Jews in Warsaw in 1938

The following notes are from NCJF documentation: The lively Jewish neighborhoods of Warsaw, including Zamenhof Street and the commercial "beehive" Nalewki Steet, were home to 400,000 Jews before World War II. "A Day in Warsaw" sets Warsaw's modern multistoried buildings and broad streets against its old market square and Jewish quarter. Trucks, trolleys, autos and buses meet horse-drawn carriages, pushcarts, and porters in the bustling commercial district. Also shown are the Yiddish Theater, Gensza Cemetery and other Jewish institutions-the community council, hospitals, schools and synagogues. At film's end, after Sabbath services, families pour into Krashinsky Park where children play and adults spiritedly debate the issues of the day. In 1938 and 1939, Shaul and Yitzhak Goskind of Warsaw-based Sektor Films produced six short films about urban Jewish communities in Poland. One, about Łódź, is lost. The other five-on Bialystok, Cracow, Lwow, Vilna, and Warsaw-have survived and are now called "Five Cities." These low-budget 35mm films were made for Landsmanshaften groups in America for fundraising purposes. On the eve of war, the Goskinds sent the films to Joseph Seiden, the prolific director in New York who distributed Yiddish newsreels and feature films in the US and Europe.