Document 1
Life in the Warsaw Ghetto
Life in the Warsaw Ghetto, Emanuel Ringelblum quoted in Yad Vashem Documents on
the Holocaust, pp 228-229:
Smuggling began at the very moment that the Jewish area of residence was
established; its inhabitants were forced to live on 180 grams of bread a day, 220 grams
of sugar a month, 1 kg. of jam and 1 kg. of honey, etc. It was calculated that the
officially supplied rations did not cover even 10 percent of the normal requirements. If
one had wanted really to restrict oneself to the official rations then the entire population
of the ghetto would have had to die of hunger in a very short time....
The German authorities did everything to seal off the ghetto hermetically and not to
allow in a single gram of food. A wall was put up around the ghetto on all sides that did
not leave a single millimeter of open space....
They fixed barbed wire and broken glass to the top of the wall. When that failed to help,
the Judenrat was ordered to make the wall higher, at the expense of the Jews, of
course....
Several kinds of guards were appointed for the walls and the passages through them;
the categories of guards were constantly being changed and their numbers increased.
The walls were guarded by the gendarmerie together with the Polish police; at the
ghetto wall there were gendarmerie post, Polish police and Jewish police...The victims
of the smuggling were mainly Jews, but they were not lacking either among the Aryans
(Poles). Auerswald, too, employed sharply repressive measures to stop the smuggling.
Several times smugglers were shot at the central lock-up on Gesiowka Street. Once
there was a veritable slaughter (100 persons were shot near Warsaw). Among the
Jewish victims of the smuggling there were tens of Jewish children between 5 and 6
years old, whom the German killers shot in great numbers near the passages and at the
walls....
And despite that, without paying attention to the victims, the smuggling never stopped
for a moment. When the street was still slippery with the blood that had been spilled,
other smugglers already set out, as soon as the "candles" had signaled that the way
was clear, to carry on with the work....
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1. What rations were provided to residents of the ghetto and were they adequate?
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2. What measures were used to make sure no residents left the ghetto?
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3. What methods did residents resort to survive?
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4. Explain where ghetto residents were usually sent next.
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Document 2
The Nazi Soviet Pact. The National Archives, 1941
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1. Who are the two men in the cartoon?
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2. What were the terms of their agreement?
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3. What symbol is there that this agreement will fail?
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4. Who eventually broke the Nazi Soviet Pact?
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The Origins Of World War II. Alexander Tumbell Library
Document 3
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1. Identify the countries represented by the figures in the cartoon.
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2. Explain the meaning of the words spoken by the character on the left.
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3. What do the words on the “safes” represent?
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4. Describe the attitude of the cartoonist toward the two characters.
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Document 4
Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston S.
Churchill
The Atlantic Charter
August 14.1941
The President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill,
representing His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, being met together, deem it right
to make known certain common principles in the national policies of their respective countries
on which they base their hopes for a better future for the world.
First,
their countries seek no aggrandizement, territorial or other;
Second,
they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the
peoples concerned;
Third,
they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live;
and they wish to see sovereign rights and self government restored to those who have been
forcibly deprived of them;
Fourth,
they will endeavor, with due respect for their existing obligations, to further the enjoyment by all
States, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access, on equal terms, to the trade and to the raw
materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity;
Fifth,
they desire to bring about the fullest collaboration between all nations in the economic field with
the object of securing, for all, improved labor standards, economic advancement and social
security;
Sixth,
after the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny, they hope to see established a peace which will
afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries, and which will
afford assurance that all the men in all lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and
want;
Seventh,
such a peace should enable all men to traverse the high seas and oceans without hindrance;
Eighth,
they believe that all of the nations of the world, for realistic as well as spiritual reasons must
come to the abandonment of the use of force. Since no future peace can be maintained if land,
sea or air armaments continue to be employed by nations which threaten, or may threaten,
aggression outside of their frontiers, they believe, pending the establishment of a wider and
permanent system of general security, that the disarmament of such nations is essential. They
will likewise aid and encourage all other practicable measure which will lighten for peace-loving
peoples the crushing burden of armaments.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Winston S. Churchill
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1. What two nations were at the Atlantic Charter?
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2. What were three goals of the Atlantic Charter?
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3. What nation is this charter determined to stop?
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4. Compare and contrast the Atlantic Charter to President Wilson’s Fourteen Points
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Document 5
Translation of leaflet dropped on the Japanese, August 6,
1945. Miscellaneous Historical Documents Collection.
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1. What group of people is this document addressed to?
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2. What reasons were given for dropping the atomic bomb?
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3. What other country was joining the war against Japan?
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4. The dropping of the atomic bomb remains one of the most controversial events in
American History. Using details from the document as well as one piece of outside
information, provide American justifications for dropping the bomb.
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