Teresa Preker, Konspiracyjna Rada Pomocy Żydom w Warszawie 1942-1945 [Underground Relief Council for Jews in Warsaw 1942-1945]

Three chapters translated into English
Copyright Polish-Jewish Heritage Foundation 2002-2003
(transferred from the Batory Foundation in Warsaw)

About the Author

Teresa Preker, the author of the book on ZEGOTA and other texts, also published in English (among others, in: Encyclopaedia of the Holocaust, New York-London 1980, The Jews in Poland, Basic Blackwell, 1986, My Brother's Keeper, Routledge, 1990, Polin, article The Jewish Underground and the Polish Underground, London 1996), was a historian specializing in Polish-Jewish relations. Her publication is devoted to the Underground Relief Council for Jews, the only body of this kind in occupied Europe. Established in September 1942, it grouped Poles and Jews from different underground groups holding diverse political views and representing various sections of society. Teresa Preker's book is the only comprehensive and in-depth monographic study of this remarkable body and its activities in Nazi-occupied Poland. We feel that the book should be made available in English, believing it would go at least some way toward resolving the sensitive problems that continue to arise in public discussion. The author has written a new version of the introductory chapter.

Teresa Preker died on May 19, 1998. Commemorative articles and obituaries published by individuals and institutions who had known and worked with Teresa Preker (among others, Jewish Historical Institute Association, The Association of Jewish War Veterans and Victims of Prosecutions during World War II, Social and Cultural Association of Jews in Poland, Association of Hidden Children of Holocaust in Poland) testify to the profound respect she enjoyed personally and as a scholar.

I. POLES AND JEWS IN INDEPENDENT AND OCCUPIED POLAND

Polish-Jewish Relations Before September 1939

"We are helpless vis-a-vis German criminals. We cannot defend ourselves and no-one in Poland is in a position to defend us. Poland's underground authorities can save some of us but not the multitude. [...] The fate of 3 million Polish Jews is sealed." These words give a precise outline of the situation of Jews in occupied Poland. This is what in October 1942, Leon Feiner, distinguished representative of Bund and of the Presidium of the Relief Council for Jews, told Jan Karski, courier of the AK Home Army and of the representation of the government-in-exile (Delegatura), before his departure for London. One could hide hundreds, even thousands of Jews wanted by the Nazis, but no more than that.

There were many objective and subjective reasons, often bound up with the past, why it was so difficult for Poles to hide Jews, to come to their help at the risk of Poles' own life. "Jewish life and the place of Jews in Polish society was rather different from what it was in Western Europe. From the French Revolution onward, Jews throughout Western Europe pressed for equal rights as individuals and confined expressions of their Jewishness to the religious sphere. In contrast, most Jews in independent Poland between the wars insisted on their recognition as a people, with the rights of a national minority. The Jews wanted to be recognized as a community - part of and apart from other elements in Polish society," Israel Gutman explains.

This Jewish position was influenced by their impressive number. By making up as much as nearly 10 per cent of the country's population, they clustered primarily in cities where they constituted an average of about 35 per cent (but sometimes as much as 80 per cent) of the residents.

Being good organizers, in circumstances that were - despite all hurdles - favourable, they set up a network of their own schools of every level, with Yiddish or Hebrew as the language of instruction. As for many of them Yiddish was the language they spoke at home, a considerable number of Jews spoke bad Polish, with a specific accent, while a lot of, particularly the older, people did not speak Polish at all. That made the Polish-Jewish cohabitation very difficult because, as the French historian Marc Bloch says, a difference of language strengthens the feeling of not belonging to the same environment, which feeling itself is a source of antagonisms.

Work together did not quench that feeling. Jews were suffering a "psychosis of self-reliance [...] They did not take kindly to blue-collar workers among themselves." Fifty-seven point seven per cent of the Jewish population were self-employed people who did not hire any workers, while 6.7 per cent did hire hands (mostly other Jews to work in small retail or artisan shops). As Jews formed large communities, a large proportion of those shops' customers were Jews, too. On the other hand, because of the Jewish celebration of Saturday, which was a workday at that time, bigger Polish but also Jewish businesses were unwilling to hire Jews.

Jews showed enterprise in other areas as well: they opened their own orphanages, hospitals and very dynamic self-help groups, they founded their own trade unions, published numerous papers, had their own theatres, bands, choirs and sports clubs. The elite of Polish Jews distinguished themselves by the high level of their culture, literary output and scientific life. They formed a centre important to the whole of The Diaspora.

The overwhelming majority of Jews were very much devoted to their ancient religion and tradition. All-powerful dictates of religion and tradition ruled their life and behaviour. More often than not this applied to the traditional garb as well. Of late, however, political ideas spread by activists and their press began to motivate increasingly wide circles of the Jewish youth.

The strong sense of national and religious ties caused that Jews bore a grudge against those among themselves who tried to go native. As a rule, their split from the Jewish community was treated as treachery.

The activities of Jewish political parties were obviously concentrated on the problems of their own national group. Their representatives - members of Zionist groups and of the Orthodox-Conservative Agudas Isroel - in the Polish parliament, too, usually confined themselves to supporting the interests of their own national minority.

A vast majority of Jewish political parties had no contact with Polish parties whatsoever. Certain Leftist Zionist groups and Bund, who sometimes undertook joint actions with the Polish Socialist Party, were the only exceptions. On the other hand, Jewish Communists did not form a group of their own but belonged to the Communist Party of Poland. They were quite largely represented in various Party organizations, Party leadership included.

Their rich social and political life indicated the perseverance of the Jews in the effort to preserve their national identity, their vigour and activeness. Yet, Poles usually assessed the activities of the Jews negatively. Jews were charged with building "[u]n Estat dans l'Estat", of giving priority to the interests of their own group and of The Diaspora over those of Poland. That was a serious charge in the situation where Poles were still in a state of euphoria after they recovered their own statehood after 125 years of partitions. Poles had their reservations about Polish Jews laying claims to much greater rights in this country than in Western Europe. Rich Jewish financiers were suspected of conspiring with international Jewish capital, and the Jewish poor - of plotting a Soviet-like revolution (hence the common term "Jewish-communism").

All this plus the xenophobia of the Poles produced the situation where the attitude towards Jews was generally hostile. Jews had more enemies than friends in Poland. National Christian parties, particularly the National Party and two extremist factions derived from the ONR National Radical Camp, took advantage of such state of Polish minds. Those nationalist parties introduced "fight against Jewry" into their programmes and propagated their views widely. They were out for brawls at universities, demanding the reduction of the Jewish enrolment to 10 per cent or to their actual percentage of the country's population, i.e. the introduction of the so-called numerus clausus (the percentage of the Jews at Polish universities at the time was much higher, especially in the faculties of law and medicine). The nationalists demanded separate desks for Jewish students, made it difficult for them to take exams, and often struck at them. Initially, university authorities (and many professors) put a sharp resistance to such demands, later however, some of them yielded to the nationalist terror and did impose the numerus clausus.

Small towns were another area of nationalist activities. Nationalists persuaded residents that Jews were taking away a chance of good earnings from them, particularly in trade, that Jews were cheating and exploiting them. Nationalists also incited the gentile population to boycott and even destroy Jewish shops. They often achieved their purpose: Jews were indeed attacked in the street, their houses were broken into and their property demolished. Jewish self-defence (especially with the use of arms) led to bloodshed (the most notorious at Przytyk in 1936 during which one Pole and two Jews died). It is estimated that during the greatest wave of anti-Jewish events, in the years 1935--1937, about 2,000 Jews were beaten and wounded while 14 were killed. More than ten Poles died on those occasions.

The two ONR factions, although relatively small and officially dissolved by the government, were very noisy and demagogic. They wanted to provoke Jews to emigrate in great numbers. Nonetheless, neither they nor any other party insisted on the exile of Jews.

The attitude of other Polish political parties was not so remarkably hostile towards Jews, all the same many members of those parties believed the situation would not have been that difficult had the number of Jews in Poland been smaller. That was the opinion, for example, of the Peasant Party, Poland's largest. Peasants did not frown on Jewish competition, therefore nationalists could not stir them to excesses. All the same, peasants, more than town dwellers, were distrustful of anything "alien." Peasants were also submissive to the clergy. The latter, for their part, sympathized with nationalist parties (even if for nothing else than their Catholicism), and treated as continually valid the words said by the Jews demanding the death of Jesus, "His blood be on us, and on our children." The stance of the priests had an effect on the peasant population.

The only party to have strongly opposed any violence, to have sided with Jews and to have demanded equal rights for them not only formally but also in fact was the Polish Socialist Party (PPS). Together with Bund and Poale Zion, they organized, for example, squads to defend Jews against attacks. The Democratic Alliance (SD), with its primarily intelligentsia membership, did not show any traces of anti-Semitism, either.

At the beginning, the "sanacja" ruling group adhered to the tradition of tolerance adopted by Józef Piłsudski, the head of state until 1935; later however it accepted many of the theses of the nationalists. Jews, even if Polonized for long, were not admitted to higher state administration positions, and certain careers were inaccessible to them altogether. Those restrictions imposed on Jews going native were a product of society's usually hostile and suspicious attitude towards them. The assimilated Jews were reproached with their origin and heckled. This way, rejected by their old community, they did not succeed in finding a new one.

Polish population's prejudice against Jews was not an unrequited feeling as Jews were not well-disposed towards Poles, either. Ill-will inevitably produced ill-will, while discrimination aroused resistance. These notwithstanding, differences of culture and customs made Jews, too, see Poles as "alien." However, this feeling in Jews was not as strong as in Poles as certain groups of Jews did have some general idea of Polish culture. Those groups included particularly those people who went to school in the two interwar decades, because at that time Jewish school students were obliged to have some, even if feeble, idea of Polish history and literature. Polish children, on the other hand, never heard, for instance, the names of outstanding Jewish writers.

The feeling of alienation caused that the two peoples, not showing any interest in each other in their everyday life, did not even try to understand each other's views and motivations. Whatever they did not understand, they disapproved of.

This way, these two nations lived not with each other but by each other. The reasons of such state of affairs can be found in the already mentioned behaviour of both Jews as well as Poles. The Polish side, by being much more numerous and having power and also by aggravating the situation by its aggressiveness, played the decisive role in sustaining this division. The large group of Polish anti-Semites bore particular blame for that.

But all those adversities did not settle Polish-Jewish relations in general. Where there came to direct contacts (such as between the dealer and the buyer, the doctor and the patient or among school friends), bias and stereotypes gave way to peaceful co-existence.

Such, in short, were the relations between Jews and Poles on the outbreak of World War II.

Occupation of Poland and Polish-Jewish Relations in the Years 1939-1942

When there is mention of the Relief Council for Jews, one sometimes hears a question, Why did it come into existence so late, as late as in mid-1942, by which time the Nazis had managed to exterminate about a half of Poland's Jews?

As to the majority of historical events, to this one, too, there is not one exhaustive and all-explaining answer. First and foremost, one must see the events through the prism of the time they were taking place. It is very difficult for the postwar generation to do. Everybody first learns that there was The Holocaust during which nearly 6 million European Jews were killed, majority of them on the Polish territory. The realization of this fact is overpowering. What happened before that seems to be a mere preparation for the final tragedy.

People living at the time did not realize that. Neither Poles nor Jews could envisage what was to occur in the years 1941-1944. They were absorbed in the current day which was bad enough for both peoples.

The German reign of terror began already during the military operations. Initially it affected Poles and Jews to more or less the same degree. In the towns they occupied, Germans shot a huge number of hostages, both Poles and Jews. By the hands of Germans died priests and rabbis, political activists and teachers. Germans started to ship Polish youth as forced labourers to Germany (between October 1939 and the end of 1942, approximately 75,000 people were transported out of Warsaw alone), and Jews - to labour camps where some of them died of exhaustion and disease. All schools, from primary schools through universities, were closed down (Poles were soon allowed to open primary schools). All political, cultural and social organizations were banned (save a few charity organizations). The press, publishers, museums and theatres (except several lowest-standard variety shows) were shut up. People were deprived of their radio receivers, meanwhile listening to the radio was liable to the death penalty. Curfew was in force throughout the war. All larger enterprises were taken over by the German authorities. By 1941, compared to the prewar period, wages rose only 1.5 times while the cost of living skyrocketed 12 times (by the end of the occupation, 70 times while, for example in France, only 6 times). The intelligentsia remained out of work most of the time. The restrictions imposed on the entire country as well as extremely difficult economic conditions caused that the occupation in Poland was much more arduous than in western Europe, and that it considerably restricted the population's freedom of action.

Jews came under extra orders which made their fate much more cruel. Already in 1939 they were ordered to wear the star-of-David sign. They were ousted from work in institutions and enterprises while the ban on the free command over one's money made any economic activity impossible. The last measure taken by Germans was the establishment of ghettos.

That was a shock to Poles, as well. But at the beginning, both Poles and Jews treated this decision as a mere separation of two groups of population. People fathomed that life behind the walls would be hard, but not that it would enfeeble those confined within the walls. People believed that situation to be a transient one, that the war would end in half a year, maybe a year, and then everything would return to normal. Poles felt more indignant at Germans' savagery, at their barbaric return to the Dark Ages as concerned ghettos, than they sympathized with Jews. It was usually the people who before the war had had some personal contacts with Jews who showed understanding for their plight.

The ghetto walls played another role, as well. The walls and the different tactics used by Germans towards Jews and Poles exacerbated the divisions between them. They did not put up a joint opposition to the common enemy, which could lessen the still rabid anti-Semitism.

The desperate situation of the Jewish population did not emerge overnight. It grew worse gradually, which made people get gradually accustomed to it. People worried less and less about the distress of the others. Even Jews enclosed within ghettos sank into stupor and just passed corpses lying in the street by, engrossed in their own problems. A myriad of Jewish diaries show that. A considerable number of Poles, who did not witness the distressing ghetto scenes and who could not quite believe them, thus got hardened to the ever more ominous news arriving from ghettos. With the same dwindling agitation they reacted to the disappearance of their own people.

In those circumstances, the initial help Poles offered to Jews was not great. It was individuals - relatives, friends, colleagues (e.g. doctors, lawyers), fellow-workers or members of the same party, who came to Jews' relief.

There were forbidding phenomena occurring at the same time. There were legion of people to take advantage of Jews' predicament and to buy dirt-cheap anything they could not carry with them to ghetto, and to take into "custody" Jewish goods those profiteers were not going to return. Another group, people who watched for ghetto fugitives in order to blackmail and fleece them of all they had (the so-called szmalcownicy) were sheer criminals.

German attack against Russia in mid-1941 resulted in making the situation of Jews much more awful. From the eastern territories of the prewar Poland, now seized by Germans, to the centre of the country, the news about mass executions spread from mouth to mouth. Even though either Poles or Jews could not for long believe it, they were nevertheless filled with apprehension. This way, when in autumn 1941 the underground press confirmed that news, the "ground was cleared" and public responsiveness-dulled.

At the same time, all country received the news abut the cordial welcome Jews accorded to the Red Army occupying Poland's eastern territories, and about the Jews' subsequent fervent collaboration with the Soviet administration, the machinery of repression included. The rejoicing at the Soviet arrival was in part the rejoicing at the evading of the German occupation. But at the same time Jews often revealed their malice towards the fallen Polish state, and the desire to take revenge on Poles, "who were so great yesterday, and today they are so small," for their prewar anti-Semitism.

The news was true, it referred however to some Jews only (although in some areas, admittedly, quite many). In a later period, that Jewish attraction to the Soviet authorities diminished as the latter abolished all Jewish social and political organizations as well as expelled a large number of Jews up-country.

The information spread among the Poles, exposed particularly the reports on greetings and collaboration. Anti-Semites heightened those reports as they corroborated their own opinion about Jews' hostile feeling towards Poland. Also, such reports absolved the idle Poles from failing to come to Jews' relief. "If they could cooperate with our enemies in the east, why should we risk our life for them here?," was the reasoning of anti-Semites.

The risk of life was by no means a superficial excuse. Governor-general Hans Frank ordered that any help to a Jew would be punished by death. Frank's order was promptly put into effect.

Although incomparable with the situation of Jews, the terror among Poles was steadily rising, too. Following the mass arrests in Warsaw and numerous executions in the suburban Palmiry in 1940, in the next year transports to Auschwitz and Ravensbrueck increased, while the nearby Sękocin and Kabaty woods became the places of execution of hundreds of people. Gaols were overcrowded, people were tortured to death or shot dead without a due court trial.

Such terror not only fanned hatred of the army of occupation but also imbued people with the feeling of helplessness. The great, very well-equipped western armies, and since 1941 the armed forces of the Soviet giant, too, were unable to resist the German onslaught. Compared to the Allies, what chance, if any at all, could Poles stand, who were moreover poorly armed and under continuous surveillance?

Such moods were opposed by the Polish underground resistance movement which began to take shape immediately after the defeat in 1939. The ZWZ Union for Armed Struggle came into being first, already in autumn. In 1942 it became the Home Army (AK). Small political or political-and-military organizations were mushrooming, yet they were quickly exposed and annihilated by Germans. The ZWZ/AK operations, however, soon embraced all Polish territories, establishing an efficient organization. In 1940, the ZWZ/AK numbered 40,000 officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers (in 1944 - over and above 300,000). The Union's tasks included propaganda, cadre training and the preparation of a general uprising which was to coincide with the advance of the Allied forces to the country's borders. Also, the ZWZ/AK tried to absorb all military organizations established by political groupings, and to build up a uniform underground army. To merge all those organizations took much time (until 1944), and tactical and coordinating effort. A part of the Peasant Battalions (subordinated to the Peasant Party) and the National Armed Forces remained independent of the AK to the end.

Dominant prewar parties, such as the National Party and the National Radical Camp (which formed two groups: the Confederation of Nation and the Entrenchment), the Polish Socialist Party (under the cryptonym of the WRN Liberty, Equality, Independence), the Peasant Party (SL) and the Labour Party, resumed their activities to play the leading role in the political life of the underground. These parties saw the postwar future as a total return to the relations and problems as they were before 1939. They therefore followed their respective old line. Thus, despite of the tragically different situation, the Confederation of Nation and the Entrenchment were spreading anti-Jewish propaganda, blaming Jews for everything that led to the historical disaster, "They are responsible for the war. For the fall of the nation. For the Freemasonry, Communism, the disintegration of the intelligentsia and poverty of the masses." In the Entrenchment's programme pamphlet Przyszła Polska - państwem narodowym [The Future Poland - a National State], its author, "L. Podolski," i.e. Karol Stojanowski, argued that the emigration of Jews "is almost as crucial to the future of our nation as the regaining of independent statehood. Both the loss of independence as well as the remaining of Jews in Poland threatens Poles with a slow death."

Other groups, Socialists in particular, strongly opposed anti-Jewish, nationalist publications. In April 1941, the WRN wrote, "The pamphlet [Przyszła Polska - państwem narodowym--T.P.] seems to be something hideous in the circumstances we have been living in. Messrs. Podolskis announce the struggle against citizens of another nationality." The WRN stated it explicitly that in the Polish underground movement there could be no room for this kind of propaganda.

The sympathetic interest in the situation of Jews shown by other, Leftist, groupings and by Biuletyn Informacyjny, the organ of the ZWZ/AK, counterweighed that nationalist propaganda. There is no doubt, however, that the aggressive, nationalist writing had an ill effect on the attitude of a part of Polish society whose posture towards Jews had been slightly better in reaction to the persecution of that minority.

But even the most extremist groupings found there was no question of any collaboration with the occupation authorities in this regard. In May 1944 they could state in the Myśl Polska, a periodical they published in London, "In all [occupied] countries in Europe, [Germans] found political groups to set their hand to the extermination of Jews, only in Poland there was not and there is not such a group."

Neither did the Catholic Church change its prewar attitude to Jews. To be sure, there was quite a number of monasteries which harboured Jewish children, there were priests who were helping those in hiding. The priests at large however, particularly in the provinces, persisted in reminding their flock that Jews had crucified Jesus, and in instilling in them the belief in Jewish ritual murders prey to which Christian children fell. Neither did the priests encourage their parishioners to help; on the contrary, they warned the faithful off and discouraged them from succouring Jews.

The position of the Polish emigre government in France (which moved to London, then), regarding national minorities in general, was clear. From the beginning of the occupation, the declarations of government-in-exile representatives assured minorities that in the future, reborn Poland they would enjoy full national development and protection of the law.

Inasmuch however as the majority of underground formations were set up early, their evolution into a uniform machinery, the division of labour and mutual subordination had taken a long time before they finally took shape. The relevant decisions were the prerogative of the government-in-exile, but its own opinions basically differed from those held by "the country," i.e. the ZWZ/AK and political parties (the latter had their counterparts in London). "The country" insisted on the formation by the ZWZ/AK of the exclusive, nationwide military-political-administrative structure, while the government demanded the separation of civilian (superior) and military powers. The government wanted the civilian organization to represent it at home.

For long the situation was all the more complex that there was not one concept what that London representation should be like. One day it was "the country," the other the government who put forward new proposals and demands. First dealt with was the possibility that the representation would consist of delegates of one of the existing socio-political organizations, next, that it would be formed by delegates of the larger parties (the so-called joint representation). Then, despite the objections of "the country," the government resolved to appoint three separate representations: for the central territories, i.e. those of the General Gouvernement (GG) set up by Germans, for the western territories, annexed to Germany, and for those occupied by the Soviets. It was only in 1942 that ultimately the concept of one representative (delegat) prevailed. Controversies arose moreover about many detailed issues, which caused frictions between the strong ZWZ/AK and for long the weak Delegatura representation, and also between opposing parties. Representatives of the latter made up an influential PKP Political Understanding Committee, recognized as the representation of the people, as the substitute for parliament. The Committee advised, first, the ZWZ/AK Headquarters, and, from 1942, the Government Representative.

Appointments policy was another matter in dispute. When at the end of 1940 the Government appointed the Labour Party-connected Cyryl Ratajski its first delegate (to the GG alone), while the PKP wanted to have an SL representative in this post, the PPS/WRN put a boycott on Ratajski.

It is only the year 1942 that can be recognized as the one when the underground movement in Poland took root and grew stronger. In that year, too, the London-based government spent considerably more money on "the country," on the Government Representation in particular. Inasmuch as, for example in 1941/42 civilian and political organizations received a mere DM 900,000 (which was very little considering the need to establish the Representation's machinery, communication with London, etc.), in 1942/43 the sum of the transfer increased to DM 3 million and U.S.$ 3 million. That made it possible to carry on with organizational and administrative operations, but also to undertake, for instance, more intensive welfare activities, including relief for Jews.

At this point one should add that any earlier relief for ghettos was virtually impossible. It would require not only huge sums of money which the Government representation did not have, but also throwing transports of food across the ghetto walls. All sorts of smugglers bribed the German police to throw food across the walls, yet that was not the method to be used by the Polish underground. Jews understood that. Neither Emanuel Ringelblum in his Kronika getta warszawskiego nor any other diarist had any reservations about Polish underground's behaviour in this respect. The only thing the underground movement could do was to help those ghetto runaways who found themselves within the sphere of underground activities.

translated by Maria Chmielewska-Szlajferowa

Teresa Preker

Konspiracyjna Rada Pomocy Żydom w Warszawie 1942 - 1945
[Underground Relief Council for Jews in Warsaw 1942-1945]

IV. CHARGES AND FUNDS

People Entrusted to the Care of the Relief Council for Jews (RPŻ)

Both alliances and parties who belonged to the Council and delegated their old activists, collaborators or their own people in general, as well as organizations engaged in aiding Jews in their own capacity, had a say on the selection of the Council's charges. Those organizations relieved the RPŻ of care about the people already on the relief fund or on other forms of aid.

Those to provide most generous aid to their fellow-citizens were the Jewish organizations who collected funds from their head offices abroad. More often than not the scopes of activities of the RPŻ, the ŻKN Jewish National Committee and Bund coincided if not overlapped.

Initially the boundaries of their activities were more distinct. Jewish organizations assisted their own members, their own "activists" primarily. In the report Bund wrote to London on 15 November 1943, it communicated it was going to allocate the funds raised so far "to the keeping of several hundred comrades, their families, flats, to supplies of clothes, underwear, footwear, medicines, shelters (if necessary), to the redeeming of prisoners, and to the paying of extortion money." In its own report from the same day, ŻKN, too, admitted that out of the sum of 3 million złoty spent on charity between January and September 1943, nearly a half, i.e. 1.3 million złoty, went to members of ŻKN's own organizations.

When however the ŻKN was distributing the Council's funds, it allocated money to unassociated Jewish population. In the letter dated 16 June 1943, Feiner wrote:

"Members of our group have not and do not avail themselves of the Council's funds set aside for our charges. The sums the Council disburses to me personally are distributed solely among people who do not belong to our group."

Later however, even when distributing the Bund money, both Berman and Feiner stopped supporting members of their parties so earnestly. Maybe that was due to larger funds available and, maybe, because of the intentions of the grantors (who perceived the ŻKN and Bund leaderships not merely as representatives of definite political orientations but as the only existing Jewish underground organizations through whom they could reach all those in hiding). In memos from 1944, both groups emphasized (which they had not done before) aid given to unassociated persons. And thus, in March 1944 Bund advised the Government Plenipotentiary that it had provided for "about 2,000 charges (people who do not at all belong to our organization)," and the ŻKN, in its report to London, dated 24 May 1944, stated that members of the political parties organized in the Committee received only 15 per cent of the disbursed sums.

From the beginning, the problem of party membership or organizational ties of the Council's charges was of no consequence at all: the Council helped all those who managed to get in contact with it and who were most in need. The Council did not ask anyone of his/her political preferences.

Another line followed by the Jewish organizations--which they initially wanted to prompt to the Council, too--was that of saving, above all, "valuable representatives of public life and of the worlds of culture, science and art." Representatives of Bund and the ŻKN pursued that line at numerous Council meetings. There has remained the relevant letter from the Coordination Commission to the RPŻ, dated 8 February 1943. It reads:

"One should [...] raise that matter that a number of exemplary public activists, men of letters, etc. have been all that time living in the ghetto. [...] We deem it our and your duty to save from the Holocaust first of all social and political activists [...] One should realize the virtues of this group of people who represent the most valuable and noble succession of the Jewish centre in Warsaw."

Initially, the Council came in this regard under the influence of the Jewish organizations, but later it returned to the TKPŻ's conception of heeding just the needs of its charges, not their social position.

At the beginning there was a certain territorial "division of labour" between the Council and the Jewish organizations. The ŻKN and Bund concentrated rather on work within the ghettos' limits, on obtaining the release of individuals and groups of people therefrom, and on activities in the provinces, including attempts to reach concentration camps. The Council, for its part, looked, first and foremost, after Jewish refugees in the "Aryan" parts of towns.

In time, as Germans were liquidating ghettos and small Jewish centres in the provinces, the areas of the Coordinating Commission's and of the Council's activities overlapped each other increasingly. Talking to the Council's Rek and Berman on 28 October 1943, the Government Plenipotentiary "recommended marking more distinct boundaries of their sheltering operations in order to normalize relations between them and to avoid sparing the same money twice." That was however a request very hard to fulfil.

Acting on the assumptions put forward above, the Council took care of dependents representing different social and political circles. Some of those people had been led out of the ghetto by the ŻKN or Bund, and confided directly to the Council's care. The majority, however, had managed to escape on their own, and then, finding themselves on the "Aryan" side and seeking financial or legalization assistance, found their way to the AK Home Army cells or to political parties associated with the London camp. From those, the track--although not always fast and direct--led to the representation of the government-in-exile or directly to the Council. Council workers who learnt about other refugees when visiting provinces, tried, to the best of their abilities, to put those on the list of the Council charges, without even being asked to do so by the latter.

Finally, in the last category of charges were those Jews who had initially lived on their own savings or availed themselves of the hospitality of their Polish friends but at a certain moment had to apply for relief aid.

How many charges did the Relief Council for Jews have? This question is very difficult to answer as the RPŻ kept records of only one form of financial aid, the one they had to account for to the representatives of the government-in-exile (DR). But obviously other Council activities were of great significance to the Jewish population, too. Extent of those activities can be assessed only roughly, though.

Council activists believe that prior to the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, RPŻ aid, i.e. at least one of its forms (financial, legalization, housing, medical or aid given to children), was provided to several thousand people. Arczyński assesses their number at 50,000, Rek at 40,000.

As concerns Warsaw alone, the number of Jews seeking shelter outside ghetto at one time or another is estimated at 60,000 (such was also the tentative estimate Benedykt Hertz, a well-known writer and himself a former RPŻ charge, made in 1947). When the Warsaw Uprising broke out, about 30,000 Jews were hiding in the city according to Arciszewski, and about 20,000 according to Bartoszewski. It is impossible to establish how many of those people availed themselves of the RPŻ's help. Presumably many, especially as concerns the legalization of their documents.

As we have already said, the most visible form of aid, financial, was expressed in significantly more moderate numbers. According to various Council registers, this aid was provided:

in January-February 1943 to 200-300 people (in Warsaw)
in June 1943 to 1,000 people (in Warsaw)
in October 1943 to 1,000-1,500 people (also in the provinces)
in the fist half of 1944 to 3,000-4,000 people (also in the provinces).

As concerns Bund, until October 1943 it had been providing for mere "several hundred comrades." In Warsaw in March 1944, it had 2,000 charges against 3,000 looked after by the ŻKN. In May 1944, both these organizations supported 6,000 people. According to the ŻKN letter from December 1944, the number of Jews having received their relief aid prior to the Uprising went up to 6,500. Financial assistance offered by all three organizations (Bund, ŻKN and RPŻ) at the time, concerned about 12,000 people.

It is still more difficult to assess even roughly the number of Jews benefitting from the care of the Warsaw RPŻ after the collapse of the Uprising, when the rump Council functioned in Milanówek. Organizational chaos, uncertain future and the pace of political events were unpropitious for record keeping. We can only say that, because Jewish alliances had for quite some time not received money transfers from abroad, the Council's funds were allocated to all Jews who could be reached, no matter who had been taking care of them before.

Yet, there could not have possibly been too many of the Council charges. According to reports from the first days following the liberation, about as few as 2,700 people of Jewish origin had been hiding in Warsaw suburbs. On the left bank of the Vistula River, not yet liberated in December 1944 and therefore under the RPŻ's charge, there had been living no more than 1,500--1,800 people. Having obtained relatively large funds (14 million złoty within November and December), the Council earmarked them primarily to more substantial benefits provided to those people (which was necessary in the difficult post-Uprising circumstances and in view of a big rise in prices), the Council earmarked the remainder for the charges in the areas farther away from Warsaw, for example for labour camp prisoners, for Jewish children in evacuated orphanages, for ŻKN and Bund charges hiding in provincial villages, etc. It is not known how many people were able to live to see the end of the war owing to those last subsidies.

Raising Funds

Raising possibly largest funds was of basic and ever greater significance to the Council's performance nationwide, which was a result of the growing pauperization of both Jewish and Polish populations.

The Jews who were escaping ghetto in 1941 or who had from the beginning been living on the "Aryan" side, and who decided on that move usually had some prospect of survival: a chance to get a job (if their looks let them "pass" and if they were sufficiently assimilated to Polish society) or adequate savings. They could manage somehow, while the help they needed most involved the possession of "Aryan" documents, finding a job or accommodation, establishing contacts with the new environment, etc.

Seldom however were people living on their savings able to foresee how long these would have to last them and how steeply prices would rise. Financial reserves dwindled sooner than expected, whereas incidents of blackmail, of the finding out of secret flats, of arrest or death of the people who kept money could from day to day make death of starvation or of a lack of funds to pay for another shelter stare entire families in the face.

Equally difficult was the situation of people fleeing ghetto on the eve of or during the mass extermination campaign in the summer of 1942 or later. They were leaving ghetto penniless and without any prospects. They were not giving a thought to these when fleeing in deadly fear of extermination. But on the other side of the wall, a lack of financial resources meant a death sentence again.

At the same time, Polish population was becoming ever less in a position to come to their aid. In autumn 1939, Poles' earnings were frozen at the prewar level, to be stepped up only slightly in a later period. In 1942, average monthly wages of a blue-collar worker were 200 złoty. During the occupation, an office clerk made an average of 300 złoty--450 złoty a month, while pensions amounted to 150 złoty--200 złoty.

That certainly was not enough to live and maintain a family. People eked out their livelihood by smuggling, trading, baking cakes for restaurants and cafes and by doing various put-out jobs. Yet, even those extra incomes were not enough to check the growing poverty of the urban population. Only a small group of war profiteers did not have to fear poverty. Needless to say, Żegota activists did not belong to that group.

Meanwhile, market prices were rising by leaps and bounds. Taking July 1939 cost of living for 100, in February 1941 it was 425, and a year later--1,271. In 1943/1944, real wages of the Polish blue-collar worker fell to 8 per cent of the real prewar wages, while food rations did not exceed 16 per cent of the old consumption.

Rural areas were steadily falling into poverty, too, but at a slower pace. Larger estates got under German trusteeship. From the rest, peasant holdings included, Germans were appropriating increasingly large levies of grain and meat.

In those circumstances, more often than not those willing to help could not afford it. Especially that people in hiding diminished the possible helpers' chances to earn money. "The Jew is a little child who cannot take a step on its own," wrote Emanuel Ringelblum. "A little child" who had to be fed and whose various needs had to be fulfilled. That cost a lot, restricted one's freedom of movement and created additional complications.

The book Ten jest z ojczyzny mojej cites many relevant examples. For instance, Feliks Cywiński, who was hiding several Jews in his flat, writes:

"Where did we derive means of subsistence? It depended. At the beginning, Finkielsztein had some money. Initially, everyone of us had something valuable: a ring, a watch, some remnants of family jewels. [...] When this money ran out, I sold my house in Mickiewicza Street in Brwinów, and thus we pulled through to the Warsaw Uprising. Food had to be bought in small quantities lest anyone should wonder what a single man like me needed so much food for. I carried it in a brief-case, in tiny parcels, in pockets. It was necessary to bring successive portions several times a day. The purchase and delivery of food was very much time-consuming."

When one day Mr. Cywiński (himself a graduate engineer) found himself in difficulties, he went to an old regiment comrade of his. "Antoni Polny," Cywiński remembers, "had a basement upholstery shop in Mokotowska Street." As Cywiński's flat was no longer safe, Polny "agreed to close his shop for a time, under the pretext of overhauling it," and to take Jews to his place.

Another example: Mrs. Janina Szandorowska, whose colonel husband was abroad, was running a small, five-room pension in 11 Wielka Street. The pension was to provide for her and for her three children attending clandestine classes. However, as an increasing number of her guests were Jews (who often were penniless), the older children not only had to abandon studies to help their mother at home, but also to find a paid job. It was not the pension which provided for them, but they who provided for the pension.

Sylwia Rzeczycka, for her part, writes (p. 422):

"I know of Mrs. Ksenia Madej who took a Jewish child, Alicja Auerbach, under her roof. She kept her in hiding for six [?] years. Mrs. Madej could not practise as a nurse in her own flat, because the child had Semitic looks."

The examples of similar behaviour were many.

The RPŻ was aware of the general, increasingly difficult situation, of the need for ever greater assistance to both the Jews remaining in hiding and--sometimes--to their keepers. Therefore the Council recognized amassing as much money as possible to be its most important task.

***

According to preliminary assumptions, put forward by the Council's Interim Presidium in December 1942, the "funds' basis" were to be:

"a) budgetary funds allocated by the Government in London,"

b) "another, additional, source should be earmarked funds collected at home and abroad."

Collecting funds in the country was initially a major source of financing the TKPŻ aid campaign. The Council resolved to carry on with the money raising but as merely a supplementary activity. In practice, however, the Council gave it up whatsoever. The widespread impoverishment of the public did not promise gathering any more substantial sums this way. Instead, the people involved in helping Jews could only run into an even greater danger.

This way RPŻ became the organization engaged solely in sparing, not in raising, money. The funds at the Council's disposal were from the State Treasury. At times the Council received subsidies--directly or indirectly--from international Jewish organizations.

All money from the West, sent by the Government in London or, through its mediation, by international organizations, was air-dropped. The air drops were picked up by special groups of the Home Army whose liaison officers delivered them to Warsaw, to the AK section called "Imports." From there the money set aside for the Government Representation and for Jewish organizations was transferred to the Representation's Finance Department which spared it according to the list earlier radioed to them from London.

This apparently was a difficult and very dangerous route. Not all airplanes reached the appointed place, some of them had to turn back to their bases, others were downed by the Germans. Out of the nearly 860 flights to Poland, organized in wartime England, only about 480 managed to parachute the supplies they were carrying; 63 of them did not return to their home airports, while 11, out of 345, paratroopers dropped over Poland suffered death. Fifty per cent of the money transfers are supposed to have been seized by Germans, still before they fell into the hands of AK soldiers waiting for them.

And how much money did Germans seize later, already from Polish liaison officers and guards [?]? Data is not available. But considering the war conditions, no-one can doubt that both financial losses as well as casualties were suffered along the route between the place where the supplies were to be dropped and their addressee. All the same, the maintenance of this communications route was the necessary condition of the existence of a good many underground institutions and organizations.

The entire budget of, for example, the Representation, with the RPŻ funds being its integral part, was based on airdrop money. On the motion of the director of the Department of Internal Affairs, the Government Plenipotentiary decided how large those funds should be. The decision-makers took into consideration the current reserves which were usually affected by the more or less regular inflow of money from London. The Government Plenipotentiary did not devise a fixed budget plan for the Council. He made the amount of money available dependent on the possibilities and needs, and also on the creation by the RPŻ of an efficient distribution machinery.

Minutes of many meetings show the Council striving for increasingly big subsidies; the relevant letters and memorials addressed to the Government Representative and to London make up about 50 per cent of the correspondence preserved. The RPŻ fought a particularly fierce struggle for subsidies in the initial period of its existence, and then in the autumn of 1943 and in spring 1944.

When the Council was being set up, the Representation allocated to it 300,000 złoty for the months of January and February 1943. Nevertheless, already on 12 January the Council applied for an extra 150,000 złoty it needed to take care of 330 people in the Lublin province, and to launch more energetic legalization and accommodation campaigns. But before the Representation had time to grant the application and to pay the money (which took place in February), the developments in the ghetto had prompted the Council to lodge another appeal. The letter from the Council, dated 31 January, shed full light on the grim situation: the Nazi attempt at another extermination campaign on 18 January 1943 was so fiercely resisted by the Jews that it had to be abandoned. Germans were however likely to wage it again. Taking advantage of the temporary cessation, lots of people escaped from the ghetto every day. To help them survive, the Council asked for "an appropriation of at least 500,000 złoty for this purpose."

This time it took the Representation several weeks to consider the Council's request which was not fully granted, after all. In the letter dated 4 March, the Jewish Department advised the RPŻ that its "allocation [...] is hereby raised to 250,000 złoty a month."

The news, read out to the Council's meeting on 25 March 1943, aroused the indignation of Council members. On their behalf, Rek and Feiner prepared a new, very sharp memorandum in which they stated that an allocation so grossly incommensurate to the needs, made any concerted relief action impossible. If, as a consequence, "the usefulness of the Committee's [i.e. the Council's] existence is brought in question, the DR is the one to bear the whole blame for that."

Even though "Jan" began the next meeting (on 1 April 1943) with the declaration of increasing the Council's budget to 500,000 złoty a month (it was actually increased to 400,000 złoty a month), the memorandum was all the same read out, accepted and handed over to him as to the DR representative. Next, the Council sent to the Representation and to delegates of member-alliances sitting on the Political Understanding Committee (PKP) a statement of the necessary expenditures planned for March and April (to the tune of 600,000 złoty and 1 million złoty respectively) and of the allocations actually received. From that statement it resulted that the allocations covered the budget estimate in about a mere 40 per cent (cf. Annex, record 9).

While the Council and DR were arguing about money, on 19 April 1943 the Warsaw Ghetto revolted. The Government Representation responded to it immediately by (without being asked) granting a single, extra allocation of 500,000 złoty, on the distinct reservation, however, that the money should be spent solely on relief purposes.

At that time the Council did not confine itself to seeking more money from the Government Plenipotentiary alone. The Council realized that the Government Representation did not have any substantial funds to dip into. Only London had greater financial abilities. Therefore, while requesting an increase of several hundred thousand złoty, the Council applied at the same time to the minister of social welfare for a direct, continuous subsidy--not foreseen in the budget--to the tune of 6 million--8 million złoty a month.

In the first relevant memorandum from January 1943, the Council explained in detail why they were making such huge demands: "... to provide for [Jewish], usually orphaned children alone, who were upwards of 10,000 (i.e. 10 per cent of their previous number), assuming 500 złoty a month per child, it is necessary to secure about 5 million złoty a month." When all was said and done, the Council was to aid several hundred people nationwide. "Substantial and immediate help is indispensable [...] every delay of this action is tantamount to new casualties, to new graves of the murdered people." (Cf. Annex, record 6.)

Although the RPŻ did not overestimate the needs of the severely tried Jewish community, it is nevertheless doubtful whether it would have been able to satisfy those needs had it even had sufficient funds at its disposal. To take over and hide from Germans 10,000 children required a much better developed machine than the one the Council could build within a month it was set up. Even after several months of operation, such campaign would have stood no chance of succeeding. But they were not confronted with the challenge. The government did not provide aid generous enough, presumably by the same reason why it could not finance, for example, the campaign to rescue the 30,000 displaced children from the Zamość province. It was only the unorganized Polish population who tried somehow to help them.

The uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto induced the Council to intensify their endeavours. Referring to Prime Minister Sikorski's radio address on 5 May 1943, in which he appealed to society to come to the aid of Jews, seven days later, once again, the RPŻ requested funds "indispensable to the establishment of such relief centres, to assisting the victims in a regular fashion, not by fits and starts [...] to reaching every place [...] where it is still possible to deliver a man from criminals." The Government in London passed over also this request in silence. The Council had to face the fact that its budget would remain merely a part of the budget of the Government Representation.

In the next few months, cooperation between the Council and the Government Representation, at least as regards finance, developed. At the RPŻ's request, dated 10 May 1943 --this time with the total support of the DR Jewish Department--the Government Plenipotentiary allocated 150,000 złoty a month to district Councils in Cracow and Lwów, which was a great relief to the budget of the Warsaw Council. A certain (although initially insignificant) relief sent by Bund and the ŻKN helped meet the most urgent needs. It was only in the middle of August 1943 that the Council asked again for increased allocations (from 400,000 złoty to 750,000 złoty to Warsaw, and from 150,000 złoty to 250,000 złoty to the provinces.)

The moment however was not favourable as just then control of the Council spending revealed the use of the April allocation out of keeping with the Representation's instructions, i.e. not on charity alone. (The problem of the Council's position regarding the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto is more widely discussed in one of the following chapters.) That fact shook confidence of the Representation who itself was in acute financial difficulties at the time. Thus, it did not even respond to the Council's memorandum. The next letter, from 9 September 1943, fell through, too. In this one, the Council had substantiated its August demand with information about the development of its machinery.

Although the RPŻ was aware that its relations with the DR got cooler, it did not give up. Its third letter (dated 8 October) gave a broad outline of the dire situation of the remnants of the Jewish community in order to stress the urgency of their appeal to the Government Plenipotentiary to enable the Council to perform its duties. The situation was critical. "If we do not find adequate resources now, the whole relevant aid can prove belated and useless," wrote the Council. Moreover, Council records mention that at the same time it asked the WRN Wolność, Równość, Niepodległość [Liberty, Equality, Independence] and the SL Peasant Alliance to plead the Jewish cause.

Finally, on 28 October 1943 a meeting took place between representatives of the RPŻ and the Government Plenipotentiary, Jan Stanisław Jankowski. The others to attend were Director Leopold Rutkowski of the Department of Internal Affairs, and Witold Bieńkowski. Tadeusz Rek and Adolf Berman, who represented the Council, gave a precise outline of its difficult situation: because of a lack of funds it was unable to provide care for all those seeking help, meanwhile the allowance for the Council's old charges had to be reduced from 500 złoty to 300 złoty--350 złoty per person. The clothes of thousands of people were wearing off, which was particularly ominous in the face of the coming winter. Berman said that after the Germans had murdered 3 million Jews, "there remained hardly 250,000--300,000 [Jews] living in terrible conditions... The Council however offered help to no more than 1,000--1,500 people."

After a long discussion on Żegota's various problems, Janicki increased the Council's budget to 750,000 złoty in November and December, and to 1 million złoty as of January 1944. He announced moreover that, through the mediation of the emigre government, the International Union of Jews in America had contributed, without indicating any specific addressee, U.S. $25,000, out of which however it had assigned $2,000 to the peasants displaced from the Lublin province, and $23,000 to the Jews in hiding on the "Aryan" side. The Government Plenipotentiary resolved to transfer these $23,000 to the Council.

This way RPŻ not only got an increase in its regular allocation but also a considerable single shot of cash. Reporting on the course of the meeting to a Council meeting, Berman said, "As regards our financial position, the Council has reached a turning-point. Now it shall be able to work as it had wanted to work from the very beginning."

The Council Presidium arranged in detail for the distribution of the amounts obtained, planning expenditures for the next three months. The increased allocations from the Government Representation, the appropriation of the extra pay and the payments promised by Bund and the ŻKN made together more than 5 million złoty which they decided to pay to their charges throughout November and December 1943 and January 1944. The Council resolved to take care of all new people in need, to grant a 200 złoty winter extra to all charges, both the old and the new ones, and to keep the basic allowance to the tune of 500 złoty per person.

In practice however, the Council did not succeed in providing help to all those in need: although the funds available allowed them to raise the number of the Council's charges to 3,500, it turned out that the number of the needy was larger than that. It is difficult to establish how many persons did not enlist aid as some Council records mention 500 and others--1,000 people.

Still, that relative freedom of action lasted through January, then, all of a sudden, it stopped. Upon exhausting the extraordinary grant, the Council's budget was reduced from 2 million złoty to 1,3 million złoty. Again, the RPŻ cut the allowances, this time by 20 per cent, it restricted every other spending, and, again, applied to the Government Representation for increasing its allowance to 2 million złoty a month and for an extra, single allowance to the amount of 350,000 złoty to pay off the arrears.

Yet, the Government Representation's financial condition did not allow for such an increase. To make things worse, Bund and ŻKN, who had for a time not received any foreign transfers, announced payment cuts. In March 1944, only Bund paid its contribution, after all. The Government Representation was advised that allowances for the Council charges were reduced by another 20 per cent.

The situation was made somewhat less painful by the seasonal drop in "free-market" prices: compared to April 1943, prices for bread, flour and cereals fell 44 per cent, and for meat and fat by 10 per cent. This fact notwithstanding, the Council and Jewish organizations found themselves in a very inauspicious situation. Bieńkowski, who comprehended the seriousness of the situation, became very active at the time, sending one memorandum after another to his superiors in the DR. Other Representation employees and AK activists (e.g. Aleksander Kamiński, editor of Biuletyn Informacyjny) also tried to raise money for the "Jewish section."

At long last, on 5 April 1944, the Government Plenipotentiary received Council representatives (this time Feiner and Arczyński). When reporting on that meeting to the other Presidium members, Arczyński said that the "DR sees very clearly the needs of the Council, and will fill them as much as the resources at the Representation's disposal will allow it." His comforting view on the situation was probably based on the fact that the Council was granted an extra allowance of 500,000 złoty and promised larger grants in the next months to come.

Yet, the promise was not carried out either in May or, as it seems, in June. There is no record saying that the grant was obtained. On the other hand, on 24 June 1944 the Council asked to be heard by the Government Plenipotentiary whom they wanted to brief, among other things, "on the Council's disastrous finances and on its urgent needs in this regard."

It is not known whether the relevant meeting took place, but in July, the Council's allowance was increased to 2 million złoty a month. The Council received moreover a single grant to the amount of 3 million złoty. That sum probably was the first instalment of a larger subsidy as in its telegram from 19 July the Government in London instructed the DR to pay the Council U.S. $95,000 (about 9 million złoty) transferred by Joint, and in the next telegram, dated 27 July, to hand over U.S. $50,000 appropriated to the RPŻ from the Polish state budget in virtue of the specific resolution of the Council for the Rescue of the Jewish Population in Poland (Rada do Spraw Ratowania Ludności Żydowskiej w Polsce). Yet, the Council had not managed to collect even that first instalment before the Warsaw Uprising broke out.

Needless to say, in the period between August and October 1944, the RPŻ did not obtain any grant. When it undertook its activities anew in Milanówek, it received from the DR the November instalment plus the back payments for the past three months, i.e. a joint amount of 8 million złoty. In the next month, because the Council had insisted on it, together with the December payment, the Council received also a subsidy for two months in advance (till February inclusive), i.e. 6 million złoty.

These payments notwithstanding, in its telegram from 4 December, the Government in London ordered to remit to the RPŻ U.S. $100,000 from "American Jewish organizations." That sum was to be allocated to the Cracow Council as to the one functioning in the largest urban centre.

To those $100,000, apparently a part of the summer subsidy was added, because already at the beginning of January 1945 the Cracow Council was advised that it was granted a total sum of $160,000. The High Council sent a distribution list for this sum from Milanówek to Cracow on 16 January. Yet, from Arczyński's account it results that the money was not withdrawn.

Between July 1943 and June 1944, ŻKN and Bund, too, replenished the Council's budget. The latter two organizations were among the beneficiaries of foreign aid. The money came from international political and civic Jewish organizations, initially by the offices of the official Juedische Unterstuetzungstelle (JUS) in Cracow, later also through the Polish Government in London. From the end of 1942, the amount of transfers increased substantially. Inasmuch as the earlier correspondence of Jewish organizations mentions small sums (addressed to JUS), then, from October 1942 till August 1944, Polish commandoes parachuted from London carried about $420,000 (equivalent to ca 30 million złoty), and in a somewhat shorter period between July 1943 and July 1944- almost as much for the ŻKN.

This is from these sums that the Jewish organizations remitted (from July 1943 till June 1944) their monthly payments to the Council to the amount of 3.2 million złoty which made at the time about 20 per cent of the RPŻ's budget, and together with the single, direct foreign grant (in October 1943)--5.3 million złoty, i.e. about 33 per cent of the Councils' yearly budget. In the first six months of 1943 and in the third quarter of 1944, the Treasury was the only supplier of the Council funds, and in the last three months the Council gave up at least one third of what it had received to Jewish organizations.

Taking into consideration periods when state subsidies made 100 per cent, 67 per cent and 150 per cent of RPŻ's monthly budgets, one has to agree in general that the Council's two-year existence was more or less 90 per cent financed by the Polish government, and 10 per cent by Jewish organizations.

***

When reckoning the amounts of aid granted by international Jewish organizations to particular local organizations, it stands out that since autumn 1943, and especially since spring 1944, that aid became considerably more generous, and this not just in Poland, but in other countries under German occupation, as well. It was easier however to bear a helping hand to inhabitants of western than eastern or central Europe. For example, the underground Committee for the Defence of Jews in Belgium received considerable sums (running into millions of Belgian francs) from large banks of Brussels. The banks paid that money in form of loans world Jewish organizations were to pay back after the war.

Amounts Obtained by RPŻ (in thousand złoty)

Year Month DR grants Bund, ŻKN payments Foreign grants Total