Enlistment of jobless Jews for forced labour commenced
In Germany, German Jewish forced laborers were kept apart from Non-Jewish workers. According to Hitler's order, there were no Jews among the forced laborers who were brought during the early war years from the occupied countries to Germany. Only later on, during the last war years, Jews were deported from the concentration camps in Eastern Europe to Germany for forced labor, removing debris in German air-raided cities, working for German armament industry or agriculture etc.
After the German invasion in Poland in September 1939, Polish Jews were recruited by units of the Wehrmacht and forced to work in road construction etc. Jews were badly maltreated, and often humiliated by being forced to do hard physical work without any practical purpose.
In January 1940, the Generalgovernor Hans Frank ordered to implement the laws of compulsory labor service in the occupied areas of Poland ("Generalgouvernement"), applying to all Jews, male and female alike, between 14 to 60 years.
With the beginning of the systematic implementation of what was called the "final solution" in late 1941, many Jews being deported from all over Europe to the camps of Eastern Europe were due to forced labor.
Jews worked for the German armament industry or for German factories. They were hold in work camps or in ghettos and subjected to harshest work conditions, while receiving insufficient food rations, being exposed to ferocious torment and permanent humiliation. Because of the high mortality rate in the ghettos and camps the number of forced laborers in Poland dropped from over 700.000 in late 1940 to 500.000 in 1942 and to about 100.000 in 1943.
In those areas that were annexed to the Reich, the SS was in charge of the administration of forced labor until the total extermination of the Jewish population, while in the Generalgouvernement, forced labor was overseen fist by the Ministry of Labor (from July 1940) and later on, in June 1942, by the Security Police (Sicherheitspolizei, SiPo).
Forced laborers received a very small or even no remuneration. Often they had to deduct up to 80% of the minimum wages they were paid. Up to today, many survivors of the Holocaust did not receive sufficient financial compensation for the years they were subjected to forced labor.
