Jewish Letters to Hans Frank (1940): Opposition or a Survival Strategy?

Abstract

In Warsaw’s Central Archives of Modern Records, in a collection of documents known as the General Government Administration set, there are dozens of letters and petitions sent between October 1939 and May 1940 by residents of occupied areas to the new German authorities, including the Governor General Hans Frank. In the collection there are also several letters (presented in Polish translation) sent by the Jews. While the Polish, Ukrainian and Russian authors represented a wide range of professions and social positions, and the petition themselves – a variety of issues, all Jewish letters were sent by members of the social elite, and the majority of them voiced their objection to the compulsory armbands with the Star of David, as the order to wear them accentuated the social exclusion of Jews in both practical and symbolic sense. Asking for permission not to wear an armband, the authors of letters referred to their service in the Austrian or German army, their lack of association with Judaism, etc. However, regardless of the arguments, the very act of sending those letters can be seen as a form of spontaneous opposition, described by the Polish historian and sociologist Marcin Kula as “rebellious action”.