Given name: Franciszek Family name: Werfel

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.