The expression covered everything that happened within the borders of the ghetto and not in the world outside. “What’s new in the ghetto?” – a typical question one ghetto inhabitant would ask another at a meeting or during a chance encounter. Such news covered not only accurate information circulated by those in the know, but also – or rather, mostly – rumors spread all over the ghetto in the absence of facts.
Ghetto news consisted for the most part of issues concerning delivery of rations, work, incidents in departments, attempts and projects of the Council of Elders, lesser or greater scandals à la “Chronique scandaleuse,” events, and orders of the administration, as far as the ghetto circumstances were concerned. Since many ghetto inhabitants strove to be well informed and kept up to date, some of the news that circulated often made them upset and depressed.
Eventually, rumors, even if true, were received with skepticism, whereas uncontrolled gossip was regarded as fact and consequently led to bitter disappointment.
The reason for this phenomenon was the institution of the ghetto itself, separated from the rest of the world, from reality, from normal life.