In Poland’s Jewish communities in the late 1800s, “everyone knew” that Argentina was a dangerous place, with organized crime dealing in “white slavery”, international sex trafficking. Yet Polish Jewish women continued to arrive in Argentina, and many were exploited.

I first learned of these women through the research of ethnomusicologist Ruth Rubin, who collected folk songs like this one in the 40s and 50s in Canada and the United States:

…such beautiful girls are taken away to Buenos Aires

And they are sold for so many millions.

Oh, when I walked into that first room, 

These were the words he said to me,

“Oh, stay here, you pretty girl, and come a little closer,

Because the door is locked from the outside.”

After Jewish sex trafficking and brothels were closed down in the 1930s and 40s, the respectable Jewish community of Buenos Aires largely forgot about the women involved, but evidence of their experiences remains.

That evidence is examined in the documentary Laid to Rest: Buried Stories of the Jewish Sex Trade.

One thing that stands out in the film is the enthusiasm of researchers, diving through archives to uncover stories in documents from social work organizations, cemeteries, newspapers, photographs, and letters. Much of the film concerns their work, although there are other entertaining interviews as well with people who care about this history.

From the beginning of the film, the question arises, “Why were the women there?” From a business perspective, the answer is easy: More men immigrated to Argentina than women, so there was a demand.

Starting in the late 1800s, Polish Jewish women started to arrive in Argentina. Some were married women – but if her husband died, a woman had to find a way to survive. Some came independently to escape the Old World, hoping to find work, but were drawn into brothels. This documentary mentions independent women, but gives more attention to those who were tricked into coming to South America. People in Galicia, in Eastern Poland, were desperately poor. Men came from Argentina with offers of work, and families were only too happy to send their daughters, who discovered on board ship that they were trapped. Sometimes an elegant young man would show up in a village and propose marriage to a girl, and a “Shtile Khupe”, a silent marriage, would be held, and again by the time she reached Argentina, she knew her marriage would lead only to a brothel.

The prostitutes were Jewish, but so were the traffickers, brothel owners and pimps. They formed a wealthy and powerful criminal organization, the Zwi Migdal (Tower of Zvi, named for a founding member). They became a parallel Jewish community in Argentina, with their own cemeteries and synagogues. But there was pushback from the “Kosher” Jewish community against the “T’meyim”, the impure Jewish criminal community. The conflict is described in fascinating detail in the film. I enjoyed hearing an old interview in the film with the renowned Yiddish actor Shifra Lerer, (1915-2011) who started her long career as a child actor in Argentina.

As I listened carefully, I noted the variations in the narratives told here. For this reason, and because of current concerns about trafficking in Canada, Laid to Rest: Buried Stories of the Jewish Sex Trade merits close attention.