The Holocost

Jewish ghettos: The basic history of the formation of the Jewish ghettos, including the everyday life and economic hardships faced by the communities.

By definition, a ghetto is an area, usually characterized by poverty and poor living conditions, which houses many people of a similar religion, race or nationality. They served to confine these groups of people and isolate them from the rest of the community because of political or social differences. However, the Jewish ghettos established throughout Europe were more than just a way for the Germans to isolate the Jewish community. They were the first step in making Hitler's final solution possible. The ghettos were the means of organizing all of the Jews together and preparing them to be shipped to concentration camps. However, these ghettos soon evolved into political, religious and social entities that served the community and began to resemble a form of self-ruling government. Furthermore, many of these ghettos were different from one another because of different internal structures of the Jewish community or the diversity of the personalities of the leaders of the council in the Jewish community. However, the ghettos must be analyzed as if they are all "one history."(Holocaust) In fact, many of the communities were the same with regards to Jewish perceptions and reactions concerning life and the difficulties being faced by each community in its occupied territory. This research paper discusses the common everyday trials and tribulations faced by all the ghettos and looks at the ghettos from a political and socio-economic point of view. (Holocaust)

First, it is important to understand the history behind the ghettos and discuss their centralization in Poland. Hitler incorporated the western part of Poland into Germany according to race doctrine. He intended that Poles were to become the slaves of Germany and that the two million Jews therein were to be concentrated in ghettos in Poland's larger cities. Later this would simplify transport to the death camps. Nazi occupation authorities officially told the story that Jews were natural carriers of all types of diseases, especially typhus, and that it was necessary to isolate Jews from the Polish community. Jewish neighborhoods thus were transformed into prisons. The five major ghettos were located in Warsaw, LÐ"Ñ-dz, KrakÐ"Ñ-w, Lublin, and Lvov (a history 170). (Holocaust, Holocaust time line)

In total, the Nazis established 356 ghettos in Poland, the Soviet Union, the Baltic States, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Hungary between 1939 and 1945. However, there was no real uniformity to these ghettos. The ghettos usually varied with respect to the size of the city in which they were located. The ghettos in small towns were generally not sealed off, which was often a temporary measure used until the Jewish occupants could be sent to a bigger ghetto. Larger cities had closed ghettos, with brick or stone walls, wooden fences, and barbed wire defining the boundaries. In the larger ghettos, guards were strategically placed at gateways and other boundary openings for policing the area. In these larger ghettos, Jews were not allowed to leave the Jewish residential districts (Holocaust),under penalty of severe punishment, often including death. As mentioned earlier, all of the ghettos had the most appalling, inhuman living conditions. The smallest ghetto housed about 3,000 Jews. Warsaw, probably the largest ghetto, held close to 400,000 people. Lodz, the second largest, held about 160,000 (Phillips 304-12). Other areas (mainly Poland) with large Jewish ghettos included Bialystok, Czestochowa, Kielce, Krakow, Lublin, Lvov, Radom, and Vilna(a history 170). Many of the ghetto dwellers were from the local area; others were from neighboring villages. In October 1941, general deportations began from Germany to major ghettos in Poland and further east. Also, Jews from Austria and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia were sent to the ghettos. Ghetto life was wretched. The ghettos were filthy, with poor sanitation. Extreme overcrowding forced many people to share a room. Disease was rampant. Staying warm was difficult during bitter cold winters without adequate warm clothes and heating fuel. Food was in such short supply that many slowly starved to death. However, even in the midst of these horrible conditions, many ghetto dwellers resisted dehumanization sought by the Germans. Parents continued to educate their children, although it was considered an illegal activity. Some residents secretly continued to hold religious services and observe Jewish holidays. In this way, the Jewish ghetto rose above the daily difficulties and began to establish themselves as governments with strong political and social ties inside the community. (Holocaust, holocaust time line, Phillips)

The principle underlying theme of the ghettos from a political standpoint was its segregation of the inhabitants from the surrounding German population. The Jewish ghetto was a closed-off community, disparaging any free traffic moving in and out of the ghetto. However, within the smaller Jewish communities work parties were allowed to leave and perform jobs outside of the ghetto. This is not to say that pre-existing contracts with the Germans did not still hold. The ghettos still needed water, gas, electricity, means of communication, removal of human waste and the importing of raw materials and food. This does bring to the fore front that only functions necessary to the maintenance of the ghetto were permitted and any out side business relationships were quickly terminated. And in time, even those were tossed aside as the Jews were relocated to the concentration camps. (Holocaust)

From a political standpoint, even the corroboration of Jewish ghetto authorities with German officials was largely constricted. The only remaining lines of communication were direct lines running from the Jewish council to the superior German authorities. The structural make-up of these Jewish councils was decidedly vertical, with German authorities passing down orders through Jewish officials to the ghetto population. It is important to note that the success of this Jewish council relied heavily on the support of German authorities. These council members could also exercise control over the helpless in the ghetto. They could enforce rules with the Jewish police and send people to jail for not complying with German regulations. Coupled with the German support, the vertical structure is the next important factor that supported the Jewish structure. By allowing only immediate inferiors and superiors to hold conversation and relay messages, the German officials were able to keep a tight control on the issues of the ghetto. These vertical structures could be complex, as seen in Warsaw, and extremely direct and simple, as seen