- 6/15/2025
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
01:00What would you do?
01:03Would you fight and die a swift heroic death?
01:06Or would you negotiate and attempt to keep your people alive as long as humanly possible?
01:11Germany!
01:14Thank you!
01:15That was the terrifying dilemma facing this man.
01:22Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski.
01:27Rumkowski ran one of the biggest Jewish ghettos in Poland during World War II.
01:31Time and again, he was asked to hand over his own people for deportation to the death
01:39camps.
01:40But Romkowski believed that by cooperating with the Germans, he might be able to save
01:47at least some of his people.
01:55But did that make him a fall guy for the Nazis?
02:00Was he a collaborator, a Jew who betrayed his fellow Jews, or was he a skillful negotiator,
02:08doing his best for his people?
02:10Anyone who was holding that post would have to do what the German wanted him to do.
02:16There was no other option.
02:19Anybody who was holding that position would have to do it, unless you decided to commit
02:25suicide yourself and you say, no, I'm not doing it.
02:28That was the only alternative he could do.
02:47In Poland in the 1930s, the city of Łódź had one of the biggest Jewish communities in Europe.
02:56One of its leading citizens was Mordechai Chaim Romkowski.
03:08Born in Russia, he was already an old man as the prospect of a Second World War grew closer.
03:19By the late 1930s, he had become the director of the largest orphanage in the city.
03:25It was considered one of the best and most enlightened in Poland.
03:35At that time, Romkowski was a prominent Jew in a country that was notorious for its anti-Semitic
03:40feelings that were rarely far from the surface.
03:48He'd managed to negotiate the best deal for his orphanage and it was a skill that he thought
03:52he could use for a new challenge that would be the greatest of his life.
03:57On September the 1st, 1939, German tanks rolled into the world.
04:27Poland.
04:33It was the beginning of World War II.
04:42The German army moved with ruthless speed and efficiency.
04:52Polish resistance crumbled.
04:58Within weeks, the entire country had been overwhelmed.
05:08The German frontline troops were soon followed by SS death squads sent in to kill and expel
05:13its so-called undesirables.
05:40Poland's large Jewish communities felt the effects immediately.
05:46Jewish cultural and social institutions were abolished.
05:57Jewish intellectuals and political leaders were rounded up and shot at random.
06:02The entire western half of Poland had been earmarked for annexation to Greater Germany.
06:15The plan was to kick out Jews, Gypsies and the Poles to make way for new German settlers.
06:30Just a week after the invasion of Poland, the Nazis stormed into Romkowski's hometown of Łódź.
06:36They were greeted by fanatical crowds of so-called Volksstuartse, ethnic Germans who lived outside
06:46their mother country, overwhelmed by the sight of their mother country, overwhelmed by the sight of the Nazis taking over their city.
06:52For the Jewish population of Łódź, it was a very different story.
07:08Attacks on them by the Nazis began almost immediately.
07:14The four main synagogues were burned to the ground.
07:20The Jews who could get out of the city did.
07:32But despite their overwhelming might, the Germans soon realised they had a problem in Łódź.
07:36There were simply too many Jews to be dealt with in the short term.
07:52The Nazis' solution to the problem was simple.
07:56If they couldn't expel the Jews, then they would be cleared out of the city and confined to a smaller, more manageable area on the outskirts.
08:14In the early months of 1940, the Jews of Łódź were violently evicted from their homes and moved to a slum area of the city's old town.
08:30By April 30th, 1940, the ghetto was surrounded by barbed wire and sealed off.
08:36Jews were forbidden to leave, outsiders were forbidden to enter.
08:56It was the first major Jewish ghetto of World War II.
09:06Helen Aronson is 84 and lives on her own in a quiet and secluded part of the country, just north of London.
09:27But she grew up close to the city of Łódź, in Poland.
09:40When war broke out, she was just 12 years old.
09:43As a member of a Jewish family who lived near the city, she was one of many who was rounded up by the Nazis and locked in the city's Jewish ghetto.
09:51It was a Saturday. It was a beautiful day. I believe there might have been about 8,000 Jewish people.
10:05The Polish Christian population were watching us. Nobody said anything.
10:12They were just watching and we were walking, walking, walking, walking.
10:23I held on to my mother and my brother.
10:29There were German soldiers with dogs.
10:36We just didn't know what was going to happen.
10:39After about an hour or so, we eventually arrived to Łódź ghetto.
10:59The Nazis wanted the day-to-day running of the ghetto to be taken care of by the Jews themselves.
11:04It was a convenient way to avoid tying up German manpower.
11:12The plan was to appoint one of the town's leading Jewish citizens to be the Nazis' main point of contact.
11:22The man they chose for the job as the Jewish leader of the ghetto was Chaim Romkowski.
11:27Well, he looked like a sort of grandfather. I mean, he was quite old.
11:35He was always very nice towards me.
11:39And whatever I asked him to do, sometimes for my mother or for my brother or whatever, he did it.
11:46It was enough to be seen with him that you were somebody because his powers were so great.
11:55Like the Queen of England.
12:00Once installed, Romkowski was expected to establish his own Jewish council,
12:04a group of prominent Jews who would run the ghetto's affairs.
12:10They had responsibility for providing work, food, housing and health services.
12:17It was a monumental task.
12:22The population of the ghetto when it was first established was almost a quarter of a million.
12:26But why did the Nazis come to choose Chaim Romkowski as their man to run the ghetto?
12:35His appearance may well have helped.
12:39He simply didn't look Jewish.
12:41He was perhaps the sort of Jew the Germans felt comfortable with.
12:46He was clean shaven, with piercing blue eyes.
12:48Romkowski also had experience of dealing with anti-Semitic authorities.
12:56But his new position as the head of Łódź Ghetto presented him with a terrible dilemma.
13:03Just how do you deal with an all-powerful enemy, hell-bent on the destruction of your people?
13:11If he failed to cooperate, the Germans would simply annihilate the Jewish population.
13:16But if he cooperated, he risked being labelled as a Nazi collaborator.
13:27It was a dilemma many Jewish leaders would face in the years to come.
13:31But none would be as controversial as Chaim Romkowski.
13:35The conditions in the ghetto provided a severe test of Romkowski's organisational abilities.
13:54What he'd inherited was like a living hell.
13:57The families were cramped in, for instance, ten, twelve people could live in one room.
14:08People, you saw walking people in the streets, who were real skeletons.
14:17And some of them just fell, died, there and then.
14:24There were people collecting the dead bodies.
14:38I mean, it was so difficult really to describe the conditions there, the illnesses there, the absolutely terrible, terrible conditions.
14:59New arrivals used to arrive.
15:13People from various parts of Europe, Czechoslovakia and Germany.
15:19They were told they were going for a holiday.
15:24People used to arrive in beautiful clothes, ladies in fair coats and hats and handbags.
15:30And suddenly they were faced with this place with walking skeletons and dying people in the street.
15:39And no food at all and terrible conditions.
15:44And I'm afraid that these people, because they were not so resilient, were dying very, very quickly.
15:52I feel that because of Rumkowski, who, when we were in the ghetto, he helped us in any way he could.
16:12Although pledging his help to those inside the ghetto, the problem Rumkowski faced was that the Germans had made it quite clear they had no interest in keeping the Jews alive.
16:31A German SS commander in Łódź, Friedrich Ubelhor, had written a memorandum shortly after the invasion of Poland.
16:43It is obvious that the establishment of the ghetto is only a temporary measure.
16:49I reserve for myself the decision as to when and how the city of Łódź will be cleansed of Jews.
16:55In any case, the final aim must be to burn out entirely this pestilent abscess.
17:08If the Jews of Łódź were to have any chance of surviving, Rumkowski desperately needed a plan.
17:17With almost a quarter of a million people confined to a small area with no farmland,
17:21provision of food very quickly became the most pressing problem.
17:29The Nazi commanders insisted that the ghetto pay for its own upkeep.
17:34But how could Jews who were locked away from the rest of society,
17:38and who had been stripped of all valuables, make enough money to pay for food and housing?
17:43Rumkowski's plan was to agree to every German demand on the grounds that if he didn't,
17:51the Germans would simply impose it, but with much greater bloodshed and brutality.
18:00And Rumkowski did have one major bargaining chip.
18:02He could tap into what he called a gold currency of the highest caliber, that is, the labor of Jewish hands.
18:15He set out to turn the ghetto into a huge work camp.
18:22Rumkowski wanted to make it indispensable,
18:24a cheap and lucrative source of supplies for the Nazi war machine.
18:35Rumkowski's next step was to outline his plan in a letter to Hans Bibov,
18:40the German official in charge of relations with the ghetto.
18:43There are in the ghetto 20,000 skilled workers.
18:49I could organize matters so that work would be done inside the ghetto,
18:53and the workers would turn the finished product over to the authorities.
18:59In this way, I hope I and my department would be permitted to balance the ghetto budget,
19:05support the poor and needy, protect the population from disease,
19:08and take care of all the other needs of the ghetto's Jewish inhabitants.
19:16His plan worked.
19:19Bibov was sympathetic to Rumkowski's suggestion.
19:24A cheap and controllable source of goods would not only help the German war machine,
19:28it might even further his own career.
19:34Rumkowski now began to put his master plan into action.
19:39During late 1940, new factories were set up in the ghetto.
19:44They included tailors, shoemakers, carpentry workshops and metal works.
19:52The ghetto's biggest customer was the German military,
19:55which was supplied with uniforms, boots, backpacks and even munitions.
19:59The Nazi high command even appeared to give it their blessing.
20:15In 1941, SS commander Heinrich Himmler inspected the ghetto.
20:18His conversation with Rumkowski was recorded by one of the inmates in his diary.
20:27How are you doing here? asked Himmler.
20:32Not badly, I think.
20:33I'm doing everything so that the ghetto will work more and work better.
20:38My motto is work, peace and order.
20:42Then go on working for the benefit of your brethren in the ghetto, retorted Himmler.
20:47It will do you good.
20:51And Rumkowski's achievements didn't end there.
20:53In his position as head of the ghetto,
21:05Chaim Rumkowski was effectively given a free hand to run it the way he wanted.
21:10He now set out to create what he believed would become a Jewish mini-state.
21:15He established a housing department to cope with chronic overcrowding
21:23and a welfare system to distribute relief to the needy.
21:27Conditions in Łódź were becoming better than in many other Jewish ghettos.
21:34Helen Aronson was a young girl in the ghetto.
21:37And the improvements were becoming apparent.
21:40This ghetto, this Łódź ghetto,
21:43was like a Jewish country.
21:47We had doctors.
21:49We had hospitals.
21:51We had police.
21:53We had entertainment.
21:55We had hairdressers.
21:57We had everything you can think of.
22:00And work.
22:02And the goods that were made and manufactured in that ghetto,
22:06it was amazing things that were made.
22:09Rumkowski managed to set up schools in the ghetto,
22:13the only one in Poland to have them.
22:16He even managed to establish a Jewish cultural centre and religious services.
22:22When the Germans outlawed rabbis, Rumkowski conducted marriage ceremonies himself.
22:27But Rumkowski's master plan was about to face a shattering blow.
22:42When Rumkowski had negotiated his pact with the Germans to sell the products of the ghetto for food,
22:47there had been no mention of price.
22:49He now found the Nazis held all the cards.
22:59They controlled the price of the raw materials brought into the ghetto.
23:03And they controlled the quantity of food that was given to the Jews in exchange.
23:12Rumkowski had assumed the Germans would behave rationally.
23:14If the ghetto was productive, he believed the German authorities would have a vested interest in keeping it going.
23:25But he'd failed to grasp that for the Nazis, killing Jews was more important than economic gain.
23:45The Germans made sure the food supply was never enough.
23:49And what food did arrive was often spoiled.
23:55Rumkowski himself imposed food rationing to make it stretch.
23:59But it often fell below subsistence level.
24:04For all his efforts, increasing numbers of the ghetto's residents died of starvation.
24:10The Russians were so small.
24:13I know families, friends of mine, that piece of bread or whatever they got for the week,
24:19they used to lock it.
24:21Everyone had their lock and key.
24:24Because people were stealing from each other.
24:27People say, oh, now how could they do it? How could they do this and the other?
24:38And one against the other.
24:42But the circumstances were not normal.
24:47And everyone wants to live.
24:48Everyone wants to live.
24:59For Rumkowski, problems were starting to mount.
25:02As productivity in the Wutsch ghetto increased,
25:17and the Jewish population were being asked to work harder and harder,
25:22the workers began to organise strikes and demonstrations against the harsh conditions.
25:26Rumkowski's authority and strategy depended on buying German cooperation with a constant supply of cheap goods.
25:38If he allowed the strikes to continue, the Germans would cut the food supply even further.
25:45He argued that the strikes and demonstrations threatened the very survival of the ghetto.
25:50At one workers rally he announced, strikers are criminals.
26:00I'll act like a dictator.
26:02I'll stamp them out.
26:03Them and their families.
26:05I'll arrest them and send them to labour camps.
26:10But opposition continued.
26:12Slogans appeared such as kill Rumkowski and open the ghetto.
26:20In response, Rumkowski became increasingly dictatorial.
26:26He sent in the ghetto's police to put down his critics.
26:35He used his control of the food supply to impose his will further.
26:40Those who agreed to work, ate.
26:43Those who didn't, were left to starve.
26:45He went on to tell the strikers.
26:49My motto is work.
26:51Something that could keep us alive.
26:53And you?
26:55You didn't want to build, but to disrupt.
26:58In order to save the ghetto, I am forced to act decisively.
27:01Like a surgeon who cuts off a limb so the heart won't stop beating.
27:04But were these the words of a man in terrible circumstances, doing his best for his people?
27:17Or was it the first signs of someone desperate to cling on to power?
27:21There were certainly clues that he was beginning to enjoy the trappings of office.
27:26Rumkowski now began to refer to his headquarters as the chancelry, copying the German example.
27:35People were encouraged to pray for his health, as if he were a king.
27:39And the ghetto newspaper printed poems celebrating his achievements.
27:45More damagingly, it was said he and the other council members were living well, while everybody else starved.
27:51For many of the Jews in Łódź, Rumkowski was no longer a saviour.
27:58He was a self-serving collaborator.
28:03He showed favouritism to those residents that he liked or were close to him.
28:10Helen Aronson was one of the luckier ones in the ghetto.
28:13Well, he had the courage and guards with him and he used to visit various factories and places and his main office and so on.
28:25He asked me to go in the carriage with him, go back to Maryshin, to the orphanage.
28:30And I felt like, you know, with the Queen of England.
28:35I mean, it was something being seen with him that was already a sort of like a passport to a better life.
28:45That's how great his power was.
28:50Then there was a development that would put his apparent pact with the Nazis in an even starker light.
28:55In January 1942, the Nazi leadership met here, at Wannsee, in the suburbs of Berlin.
29:10They gathered to debate what was termed the final solution to the Jewish problem.
29:17What exactly was to be the fate of the millions of Jews that the Nazis had rounded up and imprisoned?
29:22Leaving them to starve in the ghettos was a slow, inefficient and impractical solution.
29:32Hitler needed a quicker, more effective method.
29:37At the Wannsee Conference, the decision was taken to set up a series of camps
29:41where Europe's Jews would be systematically exterminated.
29:52The first signs of the new policy reached the Jews in Łódź almost immediately.
30:14Just weeks after the Wannsee meeting, Romkowski was ordered to assist the German authorities in arranging what was referred to as
30:23the resettlement of 20,000 of the ghetto's Jews.
30:27They were told they were being sent to labour camps further east.
30:39Romkowski negotiated with the German leadership in Łódź to halve the number of Jews that were to be sent away.
30:45But in the long run, it made little difference.
30:52Throughout the spring and summer of 1942, one deportation followed another.
30:57Thousands and thousands of the ghetto's Jews were simply rounded up,
31:03taken to a nearby train depot and forced into goods wagons.
31:06At this stage, those in the ghetto had no idea of the fate that awaited their friends and family who were being taken away.
31:23We knew there was such place like Auschwitz.
31:27But what actually happens there, we didn't know.
31:30Sometimes people left little bits of papers in the wagons to say, don't follow us.
31:50But we really did not know, really, what is happening there.
31:54We had no idea.
32:01Where did you think all these people were being sent?
32:05To work, somewhere to work, in Germany.
32:08That's what we were sort of told, that we're going to work in Germany.
32:19In the summer of 1942, signs began to appear that Romkowski's popularity was
32:23beginning to slide even further.
32:29There were rumours that he was using the deportations to rid himself of his opponents.
32:38In early September, the Germans, assisted by Romkowski's ghetto police,
32:44began to get rid of anyone who was thought to be a drain on the ghetto's resources.
32:48They cleared out the hospitals.
32:522,000 patients, including 400 children, were deported.
33:00It was a brutal and bloody affair.
33:08Seemingly unaware of the Nazis' new policy of exterminating the Jews,
33:11Romkowski continued to insist the long-term interests of the majority were best served by sacrificing the minority.
33:22But was he really ignorant of what was going on?
33:25Huge numbers of Jews were being deported during that summer of 1942.
33:29In Warsaw, 300,000 were sent to the concentration camps.
33:36At the same time, 50,000 Jews were sent from the Łódź ghetto.
33:42Some believe Romkowski must have known the terrible fate that awaited his people.
33:47I think so. I think so by that. I think so. I think so.
33:55Well, nobody came back from all these transports that were sent.
34:02And I'm sure that he knew what was happening in Auschwitz.
34:08I'm sure he knew.
34:09Even in the near total isolation of the ghetto, there were clues for those willing to read them.
34:24During 1942, large shipments of baggage had been arriving in the ghetto.
34:30The diary of one resident records,
34:32The bundles contain clothing that has been disinfected.
34:37Nearly all the jackets bear traces of having been cut along the seams.
34:41Documents from all over Europe are in the bundles.
34:45And some show that the papers were drawn up in this ghetto.
34:51Here was evidence that those who'd been deported were not coming back.
34:57Their clothing and possessions were merely being recycled by the Germans.
35:02Then, in September 1942, the Nazis made a new demand.
35:11It was more distressing than anything that had gone before.
35:19That month, the Germans demanded that every Jewish child in the ghetto under 10,
35:24and every adult over 65, must be handed over for deportation.
35:32Even though Romkovsky had worked closely with children running the main orphanage in Łódź,
35:39he still cooperated.
35:41He then made one of the most appalling and dramatic speeches of World War II.
35:47From the language he uses, it seems clear that Romkovsky knew what the fate of the children and the elderly would be.
35:56A grievous blow has struck the ghetto.
36:02They are asking us to give up the best we possess.
36:05The children and the elderly.
36:07I never imagined I would be forced to deliver this sacrifice to the altar with my own hands.
36:13In my old age, I must stretch out my hands and beg.
36:19Brothers and sisters, hand them over to me.
36:23Fathers and mothers, give me your children.
36:26When Romkovsky made this speech, Helen Aronson was 15.
36:34She was a useful worker in the ghetto and was one of those favoured by Romkovsky.
36:39She remembers his infamous speech.
36:42How can you ask parents to give away the children?
36:48It is the most difficult task.
36:55I mean, it's...
37:01I don't know how he could do it, quite frankly.
37:05Or maybe it would be better if they just came and took the children without the speech.
37:14Because it must have been really, really difficult for the parents who had to do it.
37:23How can you, how can you do that?
37:36To send these kids to, to be gassed, to be slaughtered.
37:42I don't know, I don't know how he did it.
37:52I don't know how he did it.
37:57So did Romkovsky have a choice?
38:00He certainly wasn't the only Jewish leader facing such unthinkable situations.
38:08Other leaders across Poland faced similar demands.
38:12But some of them responded very differently.
38:22In Warsaw, the leader of the Jewish ghetto, Adam Cherniakov,
38:27was told to round up 6,000 people a day and hand them over to the Germans.
38:32The lists included thousands of children.
38:36For two years, Cherniakov, just like Romkovsky,
38:39had chosen to cooperate with the Nazis.
38:44But when the deportations began,
38:46and it became clear his people were being sent to certain death,
38:50he couldn't take it any longer.
38:52On July the 23rd, 1942, Cherniakov took a capsule of cyanide and killed himself.
39:02He left a note to his wife that read,
39:06They demand me to kill children of my nation with my own hands.
39:12I have nothing to do but to die.
39:16I can no longer bear all this.
39:19My act will prove to everyone what is the right thing to do.
39:23It was a very different response to Romkovsky's.
39:29The United Nations have bridged the English Channel.
39:40On June the 6th, 1944,
39:42a date indelibly written in the annals of history by the armed forces of the free world,
39:47the fighting men of Britain, the Empire and America embarked on the greatest amphibious operation ever undertaken.
39:52In the summer of 1944, the tide of the war turned decisively against the Germans.
40:09It became clear that Hitler's forces would soon be trapped in a pincer movement
40:13as the Allied invasion made its way from the west and the Russian army pressed on from the east.
40:23Meanwhile, Himmler now ordered the final liquidation of the Wutsch ghetto.
40:27It had become the largest concentration of Jews in German-occupied Europe.
40:33Once again, Romkovsky cooperated.
40:38In August 1944, he told the people of the ghetto,
40:41Jews of the ghetto,
40:44come to your senses,
40:46volunteer for the transports.
40:50As the remaining Jews were herded out of the ghetto,
40:53the German authorities made 750 of them stay behind.
41:00Hanging on to her privileged position in the ghetto,
41:03Helen Aronson was one of that group.
41:06The reason why we were left in the ghetto
41:08was to clean out all the houses and flats of the people who used to live there,
41:21and take all the possessions and segregate them,
41:27so that they all can be useful and be sent to Germany.
41:31For instance, bedding, linen, crockery, cutlery, furniture, clothing,
41:42and everything bring out into the streets in a pile.
41:47Afterwards, lorries used to arrive and collect all these things,
41:56and everything was taken to Germany and made into money.
42:02And that was our job to do,
42:05and that's why we were left behind to do this work.
42:10All of us had some poison with us,
42:18and we knew that we are here for a short time
42:23to do a job for them, for the German government,
42:27and when we finish the job,
42:30our fate will be exactly the same as all the others.
42:33We follow all the others,
42:34and we thought when the worst comes to the worst,
42:38we know what to do.
42:42The clean-up operation of the ghetto went on into January 1945.
42:53And then, finally, salvation arrived.
42:55The Russians had advanced quickly and were now on the outskirts of the city.
43:11Fearing for their lives at the hands of the Germans,
43:14Helen and her family hid in the cellar of one of the houses in the ghetto.
43:18We stayed in that place for quite a few days.
43:27We could not survive for a long time there,
43:32because we had no facilities and not much air.
43:38Every so often, my brother very anxiously opened that little floorboard to look out.
43:50We couldn't see anything.
43:53We couldn't hear anything.
43:55All quiet.
43:56And then, one day, we had a lot of stamping above us.
44:09And my mother suddenly said,
44:15I think I can hear some Russian spoken.
44:21Russian?
44:23She must be crazy.
44:24We opened our place and then I came face to face with the Russian soldier.
44:39And he said to me,
44:41the war is finished and you are free.
44:44This was taken in January 1945,
45:04when I was liberated in the camp,
45:08showing this group of people and one man playing accordion.
45:14He was my boyfriend.
45:17And my daughter looked at the picture and said,
45:22but Mummy, you're sitting next to him.
45:25Well, at that point, I just cried, laughed.
45:29I just didn't know how to react and I did both.
45:35It was most, most unusual to find yourself in a book after 60 years.
45:42But what of Chaim Romkovsky?
45:52Some historians believe that he and his wife volunteered for resettlement
45:56and boarded a train bound for Auschwitz with others from the ghetto.
45:59One eyewitness described Romkovsky's arrival.
46:06Romkovsky didn't know what was happening.
46:09He turned to me and asked,
46:12What goes on here?
46:14Can't you smell? Can't you see the fire? I replied.
46:18Anger and revenge in my voice for what he'd done to my friends.
46:21Where am I? He asks.
46:24Auschwitz.
46:26Oh, my God, he says, smacking his forehead with his palm.
46:32But was that really his fate?
46:35Was he gassed at Auschwitz?
46:38There is, however, another possibility.
46:42I heard that he was sent with all his family.
46:46That was the last transport going from Łódź ghetto to Auschwitz.
46:53And I'm not quite sure what the rumours were,
46:59that he was actually killed by the Jews.
47:03And not when he arrived there, and not by the German.
47:08But I don't know. I'm afraid I don't know.
47:11So what are we to make of a man who willingly sent his own people
47:19to the Nazi concentration camps?
47:24Clearly, many view Romkovsky as a collaborator.
47:30But it's not a simple picture.
47:32Łódź was not just the best-run ghetto.
47:35It was also the longest surviving.
47:38And even though the numbers are small,
47:41750 people survived.
47:46Some of those put that survival down to one thing.
47:50The fact that Romkovsky managed to keep them in the ghetto for so long.
47:55I don't think him as a collaborator,
47:59anyone who was holding that post,
48:02would have to do what the German wanted him to do.
48:05There was no other option.
48:08Because if he didn't do it,
48:10if he didn't deliver the people,
48:12the German would come into the ghetto and do it themselves.
48:23There was no other option.
48:25Anybody who was holding that position would have to do it.
48:27Unless you decided to commit suicide yourself and you say,
48:33no, I'm not doing it.
48:35That was the only alternative he could do.
48:37But would it help the people?
48:40I don't think so.
48:41I don't think so.
48:42To not be able to do it.
48:43That's how you get to.
48:44I feel prayer for him.
48:48Literally,
48:50I don't think so,
48:52I will think so.
48:55I will you pay for it.
48:57Very important,
48:59you.
49:02I can see it.
49:04Transcription by CastingWords
Recommended
49:10
|
Up next
44:04
43:57
1:45:10
1:36:44