Given name: M. Family name: Bieberstein

  • YES
  • Male
  • M.
  • Bieberstein

  • head of the Judenrat in Cracow; before the war a Religious Education teacher in an elementary school and a social chaperon in Pogorze; after the Jewish Community's escape from Cracow he became the head of the Judenrat; an honest man, devoted to Jewish matters; a member of ZSS (Jewish Social Self-Help) presidium, but under the pressure of BuF (Bevoelkerungswesen und Fuersorge, Population and Welfare Department of the General Government) he has to step down in September 1940; accused of bribery (he gave bribes to Reichert for not deporting Jews from Cracow) and detained in prison in Cracow and next in Tarnow for 1,5 years; in 1942 a lawsuit is brought against him for overstepping foreign currency regulations; he is exonerated from the crime in court; later in the camp in Plaszow

  • Judenrat

  • Jews' Diaries, sygn. 302/25 Part I; Jewish Historical Institute Archives Michal Weichert 1890-1967 no title; Part I. Polish-German War of 1939. Establishment of the Coordinating Commission of the Jewish Social Self-Help. The beginning of the German occupation in Warsaw, establishment of the Judenrat, round-ups for slave labour, departures of the Jewish activists abroad, regulations banning Jewish business activity. Author's talks with the German authorities, establishment and activity of the ZSS (Jewish Social Self-Help). Functioning of the Judenrats and the Jewish Police (OD, Ordnungsdienst). Establishment of the Head Welfare Council, election of the ZSS authorities. Reminiscences of J. Korczak. Deportation of Jews from Cracow to the provinces. Election of the author as president of the ZSS, organisation of ZSS local cells, help for the prisoners in labour camps. Liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto. Legal status of Jewish welfare institutions. Organisation of nurture, hygiene institutions, people’s kitchens, refugee shelters. ZSS's mediations with foreign institutions, medicines distribution. Living conditions in the Warsaw ghetto, food smuggling, destiny of the DPs. Profile of A. Czerniakow. Cultural life in the ghetto. Living conditions in the Cracow ghetto, profiles of the Jewish Policemen and German informers. Co-operation with the RGO (Central Welfare Council). Situation in the ghettos in Kielce, Radom and Czestochowa. Profiles of ZSS activists in Warsaw. The author's journey to Lvov and Przemysl, L. Landau's profile. Part II: Organisation of the German enterprises in the ghettos. Financial problems of the ZSS. Deportations from the Cracow ghetto to the death camps, the author's efforts to save ZSS members. Liquidation of the ZSS (1 December 1942). Liquidation of the Cracow ghetto, participation of the Jewish Police in pursuing hiding Jews. Information about liquidations of the ghettos in Tarnow, Rzeszow, Bochnia, Wieliczka. The author's stay in Warsaw during the great liquidation action in summer 1942. Information about liquidation of the ghettos in Radom, Czestochowa and Lublin. Living conditions in the camp in Plaszow. Resumption of ZSS under the name of the Jewish Aid Agency in General Government (Judische Unterstutzungstelle - JUS) in March 1943 and its activity until spring 1944. The diary is unfinished. The author was a theatre director, during the war he was in Warsaw and Cracow as president of the ZSS. From summer 1944 to the liberation he hid with his family. After the war he was condemned by Jewish public opinion for his activities, which helped German authorities to hide from other countries the scale of the genocide. Arrested in 1945 on charge of collaboration, acquitted and released from prison in 1946. In 1957 he left for Israel.

  • s.28,88,96