An account of the efforts of the Council to Aid Jews serving by the Government Proxy in the period between December 1942 and October 1943
October 23, 1943, Warsaw
a) Krakow district Council
b) Lviv district Council
c) Further efforts in the country (local department)
*The government-in-exile's delegation to Poland, a body representing the Polish authorities in England
1. The Council's formation
After the first effort to liquidate the Warsaw ghetto, in October of 1942, a committee of Polish organizations was formed in order to provide Jews, as victims of Nazi terror, with material aid. At the end of November and in December of 1942 a radical reorganization of the Committee took place, broadening its scope and intensifying its activity, […] and a Council to Aid Jews operating under the Government Delegation was formed.
2. The Council's organization and the scope of its operations
The council is an apolitical organization. Its goal is helping Jews (defined by the racist regulations*) as victims of Nazi terror. This help is to consist of financial aid, housing aid, legalization, help with finding jobs etc.
*Nazi regulations defining a “Jew”
3. Legalization* help
Jews are prohibited from staying anywhere other than ghettoes or camps, under death penalty. […] One of the most important things is the legalization of Jews. Regarding this issue, the Council has contacted the relevant, well organized [Underground] institution which is preparing the necessary documents, such as baptismal certificates, wedding licenses, Polish identity cards, and many others. […] The number of documents distributed by the Council comes up to several thousand in the period with which this report is concerned.
*Providing Jews with necessary “Aryan” documents
4. Financial help
The second crucial element of aid should be financial, monetary, because most of the people concerned, due to their non-Aryan looks, or fear of blackmail, are not able to earn money. The Council will provide this kind of help to anyone who will ask for it directly or indirectly through relevant organizations. The number of people benefiting from the Council's financial aid, initially 200 to 300, has recently increased to about 1,000 people per month.
5. Housing department
The third important element of aid – perhaps the most important – helps with providing housing. One's life has often depended and still depends on having a roof over one's head […] the housing issue is the hardest one to resolve. […] Buying independent apartments turned out to be impractical, because after a blackmail effort these rooms would become useless. Acquiring rooms to sublet also turned out to cause difficulties which could not be resolved by the Council, due to the high prices of these rooms and the lack of financial resources. [...]
6. The anti-sabotage effort
A big plague, which we can even call a social catastrophe, is the spread of the blackmail of a significant number of Jews living in the Aryan neighborhoods. The victims are brutally robbed of everything they own, of cash, valuables, clothes, underwear and other precious items.
As a result, victims of blackmail lose their apartments and become a burden for their families, friends and when these people cannot help them they are forced to apply for aid to the Council. […] Thus the Council has been turning to the Government Delegation with numerous appeals for quick and systematic blackmail prevention, asking for an official decree (to be announced on posters) of the Government Proxy declaring that blackmailers and their helpers receive the death penalty for their crimes. Moreover, the Council itself published flyers where it chastised the aforementioned crimes, calling on the Polish community to help Jews as the victims of the Nazi terror and to fight sabotage. Finally, the Council has been providing data to the Special Courts about the incidents of blackmail.
7. The propaganda department
The Council has established the department in order to influence society, by means of relevant literature, and to provide Jews - as victims of the Nazi extermination policies - with aid. In order to do this, the Council published four series of flyers, with three of them to the Polish community, totaling a print run of 25,000, and one in German, with 5,000 flyers. The flyers were distributed among houses and put up on the walls of Warsaw and smaller cities. [...]
8. The Children's Department
The Council established a special department charged with taking care of orphans and other Jewish children in need and placing them with families and orphanages. The aforementioned department has managed to place 20-30 children and sees the potential and need for more such work.
9. The medical department
Due to the danger of being discovered associated with the illnesses of the “wards” and other Jews, the Council decided to establish a medical department, which is currently being formed and will start functioning soon. It will be composed of trusted doctors, aware of the special character of their work, in different parts of the city – some of them will even be working on a voluntary basis.