In February 1941 the Jewish Council was set up under the orders of the Nazis to coordinate the affairs of the Jewish community.
The death of a National Socialist member who got into a fight in the old Jewish quarter served as an excuse for the German occupiers to force the Jews to set up a 'Jewish Council', which would later turn out to be a valuable instrument to the Germans. The
Germans used the Council to convey their orders to the community and its leaders. The Jewish Council not only had to announce the anti-Jewish measures; they also had to implement some of them.