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Warsaw 37

self-suYciency also sometimes functioned as a powerful means of control. In


an ironic inversion of the spiritual resistance argument, it seems that music
was one of many activities tolerated by the SS precisely because by diverting
their attention from what was really happening to them, it helped in deXect-
ing any urge on the part of the victims to resist. It has been argued elsewhere
that similar motivations underlay the Propagandaamts support for cheap
forms of amusement in the occupied countries.44
Jewish self-suYciency was also most likely tolerated to the extent that it
was because the Nazis perceived it as having little political potency.
A memorandum from the Rassenpolitischesamt on 25 November 1939 read:
Jewish political groups should be forbidden along with Polish ones. But Jewish
cultural societies might be more tolerated than Polish ones. Jews may certainly be
allowed more freedom in this respect than Poles, for the Jews have no such real
political power as have the Poles.45

Ultimately, as this memo suggests, cultural activities were permitted because


they were unlikely to change in any signiWcant way the fate of the ghetto
populations.
Perhaps the most representative and popular of the musical events aimed at
the Warsaw ghetto masses were found in the theatres. Within weeks of the
sealing of the ghetto, Gazeta Zydowska reported that oYcial permission had
been granted for the establishment of a theatre. Like other leisure activities,
this was almost certainly viewed by the authorities as a way of keeping the
ghetto population docile. Nonetheless, it was an important development for
musical life. Serious dramas were sometimes presented, but the most common
entertainments were revues consisting of comic sketches and musical pieces.46
Five professional theatres operated in the ghetto. The Wrst, a Yiddish
theatre called the Eldorado, was opened on 6 December 1940. The actor
Simcha Pustel and the Zeyderman family (David, his wife Chana Lerner, and
their son Harry) performed at this venue, and a resident orchestra played
under the baton of A. Walstein. A favourable review in Gazeta Zydowska on
20 December 1940 described the opening presentation: a variety show in-
cluding mens choir, Chassidic dancing, musical comedy, and other skits. At
least eight additional programmes were staged between January and August
1941; they included the shows Rivkele dem rebns tokhter (Rivke the Rabbis

44
Trunk, Judenrat, 216.
45
Cited ibid.
46
Moshe Hoch, Hatarbut hamuziqalit bkerev hayhudim tachat hashilton hanatsi bpolin
19391945 (Ph.D. diss., Bar-Ilan University, 1992), 88; Turkow, Azoy iz es geven, 126.

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