It was now 1940. A brand-new year. A brand-new experience of being a Jew—from pride to humiliation. And, she thought, as her train rolled into Central Station, past the grand boulevards and open squares of pecking pigeons, a brand-new Warsaw.
*
Jews had arrived relatively late to Warsaw. Antisemitic laws banned them from the Middle Ages until French emperor Napoléon I’s conquest in the early eighteen hundreds. Jews financed his wars, initiating the city’s Jewish banking culture. In the mid-nineteenth century, by then under Russian occupation, the Jewish population increased, and a small class of assimilated, “progressive” Jews developed in this verdant metropolis that spread along both banks of the Vistula River, bustling with vendors and trams, and crowned by a striking medieval castle.
After 1860, when the Jews from the Pale of Settlement—the Russian territory where they had been allowed to settle—were permitted access to the city, the population exploded. By 1914, Jews were a dominating force in Warsaw’s industry, and finally authorized to settle wherever they wanted. Jewish culture—theater, education, newspapers, publications, political parties—proliferated; the population comprised both the urban impoverished and the wealthy cosmopolitan. The thriving community was symbolized by its Great Synagogue, a grandiose building consecrated in 1878. The largest synagogue in the world, it was designed by Warsaw’s leading architect, with elements of imperial Russian style. Not a traditional prayer house, it hosted an elite congregation, with an organ, a choir, and sermons delivered in Polish. The spectacular edifice was a marker of Jews’ prosperity and acculturation—and of Poland’s tolerance.
The Warsaw that Zivia knew was the epicenter of all prewar Jewish life. When the Nazis invaded, 375,000 Jews of all backgrounds called it home, about a third of the capital’s population. （For contrast, in 2020, Jews make up roughly 13 percent of New York City’s population.）
Zivia had been gone barely four months, but came back to a dramatically divided landscape: non-Jewish Warsaw and Jewish Warsaw were now two different territories. She immediately noticed that the streets were crowded—with Poles only. Antisemitic legislation had been put into place right after the occupation, with new discriminatory regulations passing each day. Jews were no longer allowed to work in Christian factories or take trains without special permission. Only a few Jews were visible on the avenues, with the white armbands they were forced to wear—their “badges of shame”—stepping quickly, their eyes darting to ensure they weren’t being followed. Zivia froze, horrified. How would she ever get used to this? But then she wondered whether the Jews wore their bands defiantly, in secret contempt for their oppressors. She held this thought and let it reassure her.
The roads were filled with elegant cars, carriages, red trams. But Zivia preferred to walk rather than take the streetcar. She wanted to see up close the dynamic city she’d left behind; the city she recalled for its café terraces, balconies adorned with flowers, and lush parks lined with mothers, nannies, and their ornate prams. She’d heard rumors of the city’s ruin, but now, with her first steps into town, aside from a few bombed buildings, things looked quite as they had been. Poles filled the streets, business as usual. “There was a pleasant feeling in the air,” she recalled, “as if nothing had happened.” The only change came with the appearance of German convoys down the streets, scattering the terrorized population.
And then there was the old Jewish neighborhood. Zivia headed straight for The Pioneer headquarters. She found a pile of rubble. Here it was clear that times had changed. Zivia was reentering a new world, with Jews hiding in the shadows, fearing open air, clinging to buildings to avoid contact with a German and whatever humiliation might be inflicted.
Searching for Jews of “a different mettle,” Zivia headed to the Freedom headquarters at 34 Dzielna Street, where many movement members had lived before the war. Dzielna, four three-storey buildings set around a courtyard, had always been a lively locale, but Zivia was stunned by the thick crowd, which included hundreds of comrades who’d made it to Warsaw from small towns. They, in turn, were shocked, and elated, to see her. The man in charge of food threw a spontaneous party in her honor, declaring it “an official holiday,” serving extra rations of bread and jam. Zivia and Frumka huddled affectionately, reviewing everything that had happened since the Nazis attacked, what had been done, and, most important, what had to be done next.