Artifact
Warsaw district handbill announcing penalties for anyone caught assisting Jews
On September 5, 1942, the SS and Police Leader of the Warsaw District issued this announcement threatening the death penalty for anyone who aided Jews who had left the ghetto without authorization. This poster was put up in the wake of the mass deportation of Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka killing center in summer 1942. SS officials were well aware that thousands of Jews had fled the ghetto to go into hiding and urged people to turn them in.
The poster reminds the city's non-Jewish inhabitants that since October 15, 1941, the punishment for any Jew who leaves their "assigned residential district" (ghetto) is death. That same punishment also applied to anyone who provides them with shelter, food, or any other type of support. It directs the population to immediately report such Jews to the nearest police station. The poster offers amnesty from punishment to anyone who has temporarily given Jews support if they report it to the police by September 9, 1942.
Tags
- US Holocaust Memorial Museum