The Ghetto

Jews were forced to live in designated areas called ghettos. The five major ghettos were located in Warsaw , Lódz, Kraków, Lublin, and Lvov. The smallest ghetto housed approximately 3,000 people. Warsaw, the largest ghetto, held 400,000 people.

Larger cities had closed ghettos, with brick or stone walls, wooden fences, and barbed wire defining the boundaries. There were guards at every other opening there was to keep the Jews from getting out.

The Jews were only permitted to take a few personal items with them to the ghetto, in the process being stripped of the homes and property that they had left behind.

The Jews were only permitted to take a few personal items with them to the ghetto, in the process being stripped of the homes and property that they had left behind.

Conditions in the Warsaw Ghetto were usually unbearable. The rooms are very over crowded, many families will live in the same home.The homes were unsanitary. Plumbing broke down, There is garbage all over the streets. Many contagious diseases spread rapidly. People were always hungry. Germans tried to starve residents by only letting them buy a small amount of bread, potatoes, and fat. Some of them had money or valuables they could trade for food that was smuggled into the ghetto. Some people stole to survive. During the long winters and many people didn't have the appropriate clothing. People got weaker everyday from being starved and being outside in the cold catching diseases. Tens of thousands died in the ghettos from illness, starvation, or cold. Some people killed themselves to stop living a miserable life.

Every day children became orphaned, orphans often lived on the streets taking care of the children who were younger, begging for bread. Many of the orphans froze to death. Small children in the Warsaw ghetto sometimes smuggled food to their families and friends by fitting through the openings in the ghetto wall. They were at risk of getting shot on the spot, smugglers that were caught were punished.

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Resources

• http://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/timeline/ghettos.htm
• http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007708
•   http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/holocaust/about/03/daily_life.asp
• http://www.myjewishlearning.com/history/Modern_History/1914-1948/The_Holoca...
• http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/life_in_warsaw.html