Jewish ghettos in Europe
Encyclopedia
Jewish ghettos in Europe existed because Jews were viewed as foreigners due to their non-Christian beliefs in a Renaissance Christian environment. As a result, Jews were placed under strict regulations throughout many European cities. The character of ghettos varied through times. In some cases, they comprised a Jewish quarter
, the area of a city traditionally inhabited by Jews. In many instances, ghettos were places of terrible poverty and during periods of population growth, ghettos had narrow streets and tall, crowded houses. Residents had their own justice system. Around the ghetto stood walls that, during pogrom
s, were closed from inside to protect the community, but from the outside during Christmas
, Pesach, and Easter Week
to prevent the Jews from leaving during those times.
In the 19th century, Jewish ghettos were progressively abolished, and their walls taken down. However, in the course of World War II
the Third Reich created a totally new Jewish ghetto-system for the purpose of persecution, terror, and exploitation of Jews, mostly in Eastern Europe. According to USHMM archives, "The Germans established at least 1,000 ghettos in German-occupied and annexed Poland and the Soviet Union
alone."
From its creation to its dissolution at the end of the 18th century, the city councils limited expansion in the Judengasse, resulting in a steady increase in population to the point of overcrowding. The original area of about a dozen houses with around 100 inhabitants, grew to almost 200 houses and some 3,000 inhabitants. The plots, originally quite generous, were successively divided while the total size of the ghetto remained the same. This increased the number of plots but subsequently reduced the size of each plot. In the process, many houses were replaced by two or more houses which were often divided in turn. Many of the houses were designed to be narrow and long, in order to maximize the limited space – the smallest house, the Rote Hase, was only about one and a half meters wide.
Rome
In 1555, Pope Paul IV
issued papal bull
Cum nimis absurdum
which created the Roman Ghetto, forcing Jews of Rome to live in a part of the rione Sant'Angelo
of Rome. The area of Rome chosen for the ghetto was the most undesirable quarter of the city, owing to constant flooding by the Tiber River
. At the time of its founding, the four-block area was designated to contain roughly 1,000 inhabitants. However, over the years, the Jewish community grew, which caused severe overcrowding. Since the area could not expand horizontally (the ghetto was surrounded by high walls), the Jews built vertical additions to their houses, which blocked the sun from reaching the already dank and narrow streets. Life in the Roman Ghetto was one of crushing poverty, due to the severe restrictions placed upon the professions that Jews were allowed to perform.
The Roman Ghetto was the last of the original ghettos to be abolished in Western Europe; not until 1882, when the Kingdom of Italy
conquered Rome from the Pope
, was the Ghetto finally opened, with the walls themselves being torn down in 1888.
Due to the three hundred plus years of isolation from the rest of the city, the Jews of the Roman Ghetto developed their own dialect
, known as Giudeo-romanesco, which differs from the dialect of the rest of the city in its preservation of 16th-century dialectical forms and its liberal use of romanized Hebrew
words.
Venice
Although there is evidence indicating the presence of Jews in the Venetian area dating back to the first few centuries A.D., during the 15th and early 16th centuries (until 1516), no Jew was allowed to live anywhere in the city of Venice for more than 15 days per year; so most of them lived in Venice's possessions on the terrafirma. At its maximum, the population of the Ghetto reached 3,000. In exchange for their loss of freedom, the Jews were granted the right to a Jew's coat (the colour yellow was considered humiliating, as it was associated with prostitutes). The gates were locked at night, and the Jewish community was forced to pay the salaries of the patrolmen who guarded the gates and patrolled the canals that surrounded the Ghetto. The Ghetto was abolished after the fall of the Republic of Venice to Napoleon.
To place Venetian provisions requiring groups in the city to live in compulsory quarters in historical context:
s Mantua
was a haven of relative racial and cultural tolerance. In 1610 Jews constituted about 7.5 percent of the population of Mantua
. In 1630 the Mantua ghetto was sacked by imperial troops and destroyed. Among the Jewish dead or missing were the composer Salamone Rossi
and his sister the opera singer Madama Europa
.
district of Kraków
earmarked in 1495 by the King Jan I Olbracht for the Jewish community. The district was governed by a municipal form of Jewish self-government called kehilla, a foundation of the local qahal. In smaller Polish towns, ethnic communities were mostly integrated.
Nearly complete genocidal
destruction of the Polish Jewish minority took place during the German and Soviet occupation of Poland and the ensuing Holocaust. The World War II ghetto-system had been imposed by Nazi Germany roughly between October 1939 and July 1942 in order to confine Poland
's Jewish population
of 3.5 million for the purpose of persecution, terror, and exploitation. The Warsaw Ghetto
was the largest ghetto in all of Nazi occupied Europe, with over 400,000 Jews crammed into an area of 1.3 square miles (3.4 km²), or 7.2 persons per room. The Łódź Ghetto was the second largest, holding about 160,000 inmates. Over three million Polish Jews perished in World War II
, resulting in the destruction of an entire civilization.
A more complete list of over 260 ghettos with approximate number of prisoners, date of creation and liquidation, as well as known deportation route to death camps, is available at Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland
.
Starting in 1939, Adolf Eichmann
, a German Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer who was head of the Final Solution
program, began to systematically move Polish Jews away from their homes and into designated areas of large Polish cities. The first large ghetto at Piotrków Trybunalski
was established on October 8, 1939, followed by the Łódź Ghetto in April 1940, the Warsaw Ghetto
in October 1940, and many other ghettos established throughout 1940 and 1941. The Ghettos were walled off, and any Jew found leaving them was shot.
The situation in the ghettos was usually brutal. In Warsaw
, 30% of the population were forced to live in 2.4% of the city's area. In the ghetto of Odrzywol, 700 people lived in an area previously occupied by 5 families, between 12 and 30 to each small room. The Jews were not allowed out of the ghetto, so they had to rely on replenishments supplied by the Nazis: in Warsaw this was 181 calorie
s per Jew, compared to 669 calories per non-Jewish Pole and 2,613 calories per German. With crowded living conditions, starvation
diets, and little sanitation
(in the Łódź Ghetto 95% of apartment
s had no sanitation, piped water or sewer
s) hundreds of thousands of Jews died of disease and starvation.
The liquidation of WWII ghettos across Poland was closely connected with the formation of highly secretive killing centers built by various German companies including I.A. Topf and Sons of Erfurt, and C.H. Kori GmbH. Jews were deported from the Warsaw Ghetto alone to Treblinka extermination camp over the course of 52 days during Grossaktion Warsaw (1942)
. In some of the Ghettos the local resistance organization
s started Ghetto uprisings
, none were successful, and the Jewish populations of the ghettos were almost entirely
Jodebreestraat was a street "in the very heart of the Jewish quarter." In the mid 15th century the Ashkenazi Jews
began to arrive in Amsterdam in large numbers from Germany and Eastern Europe – especially Ukraine, where 100,000 Jews have been slaughtered by the Ukrainian peasants during the Khmelnytsky Uprising
. By the 18th century there were 20,000 Ashkenazi Jews and 3,000 Sephardic Jews in Amsterdam. Non-Jewish people also lived in Jewish neighborhoods, for example Rembrandt van Rijn.
Following the Nazi German invasion of the Netherlands, in February 1941 the Hebrew quarter was completely sealed off, and a Ghetto was established. The first group of 425 Jewish men were assembled at the Jonas Daniel Meijer Square and sent to concentration camps at Buchenwald and Mauthausen
, which resulted in mass demonstrations among gentiles, organized by the Dutch Workers Party. However, the deportation of Jews to Nazi death camps continued till the end of World War II
. Amsterdam had 3 Jewish neighborhoods before 1940, one in the Center, one in Amsterdam East and one in Amsterdam South. The one in the Center of Amsterdam was closed off from February 12, 1941 to May 6, 1941 with barb wire, and guarded bridges that were open.
in 1290, Old Jewry
in the City of London
. Although they were not really Ghettos, there were a number of areas with extremely high Jewish concentrations:
During World War II
, ghettos were established by Nazi Germany
to confine Jews into tightly packed areas of the cities of Eastern and Central Europe. They served as staging points to begin dividing "able workers" from those who would later be deemed unworthy of life. In many cases, the Nazi-era ghettos did not correspond to historic Jewish quarters. For example, the Kraków Ghetto
was formally established in the Podgórze
district, not in the Jewish district of Kazimierz
. As a result, the displaced ethnic Polish families were forced to take up residences outside.
In 1942, the Nazis began Operation Reinhard
, the systematic deportation
to extermination camps during the Holocaust
. The authorities deported Jews from everywhere in Europe to the ghettos of the East, or directly to the extermination camps designed and operated in Poland by Nazi Germans. There were no Polish guards at any of the camps, despite the sometimes used misnomer Polish death camps
.
Jewish Quarter (diaspora)
In the Jewish Diaspora, a Jewish quarter is the area of a city traditionally inhabited by Jews. Jewish quarters, like the Jewish ghettos in Europe, were often the outgrowths of segregated ghettos instituted by the surrounding Christian authorities. A Yiddish term for a Jewish quarter or...
, the area of a city traditionally inhabited by Jews. In many instances, ghettos were places of terrible poverty and during periods of population growth, ghettos had narrow streets and tall, crowded houses. Residents had their own justice system. Around the ghetto stood walls that, during pogrom
Pogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
s, were closed from inside to protect the community, but from the outside during Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
, Pesach, and Easter Week
Easter Week
Easter Week is the period of seven days from Easter Sunday through the Saturday following.-Western Church:In the Latin Rite of Roman Catholicism, Anglican and other Western churches, Easter Week is the week beginning with the Christian feast of Easter and ending a week later on Easter Saturday...
to prevent the Jews from leaving during those times.
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
the Third Reich created a totally new Jewish ghetto-system for the purpose of persecution, terror, and exploitation of Jews, mostly in Eastern Europe. According to USHMM archives, "The Germans established at least 1,000 ghettos in German-occupied and annexed Poland and the Soviet Union
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
alone."
Germany
- FrankfurtFrankfurtFrankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
From its creation to its dissolution at the end of the 18th century, the city councils limited expansion in the Judengasse, resulting in a steady increase in population to the point of overcrowding. The original area of about a dozen houses with around 100 inhabitants, grew to almost 200 houses and some 3,000 inhabitants. The plots, originally quite generous, were successively divided while the total size of the ghetto remained the same. This increased the number of plots but subsequently reduced the size of each plot. In the process, many houses were replaced by two or more houses which were often divided in turn. Many of the houses were designed to be narrow and long, in order to maximize the limited space – the smallest house, the Rote Hase, was only about one and a half meters wide.
Italy
- Some ancient Ghettos in PiedmontPiedmontPiedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...
, where Judæo-PiedmonteseJudæo-PiedmonteseJudæo-Piedmontese was the vernacular language of the Jews living in Piedmont, in North Western Italy, from about the 15th Century until the Second World War....
(a kind of Piedmontese languagePiedmontese languagePiedmontese is a Romance language spoken by over 2 million people in Piedmont, northwest Italy. It is geographically and linguistically included in the Northern Italian group . It is part of the wider western group of Romance languages, including French, Occitan, and Catalan.Many European and...
with Hebrew words was spoken): TurinTurinTurin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
, MoncalvoMoncalvoMoncalvo is a city and comune in the Province of Asti in the Italian region Piedmont, located about 45 km east of Turin and about 15 km northeast of Asti on the national road SS 547 which links Asti to Casale Monferrato and Vercelli...
, VercelliVercelliVercelli is a city and comune of about 47,000 inhabitants in the Province of Vercelli, Piedmont, northern Italy. One of the oldest urban sites in northern Italy, it was founded, according to most historians, around the year 600 BC.The city is situated on the river Sesia in the plain of the river...
, Casale MonferratoCasale MonferratoCasale Monferrato, population 36,058, is a town and comune in the Piedmont region of north-west Italy, part of the province of Alessandria. It is situated about 60 km east of Turin on the right bank of the Po, where the river runs at the foot of the Montferrato hills. Beyond the river lies the...
, AlessandriaAlessandria-Monuments:* The Citadel * The church of Santa Maria di Castello * The church of Santa Maria del Carmine * Palazzo Ghilini * Università del Piemonte Orientale-Museums:* The Marengo Battle Museum...
, AstiAstiAsti is a city and comune of about 75,000 inhabitants located in the Piedmont region of northwestern Italy, about 55 kilometres east of Turin in the plain of the Tanaro River...
, IvreaIvreaIvrea is a town and comune of the province of Turin in the Piedmont region of northwestern Italy. Situated on the road leading to the Aosta Valley , it straddles the Dora Baltea and is regarded as the centre of the Canavese area. Ivrea lies in a basin that, in prehistoric times, formed a great lake...
, CarmagnolaCarmagnolaCarmagnola is a comune in the Province of Turin in the Italian region Piedmont, located 29 km south of Turin. As of July 11, 2007, it had a population of 27,043 and an area of 96.4 km²....
, Bra, NicastroNicastroNicastro was a small town in the province of Catanzaro, in the Calabria region of southern Italy.Since 1968 it constitutes, together with Sambiase and Sant'Eufemia Lamezia, the city of Lamezia Terme.- Geography :...
RomeRomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
Pope Paul IV
Pope Paul IV, C.R. , né Giovanni Pietro Carafa, was Pope from 23 May 1555 until his death.-Early life:Giovanni Pietro Carafa was born in Capriglia Irpina, near Avellino, into a prominent noble family of Naples...
issued papal bull
Papal bull
A Papal bull is a particular type of letters patent or charter issued by a Pope of the Catholic Church. It is named after the bulla that was appended to the end in order to authenticate it....
Cum nimis absurdum
Cum nimis absurdum
Cum nimis absurdum was a papal bull issued by Pope Paul IV dated 14 July 1555. It takes its name from its first words: "Since it is absurd and utterly inconvenient that the Jews, who through their own fault were condemned by God to eternal slavery..."...
which created the Roman Ghetto, forcing Jews of Rome to live in a part of the rione Sant'Angelo
Sant'Angelo (rione of Rome)
Sant'Angelo is the eleventh historic district or rione of Rome, often written as rione XI - Sant'Angelo. Its coat of arms is an angel on a red background, holding a palm branch in its left hand. In another version, the angel holds a sword in its right hand and a scale in its left.Sant'Angelo, the...
of Rome. The area of Rome chosen for the ghetto was the most undesirable quarter of the city, owing to constant flooding by the Tiber River
Tiber
The Tiber is the third-longest river in Italy, rising in the Apennine Mountains in Emilia-Romagna and flowing through Umbria and Lazio to the Tyrrhenian Sea. It drains a basin estimated at...
. At the time of its founding, the four-block area was designated to contain roughly 1,000 inhabitants. However, over the years, the Jewish community grew, which caused severe overcrowding. Since the area could not expand horizontally (the ghetto was surrounded by high walls), the Jews built vertical additions to their houses, which blocked the sun from reaching the already dank and narrow streets. Life in the Roman Ghetto was one of crushing poverty, due to the severe restrictions placed upon the professions that Jews were allowed to perform.
The Roman Ghetto was the last of the original ghettos to be abolished in Western Europe; not until 1882, when the Kingdom of Italy
Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946)
The Kingdom of Italy was a state forged in 1861 by the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which was its legal predecessor state...
conquered Rome from the Pope
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
, was the Ghetto finally opened, with the walls themselves being torn down in 1888.
Due to the three hundred plus years of isolation from the rest of the city, the Jews of the Roman Ghetto developed their own dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
, known as Giudeo-romanesco, which differs from the dialect of the rest of the city in its preservation of 16th-century dialectical forms and its liberal use of romanized Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
words.
VeniceVeniceVenice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
Although there is evidence indicating the presence of Jews in the Venetian area dating back to the first few centuries A.D., during the 15th and early 16th centuries (until 1516), no Jew was allowed to live anywhere in the city of Venice for more than 15 days per year; so most of them lived in Venice's possessions on the terrafirma. At its maximum, the population of the Ghetto reached 3,000. In exchange for their loss of freedom, the Jews were granted the right to a Jew's coat (the colour yellow was considered humiliating, as it was associated with prostitutes). The gates were locked at night, and the Jewish community was forced to pay the salaries of the patrolmen who guarded the gates and patrolled the canals that surrounded the Ghetto. The Ghetto was abolished after the fall of the Republic of Venice to Napoleon.To place Venetian provisions requiring groups in the city to live in compulsory quarters in historical context:
- Merchants from the Germanic lands were required to reside in a special building known as the 'Fondaco dei TedeschiFondaco dei TedeschiThe Fondaco dei Tedeschi is a historic building in Venice, northern Italy, situated on the Grand Canal near the Rialto Bridge. It was the headquarters and restricted living quarters of the city's German merchants...
'. - Turkish merchants were restricted to the palazzo known as the Fondaco dei TurchiFondaco dei TurchiThe Fondaco dei Turchi is a Veneto-Byzantine style palazzo on the Grand Canal of Venice, northeast Italy.-Early history:...
.
Mantua
Under the GonzagaHouse of Gonzaga
The Gonzaga family ruled Mantua in Northern Italy from 1328 to 1708.-History:In 1433, Gianfrancesco I assumed the title of Marquis of Mantua, and in 1530 Federico II received the title of Duke of Mantua. In 1531, the family acquired the Duchy of Monferrato through marriage...
s Mantua
Mantua
Mantua is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy and capital of the province of the same name. Mantua's historic power and influence under the Gonzaga family, made it one of the main artistic, cultural and notably musical hubs of Northern Italy and the country as a whole...
was a haven of relative racial and cultural tolerance. In 1610 Jews constituted about 7.5 percent of the population of Mantua
Mantua
Mantua is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy and capital of the province of the same name. Mantua's historic power and influence under the Gonzaga family, made it one of the main artistic, cultural and notably musical hubs of Northern Italy and the country as a whole...
. In 1630 the Mantua ghetto was sacked by imperial troops and destroyed. Among the Jewish dead or missing were the composer Salamone Rossi
Salamone Rossi
Salamone Rossi or Salomone Rossi was an Italian Jewish violinist and composer. He was a transitional figure between the late Italian Renaissance period and early Baroque.-Life:...
and his sister the opera singer Madama Europa
Madama Europa
Madama Europa was the nickname, or perhaps the real name, of Europa Rossi sister of the Jewish violinist and composer Salamone Rossi, who was one of the first opera singers....
.
Southern Italy and Sicily
While a not quite a ghetto, the giudecca is a medieval Jewish neighborhood. The Jews of southern Italy often lived in these neighborhoods either for safety reasons or compulsion by Christian authorities. Unlike the ghettos, the giudeccas were clean and had proper sanitation. After the expulsion of the Jews of southern Italy, these neighborhoods lost their distinctive Jewish characteristics and now only trace evidence remains of the original inhabitants.Poland
For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jewish community in the world. The immigration of Jews to Poland began to increase already during the crusades due to persecution of Jews in Western Europe, and thanks to a long period of Polish statutory religious tolerance and social autonomy. Jewish settlers built their own settlements. By the mid-14th century they had established thirty-five towns in Silesia alone. In large cities, entire districts were assigned to them, as in the case of KazimierzKazimierz
Kazimierz is a historical district of Kraków , best known for being home to a Jewish community from the 14th century until the Second World War.-Early history:...
district of Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
earmarked in 1495 by the King Jan I Olbracht for the Jewish community. The district was governed by a municipal form of Jewish self-government called kehilla, a foundation of the local qahal. In smaller Polish towns, ethnic communities were mostly integrated.
Nearly complete genocidal
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
destruction of the Polish Jewish minority took place during the German and Soviet occupation of Poland and the ensuing Holocaust. The World War II ghetto-system had been imposed by Nazi Germany roughly between October 1939 and July 1942 in order to confine Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
's Jewish population
History of the Jews in Poland
The history of the Jews in Poland dates back over a millennium. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jewish community in the world. Poland was the centre of Jewish culture thanks to a long period of statutory religious tolerance and social autonomy. This ended with the...
of 3.5 million for the purpose of persecution, terror, and exploitation. The Warsaw Ghetto
Warsaw Ghetto
The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of all Jewish Ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II. It was established in the Polish capital between October and November 15, 1940, in the territory of General Government of the German-occupied Poland, with over 400,000 Jews from the vicinity...
was the largest ghetto in all of Nazi occupied Europe, with over 400,000 Jews crammed into an area of 1.3 square miles (3.4 km²), or 7.2 persons per room. The Łódź Ghetto was the second largest, holding about 160,000 inmates. Over three million Polish Jews perished in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, resulting in the destruction of an entire civilization.
A more complete list of over 260 ghettos with approximate number of prisoners, date of creation and liquidation, as well as known deportation route to death camps, is available at Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland
Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland
This article presents a list of locations where the Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland were established during World War II. The ghetto system had been imposed by Nazi Germany roughly between October 1939 and July 1942 in order to confine Poland's Jewish population of 3.5 million for the...
.
The Holocaust in Poland
Adolf Eichmann
Adolf Otto Eichmann was a German Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust...
, a German Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer who was head of the Final Solution
Final Solution
The Final Solution was Nazi Germany's plan and execution of the systematic genocide of European Jews during World War II, resulting in the most deadly phase of the Holocaust...
program, began to systematically move Polish Jews away from their homes and into designated areas of large Polish cities. The first large ghetto at Piotrków Trybunalski
Piotrków Trybunalski
Piotrków Trybunalski is a city in central Poland with 80,738 inhabitants . It is situated in the Łódź Voivodeship , and previously was the capital of Piotrków Voivodeship...
was established on October 8, 1939, followed by the Łódź Ghetto in April 1940, the Warsaw Ghetto
Warsaw Ghetto
The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of all Jewish Ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II. It was established in the Polish capital between October and November 15, 1940, in the territory of General Government of the German-occupied Poland, with over 400,000 Jews from the vicinity...
in October 1940, and many other ghettos established throughout 1940 and 1941. The Ghettos were walled off, and any Jew found leaving them was shot.
The situation in the ghettos was usually brutal. In Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
, 30% of the population were forced to live in 2.4% of the city's area. In the ghetto of Odrzywol, 700 people lived in an area previously occupied by 5 families, between 12 and 30 to each small room. The Jews were not allowed out of the ghetto, so they had to rely on replenishments supplied by the Nazis: in Warsaw this was 181 calorie
Calorie
The calorie is a pre-SI metric unit of energy. It was first defined by Nicolas Clément in 1824 as a unit of heat, entering French and English dictionaries between 1841 and 1867. In most fields its use is archaic, having been replaced by the SI unit of energy, the joule...
s per Jew, compared to 669 calories per non-Jewish Pole and 2,613 calories per German. With crowded living conditions, starvation
Starvation
Starvation is a severe deficiency in caloric energy, nutrient and vitamin intake. It is the most extreme form of malnutrition. In humans, prolonged starvation can cause permanent organ damage and eventually, death...
diets, and little sanitation
Sanitation
Sanitation is the hygienic means of promoting health through prevention of human contact with the hazards of wastes. Hazards can be either physical, microbiological, biological or chemical agents of disease. Wastes that can cause health problems are human and animal feces, solid wastes, domestic...
(in the Łódź Ghetto 95% of apartment
Apartment
An apartment or flat is a self-contained housing unit that occupies only part of a building...
s had no sanitation, piped water or sewer
Sanitary sewer
A sanitary sewer is a separate underground carriage system specifically for transporting sewage from houses and commercial buildings to treatment or disposal. Sanitary sewers serving industrial areas also carry industrial wastewater...
s) hundreds of thousands of Jews died of disease and starvation.
The liquidation of WWII ghettos across Poland was closely connected with the formation of highly secretive killing centers built by various German companies including I.A. Topf and Sons of Erfurt, and C.H. Kori GmbH. Jews were deported from the Warsaw Ghetto alone to Treblinka extermination camp over the course of 52 days during Grossaktion Warsaw (1942)
Grossaktion Warsaw (1942)
The Grossaktion or Gross-Aktion in Warsaw was a Nazi German operation of mass extermination of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto beginning July 22, 1942. It was a key part of the countrywide Operation Reinhard headed by the SS- und Polizeiführer Odilo Globocnik...
. In some of the Ghettos the local resistance organization
Resistance movement
A resistance movement is a group or collection of individual groups, dedicated to opposing an invader in an occupied country or the government of a sovereign state. It may seek to achieve its objects through either the use of nonviolent resistance or the use of armed force...
s started Ghetto uprisings
Ghetto uprising
Ghetto uprisings were armed revolts by Jews and other groups incarcerated in ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europes during World War II against the plans to deport the inhabitants to concentration and extermination camps....
, none were successful, and the Jewish populations of the ghettos were almost entirely
The Netherlands
- JodenbreestraatJodenbreestraatThe Jodenbreestraat is a street in the centre of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The street runs from the Sint Antoniesluis sluice gates to the Mr. Visserplein traffic circle...
("Jewish Broad Street"), AmsterdamAmsterdamAmsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
Jodebreestraat was a street "in the very heart of the Jewish quarter." In the mid 15th century the Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews
Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim , are the Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities along the Rhine in Germany from Alsace in the south to the Rhineland in the north. Ashkenaz is the medieval Hebrew name for this region and thus for Germany...
began to arrive in Amsterdam in large numbers from Germany and Eastern Europe – especially Ukraine, where 100,000 Jews have been slaughtered by the Ukrainian peasants during the Khmelnytsky Uprising
Khmelnytsky Uprising
The Khmelnytsky Uprising, was a Cossack rebellion in the Ukraine between the years 1648–1657 which turned into a Ukrainian war of liberation from Poland...
. By the 18th century there were 20,000 Ashkenazi Jews and 3,000 Sephardic Jews in Amsterdam. Non-Jewish people also lived in Jewish neighborhoods, for example Rembrandt van Rijn.
Following the Nazi German invasion of the Netherlands, in February 1941 the Hebrew quarter was completely sealed off, and a Ghetto was established. The first group of 425 Jewish men were assembled at the Jonas Daniel Meijer Square and sent to concentration camps at Buchenwald and Mauthausen
Mauthausen
Mauthausen is a small market town in Upper Austria, Austria. It is located at about 20 kilometers east of the city of Linz, and has a population of 4,850 .During World War II, it became the site of the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp complex....
, which resulted in mass demonstrations among gentiles, organized by the Dutch Workers Party. However, the deportation of Jews to Nazi death camps continued till the end of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Amsterdam had 3 Jewish neighborhoods before 1940, one in the Center, one in Amsterdam East and one in Amsterdam South. The one in the Center of Amsterdam was closed off from February 12, 1941 to May 6, 1941 with barb wire, and guarded bridges that were open.
United Kingdom
Prior to the Edict of ExpulsionEdict of Expulsion
In 1290, King Edward I issued an edict expelling all Jews from England. Lasting for the rest of the Middle Ages, it would be over 350 years until it was formally overturned in 1656...
in 1290, Old Jewry
Old Jewry
Old Jewry is the name of a street in the City of London, in Coleman Street Ward, linking Gresham Street with The Poultry.William the Conqueror encouraged Jews to come to England soon after the Norman Conquest; some settled in cities throughout his new domain, including in London. According to Rev....
in the City of London
City of London
The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...
. Although they were not really Ghettos, there were a number of areas with extremely high Jewish concentrations:
- East End of LondonEast End of LondonThe East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...
- Sedgley Park, near ManchesterManchesterManchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
- GorbalsGorbalsThe Gorbals is an area on the south bank of the River Clyde in the city of Glasgow, Scotland. By the late 19th century, it had become over-populated and adversely affected by local industrialisation. Many people lived here because their jobs provided this home and they could not afford their own...
, GlasgowGlasgowGlasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
historically.
Ghettos during the Second World War and The Holocaust
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, ghettos were established by Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
to confine Jews into tightly packed areas of the cities of Eastern and Central Europe. They served as staging points to begin dividing "able workers" from those who would later be deemed unworthy of life. In many cases, the Nazi-era ghettos did not correspond to historic Jewish quarters. For example, the Kraków Ghetto
Kraków Ghetto
The Kraków Ghetto was one of five major, metropolitan Jewish ghettos created by Nazi Germany in the General Government territory for the purpose of persecution, terror, and exploitation of Polish Jews during the German occupation of Poland in World War II...
was formally established in the Podgórze
Podgórze
Podgórze is a district of Kraków, Poland, situated on the right bank of the Vistula River. Initially a village at the foot of Lasota Hill was granted city status by the Austrian Emperor Joseph II in 1784 and has become Royal Free City of Podgorze...
district, not in the Jewish district of Kazimierz
Kazimierz
Kazimierz is a historical district of Kraków , best known for being home to a Jewish community from the 14th century until the Second World War.-Early history:...
. As a result, the displaced ethnic Polish families were forced to take up residences outside.
In 1942, the Nazis began Operation Reinhard
Operation Reinhard
Operation Reinhard was the code name given to the Nazi plan to murder Polish Jews in the General Government, and marked the most deadly phase of the Holocaust, the use of extermination camps...
, the systematic deportation
Deportation
Deportation means the expulsion of a person or group of people from a place or country. Today it often refers to the expulsion of foreign nationals whereas the expulsion of nationals is called banishment, exile, or penal transportation...
to extermination camps during the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
. The authorities deported Jews from everywhere in Europe to the ghettos of the East, or directly to the extermination camps designed and operated in Poland by Nazi Germans. There were no Polish guards at any of the camps, despite the sometimes used misnomer Polish death camps
Polish death camps
Polish death camp and Polish concentration camp are terms that occasionally appear in international media in reference to Nazi German concentration camps built and run by during the Holocaust in the General Government and other parts of occupied Poland...
.