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Bialystok Ghetto: Security Police Plans to Allow 30,000 Jewish Workers to Remain in Bialystok

(February-March 1943)

..The representative of the Security Police Commander stated at this discussion that it was not expected that there would be any further resettlement of Jews for the time being. The continued presence of 30,000 Jews in the ghetto was likely until the end of the war. This fact would have to be taken into account from the point of view of the economy, as the Reich Security Main Office ( Reichssicherheitshauptamt ) was expected to accede to this attitude of the local Security Police.

This created a new picture for the labor position and the maintenance of economic productivity.

1.The ghetto will remain, with new borders, but roughly the same size.

2.Factories situated within the ghetto would continue to operate, but with Jewish personnel.

3.Without any connection with the tasks of the city in the future peace, it is the target of the political and Security Police to have the 4,000 Jews outside the ghetto disappear [from the Aryan side] in the near future and work only in the ghetto....

The local Security Police intends to allow the ghetto to remain for the time being and in a certain size: the Reich Security Main Office in Berlin is to take a final decision in the matter in the course of the month.

Source: Yad Vashem Archives, M11/26.

* From documents dated February and March 1943, found in the Underground archives of the Bialystok ghetto.


Source: Yad Vashem