Bialystok Ghetto: Appeal for Contributions by the Judenrat in Bialystok

Brothers and Sisters!

We appeal to you before the autumn and winter come and with them winds, cold and snow.

The urgent task awaits us of supplying the necessary daily needs of those who were burned out and are without a roof over their heads,* as well as of orphanages, children's homes, homes for the aged, hospitals and other institutions. Most important, we must find warm clothes and shoes for them, to protect them as far as possible from colds and infectious diseases, which are a grave danger for all of us.

In order to ward off these threats, the Judenrat announces a widely based collection campaign. Jews, remember that we have no one to rely on except ourselves alone.

Time is short and the need is terribly great, and because of that we must spare from ourselves whatever we can and give it to the campaign.

Please, therefore, receive our collectors with the warmth they deserve, and respond immediately and with a Jewish warmth of heart.

Let us ease from our own resources, if only by a little, the suffering in the winter days! Let the danger of epidemics be prevented!

Ask the collectors for receipts signed by the Judenrat.

Judenrat

Bialystok, September 8, 1941

Source: N. Blumental, Darko shel Judenrat - Te'udot mi-Getto Bialystok ("Conduct and Actions of a Judenrat - Documents from the Bialystok Ghetto"), Jerusalem, 1962, p. 330.

* The reference is to persons whose houses were burned down.

Source: Yad Vashem - Eclipse of Humanity