Destroyed house of religious study on Jatka Street. leaving the ghetto without special permits or for not reporting for work. In yet another bulletin, it was reported that thirty-five Jews were publicly humiliated at the stock, accused of “‘robbing the homes of the ‘evacuated’ during the recent tragic days.” Finally, the people were warned that “for not completely blacking out your homes during the nights, shots will be fired into your houses.” The documents of the Bialystok ghetto offer us a glimpse into the nightmare the Jews of Bialystok expe- rienced. We become more aware of the murders, rob- beries, harsh rules, the inhumanity visited on a helpless population by the unquenchable thirst for domination of what was supposedly a civilized nation. Only when all hope was lost did our brothers and sisters in Bialy- stok emulate the example of the Warsaw ghetto, which posed armed resistance against the Nazis. The Bialystok uprising lasted on month until the ghetto was razed. * * * A few months after the ‘‘evacuation” of 200,000 Jews from the provinces surrounding Bialystok, its ghetto was to suffer the ‘“‘February action.”’ This consti- tuted the Nazis’ first serious effort to liquidate the ghetto. Despite the widespread assumption that as long as the people were useful to the Third Reich they would be unharmed, the ‘‘February operation’? dashed the hopes of even the most outspoken optimists. THE YELLOW BADGE ORDINANCE Monday, before the Saturday massacre, a new edict was issued by the Nazi authorities in Bialystok. The Gestapo ordered the Judenrat to require every Jew ten years and older, to wear a yellow badge on his clothes. It had to be in the form of a Jewish star, eve- ryone required to wear it on the left front and back of his upper garment. Understandably, the Jews carried out this order immediately, though humiliated and ashamed. Even before the imposition of the yellow badge, a rumor created much anxiety among the Jews in Bialy- stok. It was said that the Germans would soon push all the Jews into several cordoned-off streets, thus forming a ghetto in the city. This meant they would be evicted from their homes, separated and isolated from the rest of the population. Although this rumor was openly dis- cussed, there were many Jews who refused to believe it. But the horrible reality would soon emerge; the Bialy- stok ghetto would shortly come into being. The Life and Struggle of the Jews in the Ghetto On Friday, August 1, 1941, several weeks after the Nazis occupied Bialystok, the ghetto for the Jews was completed. Ghettos were also built in smaller towns near Bialystok. Each day the Jews learned of new edicts that made their lives more unbearable. The introduc- tion of the ghetto shattered all hope. That they would 64 be forced to live in a barricaded enclosure, in severe overcrowding, struck fear into their hearts. At first the Nazis defined the ghetto area as several small streets, in the poor Jewish section, whose limited space would have imposed impossible hardships on the victims, with no chance of survival in such conditions. After the Judenrat intervened, however, promising the Nazis additional contributions of jewelry and other val- uables, the Germans agreed to extend the ghetto over a wider area, including Czestochowska, Polna, Kupiecka, Lipowa, Czepla, Jurowecka, Fabryczna, Bialysto- czanska, Neuwelt and the adjacent streets. The Jews were given just three days to abandon their homes and move into the ghetto. The elderly, women and small children were a tragic scene, dragging their possessions through the streets or transporting them on wagons, fatigued and exhausted. The Polish peasants smelled a chance to profit from this Jewish misfortune. Offering their servi- ces with alacrity, they assisted the Jews in moving their households to the ghetto but demanded clothes, furni- ture, jewelry and other items as payment, which they were given. Mostly women and children were involved, since the men had earlier been sent by the Nazis to forced labor in other places. One observer later recalled that those three days of moving into the ghetto were like the continuous wand- ering of a nomadic tribe. It was difficult to pass through the streets; people were forced to push their The Bialystoker Memorial Book