Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe under Nazi Occupation

An important, formidably researched book. Trunk's subject is the Jewish Councils in the ghettos of Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, organizations designed ""to serve only one purpose -- to execute Nazi orders regarding the Jewish population."" The book examines the Councils' welfare activities, their servile relation to the Nazi authorities, and their ""local control"" administration. The Councils declined morally as uncooperative elements were destroyed; and they displayed a heretofore undiscussed continuity with the wealthy, conservative members of the Kehila organizations which mediated prewar Jewish life in the interests of earlier Eastern European despotisms. In an understated, matter-of-fact way Trunk documents the prevalent favoritism and corruption of many Council members -- he always reminds us that no blanket generalizations hold -- and shows how Council taxes, which in large part went to pay salaries, fell most heavily on the poorest ghetto inhabitants. Along with the well-known brutality and self-aggrandizement of ghetto police, the horrifying caricature of a competitive society within the whole ghetto is described. Perhaps the most striking aspect of Trunk's treatment is his stress on the Councils' ""rescue through work"" strategy -- building a disciplined slave labor force to prove the Jews' value to the Nazi war economy.