed indoors throughout the occupation, especially traditionally religious men, who refused to shave the beards which they knew would make them targets.
One member of the Judenrat, Berish Lowenbraun, is identified as the unofficial mediator between German officials and the Jewish community, primarily because of a casual pre-war relationship with a German who was now assigned to the district Gestapo office.
Labor Camps
Jewish men were subject to conscription and often random selection on the streets for unpaid manual labor and extended assignment to a forced labor camp. Particularly in the months after the invasion, the Germans pressed local men into service repairing damaged bridges and roads, and to reinforce village streets and squares to accomodate heavy army trucks. Other tasks included reinforcing the banks of nearby rivers, clearing snow and other maintenance projects. But it was the extended stays in the labor camps that was dreaded the most.
All Jewish men between ages 14 and 60 were required to register for open-ended work assignments in regional labor camps. There were at least ten labor camps established in the immediate region around nearby Rzeszow (renamed "Reichshof" by the Germans) and Zholiners could be assigned to any of them. Some of the camps were basically detention centers housing workers for adjacent factories, like the Flug Motoren Vork Reichshof and Damler-Benz airplane engine works at Rzeszow. This factory, shared by the two companies, typically utilized 600 local Jews, mostly as janitors and manual laborers, and some with technical skills worked as watchmakers, electricians and repairmen. Jewish workers there were housed in a barracks behind barbed wire, but had better food and hygiene conditions compared to most of the other camps; they received cold showers every day, so lice was less of a problem than at other Arbeitslager (forced labor camps). Other camps quickly became infamour in the villages, because the young men would come back after a month or two "like skeletons" and with stories of severe brutality. Some never returned. One of these was the lumber camp at Biesiadka, about 31 miles (50 km) west of Zolynia, just outside of Mielec. This particular camp will re-enter the story later on.
Village mothers and wives who could raise some money often made payments through the Judenrat to get family members released early from camp duty. One of the Kapos (a labor foreman) at Biesiadka had family ties to Zolynia and accepted money for releases. Other families could not raise the money to get inmates released.
Mutual Aid
Very soon, many Jewish families were without income and without the means to earn money. An April 1940 report says that 210 Jews in Zolynia were considered destitute. Those with any resources continued to contribute to community funds to help those more in need, but there was less and less to go around. A regional Jewish Self-Help network was formed at Lancut to coordinate distribution of aid and housing of refugees among the Jewish communities in the Jaroslaw District (the chairman was Dr. Marek Pohorile, also chairman of the Lancut Judenrat).
There was still hope of help from outside and abroad. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee was created and funded by Jews in the United States during the First World War. The U.S. was still a neutral country until 1941 and registered American charity agencies were legally permitted to operate in Poland. Based in Warsaw, the JDC in turn helped fund Jewish Mutual Aid Society ("ZTOS"), which had an office in Krakow by the spring of 1940. American and European Jews representing JDC and ZTOS bravely went deep into occupied territory and arranged for occassional limited amounts of food to be brought to hundreds of towns. This aid was often in the form of a soup kitchen, and could also include coal or wood for fuel. JDC and ZTOS were the most certain route through which occassional small supplies of clothing and food could to Zholiners from loved ones in the United States. It was an indespensible lifeline for hundreds Zolynia.
And then, in December 1941, the United States entered the war against Germany. Zolynia was closed off from the outside world as if a door had swung shut.
Exposed and Isolated
The Jews in Zolynia were in the middle of a countryside, in a small town where they could be easily recognized and could never melt into the larger crowd, where there were few buildings or structures in which to hide, no transportation system or even a sewer which could be an escape route. They were exposed.
The ghetto at Zolynia did not have walls and was not fenced in, but Jews there were isolated. There were limited opportunities for news or connections with the outside. Some information came from those returning from work crews or labor camps, or from those who still worked in the market square and could pick up rumors or bits of news. A few Jewish families still owned horses and wagons and, acquiring appropriate permits through various means, could haul grains or small goods collected from local families to Rzeszow for sale in the ghetto there. Often, these trips were made on back roads late at night, to avoid German patrols and others who would likely confiscate any goods hauled by Jews. This brought some income to local families, In Rzeszow, there was an active Jewish underground, led by members of Hashomer Hatzair and some members used stolen or forged Aryan identification papers to move between villages. Also based in Rzeszow were several work crews set up by the Germans to collect and transport recyclable materials for use in military production; one of the crews included Jews who, holding special travel permits, also brought occassional reports of nearby events to Zolynia and other villages.
By the middle of 1942, word had gotten to Zolynia that the Jews that a number of communities in the region had been relocated en masse, supposedly to undisclosed labor camps in the east. The price of resistance was high. Beginning on July 7, 8,000 of the 14,000 Jews living in the ghetto in Rzeszow were moved out in a five-day operation. Some Jews were deemed uncooperative and at least 236 people were shot in the streets. The possibility that the Jews in Zolynia could be expelled and moved away from their home town was a clear possibility.
That July, the last small groups of Jewish families living in outlying villages were ordered to move into Zolynia. Also that month, the Jews of Zolynia and other nearby towns were ordered to pay any taxes due or outstanding. Most Jews in the area now lived in poverty, unable to pay. Police used non-payment of taxes as a pretense to raid homes and confiscate remaining registered possessions. This all added to a growing feeling that the Germans were preparing to move the Jews of the area.
During this time, Berish Lowenbraun, the Judenrat member who saw himself as a mediator with the Germans, was shot. His usefulness to the Germans, and perhaps the usefulness of all the Jews of Zolynia, was at an end.
But tere was no way to know exactly what the Germans were planning to do.
A Jewish Mutual Aid Society report on the estimated Jewish population in the Lancut-Jaroslaw area, dated December 11, 1940. There are an estimated 5,886 Jews in the district, representing 3.1% of the total population. Zolynia has an estimated 700 residents. The document is addressed to the regional self-help coordinating committee at Lancut.
