Re: An Old Phone Book (1942)
Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2026 3:30 am
Another great find, pilgrimofdark. Cheers.pilgrimofdark wrote: ↑Wed Jan 07, 2026 1:04 am As an unashamed fan of 1942 books, here is another one.
Warsaw under German rule: German reconstruction work in the Warsaw district
It was reviewed in The Journal of Historical Review in 1986. That review focuses on typhus and the Jewish district/ghetto in Warsaw.
The book covers the entire district, though, and mentions Malkinia, Siedlce, Sokolow, Ostrow and other important areas.
The whole book is worth skimming for interesting passages.Warsaw is connected to Berlin via railways and roads through Poznań, Kutno, Łowicz, and Sochaczew, to Wrocław via Łódź, and to the Upper Silesian coal region via Częstochowa and Piotrków. These rail and road connections continue eastward: via Ostrów or Małkinia to Białystok and Minsk, and on to Moscow; via Siedlce to Brest-Litovsk and Pinsk; and via Garwolin and Lublin to Volhynia and Galicia.
- p. 56.
The section "Juden im Distrikt Warschau" covers the Jewish district/ghetto and has a number of photos, including from a Jewish infectious disease hospital.
To prevent the risk of epidemics caused by the Jews throughout the district, the health authorities implemented extensive measures. These measures were also intended to improve the exceptionally poor health of the population, which had resulted in many individuals being unfit for work. The district hospitals, damaged in numerous locations by the war, were rebuilt and equipped with new facilities. In addition, infectious disease hospitals were established in all district capitals in cooperation with the district physician, and further hospital space was created for emergencies, as well as isolation facilities for combating epidemics. Bathhouses with delousing facilities were also established in many places throughout the district. The entire district is now covered by a dense network of such facilities, ensuring that the necessary control measures can be implemented immediately at any time and in any area should an epidemic occur.
- p. 103-104.
Here we have it explicitly that the ghettos were established for disease-control (p.143):
We also see that the western district area becomes 'judenfrei' not by killing but by transfer (p. 103):One thing has become abundantly clear: The establishment of a closed Jewish residential district in the city of Warsaw was the right means to reduce the spread of typhus to the Aryan population. Despite the close proximity between the Jewish residential district and the rest of the city of Warsaw, and despite a number of shortcomings in the cordon, it has been achieved that for a long time the Aryan population accounted for only 10% of the total typhus cases, while at the same time in the eastern districts, where a stricter concentration of Jews had not yet been implemented, the proportion of the Aryan population was 30 percent or more. This finding alone justifies the establishment of the Jewish residential district at that time.
Jews were "everywhere conscripted" in various kinds of work (p. 103):The Jews who had been living in the western part of the district were transferred to the Jewish residential area established in Warsaw in the spring of 1941. Since that time, the western part of the district has therefore been free of Jews ["judenfrei"].
And later, it is recognized that Jewish labor is economically sustainable (p.142-43):To put able-bodied Jews to productive use, they were everywhere conscripted for forced labor in accordance with a decree of the Governor-General. They were tasked with water management improvements and regulation, road construction, street cleaning and clearing of snow and ice, as well as clearing work in destroyed cities.
A total of just 149 executions (including Jews) in Warsaw overall, with some Jews executed for spreading typhus (p.121–122):In economic terms, too, as previous experiences have already shown, even with such a difficult structure as a Jewish residential district with at times 500,000 inhabitants, a satisfactory result can be achieved. A prerequisite for this, however, is the existence of a well-functioning placement service, such as the one provided by the Warsaw Transfer Office. The goal must always be to utilize Jewish labor as productively as possible, according to the necessities of the war. At the very least, a productive work output must be achieved whose value is sufficient to cover the basic needs of the Jews, so that there is no undesirable reliance on welfare funds.
It turns out to be quite easy (little oversight required) to control a large number of Jews (p.144):...in the tens of thousands of criminal trials that passed through the hands of the prosecuting authority of the Warsaw Special Court, in the 2 1/2 years of the General Government's existence up to April 1, 1942, only 149 death sentences were handed down by all the chambers of the Warsaw Special Court. These were almost exclusively criminals whose elimination was also in the interest of the Polish population, because they were members of gangs that endangered public safety on the country roads in the early days of the General Government, or because they were social parasites who, through deliberate sabotage of efforts to combat the black market, severely harmed the general public, or because they were Jews who, contrary to legal regulations, left the Jewish residential districts assigned to them and thereby contributed to the spread of typhus.
In any case, all of these headaches regarding control of the Jewish population are only temporary until they are [literally] evacuated/transited:...[T]heir representatives generally carry out the instructions of the German supervisory authority satisfactorily. It has proven correct to use a relatively small number of German personnel exclusively for supervisory duties and to leave the administration itself—with the involvement of the few organizationally capable individuals—to the Jews.
Is it tenable that this widely-published book is (in mid-1942) announcing the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" as a genocide operation? Of course not.It goes without saying that all measures taken in this area are only interim measures until the final solution of the Jewish question.
This book was immensely popular (p.9; Foreword):
It makes a lot of sense that Germany would be publishing sold-out books drawing attention to the "Final Solution" and Jewish policy, as well as other travel guides on tourism into/around massive 'extermination camps' (discussed earlier in this thread), right in mid-1942 as they are simultaneously launching the mass gassing-burning of millions of these Jews at these locations.After only a few weeks, the 3,000 copies of the book [first edition] were sold out. Numerous orders from the Reich could no longer be fulfilled.
