Language:
English
Year of publication:
2014
Titel der Quelle:
Dapim; Studies on the Shoah
Angaben zur Quelle:
28,3 (2014) 173-189
Keywords:
Jewish ghettos
;
Jewish councils
;
Jewish councils
;
Jewish councils
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
Abstract:
Under the German occupation, the Jewish councils established improvised courts in the ghettos of Łódź, Warsaw, and Vilna. These courts had to maintain order and a certain social normality in the ghettos, while taking into account the ever-changing German demands and restrictions - against the background of the Nazi wanton murder and deportations of Jews. The Jewish councils tried to ensure at least partial survival of the ghetto communities. Trying to adjust their functioning to the new definitions of "criminality" and "law", the courts in the Warsaw and Łódź ghettos held the prewar Polish legislation as authoritative in the beginning, while that in the Vilna ghetto introduced several legal procedures of its own. Among the cases tried before the courts were offenses according to German definitions, e.g. smuggling; offenses against the Jewish councils (more often in Łódź and Vilna); and offenses against individuals (theft, murder, etc.). With the beginning of the mass murders, German interventions in the work of the courts became increasingly arbitrary and brutal, and the Jewish councils lost their control over the courts.
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