In the Majesty of the Law? Jewish Residents of Warsaw in the Face of German Occupation Ordinances and Activities of Sondergericht Warschau – Part II

Abstract

The article focuses on the attitude of the Warsaw’s Jewish population toward selected, most significant anti-Jewish laws passed in the General Government during World War II. Due to the breadth of this topic, the text is divided into two main parts. The first part presents ordinances on forced labor for Jews and on the ban on ritual slaughter. The second part focuses on the ordinance of November 23, 1939 on making Jews wear an armband with the Star of David, and the ordinance on residence restrictions, with special attention to its third version of October 15, 1941, which stipulated the death penalty for unauthorized departure from the ghetto. The first ordinance led to stigmatization and the second led to the isolation of Jews. The authors discuss their content, reception among Jews, and the practice of application by the German Special Court in Warsaw (Sondergericht Warschau). Indeed, the German Special Court in Warsaw considered cases involving violations of individual ordinances in the Warsaw District.

To prepare the text, the Authors read and analyzed the literature on the subject, including memoirs, press articles, as well as archival sources of judicial provenance. Historical and formal-dogmatic methods were used during the research. The article not only indicates the reception of the anti-Jewish laws themselves by the population they targeted. The Authors took particular interest not just in the trials and the enforcement of the imposed sentences, but also in the strategies pursued by the Warsaw’s Jews to better cope with the new legislation that came into force under the German occupation. The research made it possible to show German legislative policy in the context of the measures aimed to exploit, discriminate, stigmatize, and isolate Jews.