An armband belonging to a policeman of the Jewish ghetto police in the Krakow ghetto, wearing a blue Star of David according to a special order issued on December 1, 1939, which determined that the Jewish sign in the ghetto would be a blue Star of David that would separate them from the Polish population. Signed with the local SS ink stamps.
The Krakow Ghetto was officially established on March 20, 1941 in the poor neighborhood of Podgorze on the southeastern bank of the Wisla River. The Nazi governor Otto Wachter announced its establishment and ordered all Jews to concentrate there until April 20, 1941. 15,000 Jews were crammed into an area inhabited by 3,000 people living in the district, comprising 30 streets, 320 residential buildings and 3,167 rooms. As a result, one apartment was allocated to every four Jewish families and many lived on the street. Due to the overcrowding, many epidemics broke out in the ghetto and the mortality rate increased.
Survivors of the ghetto know to tell that Jewish police in the Krakow ghetto were particularly cruel, since their members, headed by Simcha Shapira and David Gutter, believed that Nazi Germany would win the war and therefore preferred to help the Nazis carry out their massacres. The years cooperated fully with the Nazis, the Jewish police took part in the deportation and even looted some of the Jews.
From the beginning of March 1943, the Nazis informed the ghetto policeman of their desire to liquidate the ghetto. Although he tried to cancel the decree or at least postpone it, he could not, and the date for the liquidation was set for Saturday, March 13, 1943. In the liquidation, the last 8,000 Jews found fit for work were sent to the Plaszow camp, located several kilometers south of Krakow, They were murdered in the streets of the ghetto and the remaining 1000 were sent to their death in the Auschwitz death camp.
After the liquidation of the ghetto, only members of the Judenrat and the Jewish police and their families survived. The Nazis destroyed the ghetto wall, except for a small part, and gave these survivors a small building that they had lived for several months. In the summer of 1943, Amon Goeth caught Gutter and one of his aides and executed them, and thus the Judenrat of the Krakow ghetto was finally liquidated. On December 14, 1943, all members of the Jewish police and their families were taken to the Hill of Hatzl in Plaszow where they were murdered.
Size: 21×7 cm. fine condition.
