Question about Warsaw Ghetto (shared building?) and Monument

From another forum, can anyone help?

In the film The courageous heart of Irena Sendler. They show children being walked through what seems to be a german police station / justice court. This would make sense that it had an entrance on both sides of the wall. The only place I could think it could have been is Pawiak, but to my knowledge this place was in the heart of the ghetto.

Here is a extract from the account of Irene Sendler

There was a church next to the ghetto. Naturally, its entrance leading to the ghetto was "sealed", but if a child could speak perfect Polish and rattle off Christian prayers it could be smuggled in through the "sealed" entrance and later be taken out through the Christian entrance on the Aryan side. In that way children came in as Jewish and out as Christians. It was this "conversion" that Jolanta/Irena documented on the strips of paper she had buried, as well as where the child was taken in the first phase of its escape.

The Law Courts building had an entrance from the Aryan side on Ogrodowa Street, and for the Jewish side on Leszno Street. I've never seen a picture of it.

The main court building on what is now Solidarnosci (was then Leszno) was surrounded by the ghetto but was not technically in the ghetto.

Go here:
getto.pl/index.php?mod=plan

Go four accross and four down and click in the center of that quadrant. You will be on ul.Ogrodowa. The street above is Leszno and 53/55 - the courts building. Today, it's Al.Solidarnosci 127.

This route is mentioned often in memoirs. Few photos though.

Today's and during the war photos can be seen here:
zdzislawsztorm.salon24.pl/160193,niezwykla-historia-sadow-na-lesznie

The view from Ogrodowa is on the lower photo here and the front on Leszno:
warszawa.wikia.com/wiki/S%C4%85dy_na_Lesznie

There is some great information here, thanks.

Ghetto photos by streets: kolejkamarecka.pun.pl/viewtopic.php?id=701

If you do go there, remember that Warsaw's best pizza place is directly across the street from it now.

Go to the theatre Piwnica at old Leszno 13. Here is a funny blog, Harry. A guy from Brooklyn searches his roots:


So he goes there.


canttakebrooklynout.blogspot.com/2010/05/13-leszno-street-warsaw.html

Merged: Ghetto monument sparks controversy in Warsaw

Personally, I think the monument is very touching and a good idea. `it's certainly sparked off a debate though.


Full article here`: news.yahoo/polands-mixed-feelings-over-memorial-rescuers-jews-111217283.html

I've got to say - if I were Polish and reading that article, I'd probably get quite defensive too.

Anyway, if the Chief Rabbi is happy, what's the issue?

Exactly. Remember it's Poland, where arguments are almost the national sport.

You're not going to please everyone! I'm Jewish and I still feel that embattled Poland nonetheless deserves credit for stepping up to the plate and even constructing such a monument in the first place! Somebody's bound to feel slighted; the gentiles aren't honored sufficiently, they are offended, the Jews aren't given their due, then they feel put out:-)

Merged: Polish monument to Roma Holocaust victims destroyed

This really sickens me. The really sad thing is that given the atmosphere the 18% regime are encouraging, this kind of disgrace is going to become far far more commonplace.


Full article: thenews/1/9/Artykul/249912,Polish-monument-to-Roma-Holocaust-victims-hacked-up

That's absolutely disgusting. PiS are embracing the nationalists, and I suppose we can now expect weekend warriors to patrol Poland, destroying anything that doesn't conform with their view of what Poland is.

Is this what you people really want?

Tweedy, Poland is following Europe's example after all. Moment - don't make me laugh in Germany alone 290 people were killed due to real racism in years 1990- 2014. Trump that kmiocie.

Slandering a political party for that is just something that can be expected, not that here is any basis for it.

Incorrect. Between 75 and 178, depending on whom you ask. That's a tiny fraction of the total number of homicides in Germany since 1990. I'd bet the same is true for Poland.

That nearly breaks my heart. Nearly, because there had been dozens of similar incidents in Poland (and thousands across EU) when your beloved 18.1% previous regime was in charge and somehow it didn't make you post these things at PF.

Wait until we start seeing Macierewicz's brownshirts on the streets...

I have been researching the Holocaust in Poland for the last seven years and some things become obvious. One is that about 70% of Jews in Poland could not speak Polish, even after living there for a thousand years. They had a different dream from Poles; that of a Holy Land. Therefore they were not nationalistic about Poland. Many of the Jews were Socialists at a time when Poland was regaining its identity as a nation. Jews were particularly hard to rescue. Those Gentile Poles who did what they could - and remember - rescue only really started in 1942 when it became obvious to the Jews that elimination was in progress. Being divided by the ghetto walls made it hard for the ordinary Pole to see what was going on. And, remember, that Hitler had plans to exterminate the Polish people as well by mass shooting, mass starvation and other horrific ways.Many Poles thought the Jews were better off in the ghetto as they weren't being subjected to the same horrors the Gentiles were.

@JHarrison
Where did you get the info that 70% of Polish Jews didn't speak Polish?

wyciągnął z dvpy?

translation (from his cornhole?)

@mafketis
Czyjej? :)

I dont know about 70% but some surely didnt,my Hasidic realtor and his current wife were in teens when they escaped from Poland and cant even say a simple Polish word.They admit that they never learnt Polish.

@kaprys

czy to ważne? chyba z pierwszej lepszej....


maybe very orthodox didn't (it's my understanding that orthodox jews in NYC still don't speak English at home) but more integrated Jews surely did

Yes I lived in Bensonhurst and Williamsburg decades back.
Plenty of them in my next town called Lakewood,you can hear Hebrew all day long and Friday evening to Sunday morning the town looks like a ghost town and suddenly on sunday those hats and black suits all over the town,I am lucky I got out of business from that town 16 years back.That town has the highest Virus and death rates in my county also.Maybe because they usually have over 10 members in a family or more.

Surely you mean Yiddish, very orthodox Jews view Hebrew as too important/sacred to use for everyday affairs.

Even in Israel the very orthodox use Yiddish at home and only use Hebrew during services (or when they have to in public).

@mafketis
That wasn't a real question. Your comment made me laugh.
The fact is that Jews lived among Poles so very few didn't speak Polish if any.

Think of diaries from ghettos and how many of them were actually in Polish.
Just like Roma people, just because they speak their language at home, it doesnt mean they're not fluent in Polish.

It seems that non-Orthodox or secular Jews and Poles were far more mixed than say Jews and Russians (with the weird nationality laws).

The extremely orthodox tended (as they still tend) to self-segregate and so knowledge of Polish among them would be more limited...