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When Poland was under Nazi occupation the larger ghettos were allowed to have a 'Jewish Council' (Judenrat) which then had to be appointed by the Nazis. The members of these councils soon found themselves in an impossible position. They had to organize the distribution of food, police the ghettos, and later they had to give the Nazis lists of people to be deported to death camps. Jewish councils were also set up in many other countries under Nazi rule. The initial attraction of these councils to Jews was that it was preferable for things like food distribution and policing to be done by fellow Jews than by the SS.
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∙ 14y ago
Wiki User
∙ 12y agoJewish councils
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What where judenrates?
During WWll (1939-1945) the Jewish people, at great risk, were trying to maintain their culture, religion, and community. The Nazis, fearing this, established the Judenrate to maintain control over the growing Jewish population in the ghettos. These were Jewish Councils that were to assist in the Nazi plans toward the "Final Solution" of the Jewish issue. The leaders of the Judenrate understood they were to interact between the German state and the Jewish community. This created real dilemmas as the Jewish administration under a German government could not help but become a Nazi tool. How the Jews faced this dilemma varied from ghetto to ghetto but two common patterns emerged-compliance and resistance. (interesting side fact: The word Aryan [which by German definition was the "master race"] has no actual racial meaning. It is strictly used in reference to speakers of long-ago Indo-European languages and has nothing to do with ethnicity or physical type. Hitler misused the term to refer to Caucausians of the Nordic type.)
