Ordnungsdiest

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As a ghetto institution, the uniformed Jewish police exemplified the dynamics of degeneration that the Germans set in motion.

The Jewish police was an institution improvised by the Germans when they locked the Jews into ghettos. Initially police functions were to regulate the flow of pedestrian and vehicular traffic inside the ghettos and to maintain law and order....[M]ost recruits were not motivated by a sense of communal responsibility. Those who enrolled did so of their own volition and for their own advantage. The requirements for the police force were few: young, able-bodied men were wanted, preferably with military training. Few recruits had a record of communal service, in part because of their relative youthfulness...

Charged with enforcing the isolation of the ghetto, the Jewish police at ghetto gates had to check people entering and leaving, examine their identity papers and permits, and search their persons and belongings for contraband. They were supervised by Polish guards and armed German police to ensure that they performed their tasks correctly and with appropriate strictness.

Dawidowicz, p. 234.

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