–Ellis Lewin

“It was the beginning of the end of life”

1. Upon conquering Poland, the Nazi commanders were ordered to:

• Deport Jews from Western & Central Poland, and concentrate them near railroad junctions

• Form the Judenrate (Jewish councils) to carry out the deportations

2. Ghettos

• During the Holocaust, a ghetto was a section of a city in which Jews were confined (fences, walls, guards)

• Originally formed after the invasion of Poland in order to isolate the Jews until a solution to the Jewish “problem” could be determined

• After the Final Solution was declared, Jews were deported from the ghettos to the extermination camps.

3. Why were Ghettos established in Eastern Europe?

1. This area already had large Jewish districts in the cities

2. Eastern Europeans were viewed as inferior to Western Europeans, so it would be better keeping them there among inferior peoples

4. Judenrate

• Jewish councils that had to implement German policy in the Ghettos

• They had to provide all services to create a community (education, culture, health) WITHOUT proper resources, while facing abuse and murder

• They often had to make life or death decisions (who would get food? medicine?) And later, they had to choose who would be sent to the death camps.

CONTROL, CONFINE, WEAKEN:

What are some examples?

5. Conditions in the Ghettos• Conditions varied, but

starvation, disease, terror, and overcrowding were common

• Jews tried to live as normally as possible under these conditions

• Family life changed: many Jewish men had been taken to concentration camps, so women & children worked

6. Life in the Ghettos• Education was banned (but secret schools were created in

some ghettos)

• In some ghettos in the early years, cultural activities took place (concerts, art, literature)

• Things changed drastically after 1941, when the plan for the “Final Solution” was put in place: Jews were concentrated in the ghettos and then the ghettos were liquidated (sent to death camps)

• After WWII, not a single ghetto (except in Budapest) remained

https://encyclopedia.ushmm

.org/content/en/animated-map/the-

warsaw-ghetto

Lodz Ghetto: the second largest ghetto, as well as the last remaining ghetto in Poland toward the end of the war

The Experience of the Ghettos and the Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Sk0CPzfPKIw?ecver=1