Bundesarchiv Bild 101III-Wisniewski-025-08, Polen, Ghetto Litzmannstadt, Bewohner

Jewish Warsaw Ghetto Police Arm Band early 1940s

The Jewish Ghetto Police or Jewish Police Service (german: Jüdische Ghetto-Polizei or ''Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst''), also called the Jewish Police by

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

, were

auxiliary police Auxiliary police, also called special police, are usually the part-time reserves of a regular police force. They may be armed or unarmed. They may be unpaid volunteers or paid members of the police service with which they are affiliated. The po ...

units organized within the

Nazi ghettos Beginning with the invasion of Poland during World War II, the Nazi regime set up ghettos across German-occupied Eastern Europe in order to segregate and confine Jews, and sometimes Romani people, into small sections of towns and cities furtheri ...

by local ''

Judenrat A ''Judenrat'' (, "Jewish council") was a World War II administrative agency imposed by Nazi Germany on Jewish communities across occupied Europe, principally within the Nazi ghettos. The Germans required Jews to form a ''Judenrat'' in every c ...

'' (Jewish councils).

Overview

Members of the Jewish Police did not usually have official uniforms, often wearing just an identifying

armband An armband is a piece of material worn around the arm. They may be worn for pure ornamentation, or to mark the wearer as belonging to group, or as insignia having a certain rank, status, office or role, or being in a particular state or condit ...

, a hat, and a badge, and were not allowed to carry

firearm A firearm is any type of gun designed to be readily carried and used by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries (see Legal definitions). The first firearms originated in 10th-century China, when bamboo tubes ...

s, although they did carry batons. In ghettos where the Judenrat was resistant to German orders, the Jewish police were often used (as reportedly in Lutsk) to control or replace the council. One of the largest Jewish police units was to be found in the

Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (german: Warschauer Ghetto, officially , "Jewish Residential District in Warsaw"; pl, getto warszawskie) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the G ...

, where the Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst numbered about 2,500. The

Łódź Ghetto The Łódź Ghetto or Litzmannstadt Ghetto (after the Nazi German name for Łódź) was a Nazi ghetto established by the German authorities for Polish Jews and Roma following the Invasion of Poland. It was the second-largest ghetto in all of Ge ...

had about 1,200, and the

Lwów Ghetto , location = Lwów, Zamarstynów( German-occupied Poland) , date = 8 November 1941 to June 1943 , incident_type = Imprisonment, mass shootings, forced labor, starvation, forced abortions and sterilization , perpetrators = , pa ...

500. Anatol Chari, a policeman in the Łodz Ghetto, in his memoirs describes his work protecting food depots, controlling bakery employees, as well as patrols aimed at the confiscation of food from the ghetto residents. He recounts the involvement of Jewish policemen in swindling food rations and in forcing women to provide sexual services in exchange for bread. The

Polish-Jewish The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the lon ...

historian and

archivist

Emanuel Ringelblum Emanuel Ringelblum (November 21, 1900 – March 10 (most likely), 1944) was a Polish historian, politician and social worker, known for his ''Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto'', ''Notes on the Refugees in Zbąszyn'' chronicling the deportation of Je ...

has described the cruelty of the ghetto Jewish police as "at times greater than that of the

Germans , native_name_lang = de , region1 = , pop1 = 72,650,269 , region2 = , pop2 = 534,000 , region3 = , pop3 = 157,000 3,322,405 , region4 = , pop4 = ...

, the

Ukrainians Ukrainians ( uk, Українці, Ukraintsi, ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. They are the seventh-largest nation in Europe. The native language of the Ukrainians is Ukrainian language, Ukrainian. The majority ...

and the

Latvians Latvians ( lv, latvieši) are a Baltic ethnic group and nation native to Latvia and the immediate geographical region, the Baltics. They are occasionally also referred to as Letts, especially in older bibliography. Latvians share a common Latvi ...

." The Jewish ghetto police ultimately shared the same fate with all their fellow ghetto inmates. On the ghettos' liquidation (1942–1943), they were either killed on-site or sent to extermination camps.

References

External links

Judischer Ordnungsdienst
at

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...

The Relations between the Judenrat and the Jewish police
at

Ghetto Police
at

the YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe ''The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe'' is a two-volume, English-language reference work on the history and culture of Eastern Europe Jewry in this region, prepared by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and published by Yale Uni ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jewish Police (Holocaust) Police of Nazi Germany Police forces of Nazi Germany Jewish collaboration with Nazi Germany Nazi terminology Ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe Jewish ghettos in Nazi-occupied Poland Collaboration with the Axis Powers 1939 establishments in Poland 1943 disestablishments in Poland

Overview

See also

References

Further reading

External links