Ghettos in the Holocaust: The Badge of Shame

The feeding of the prisoners was a major issue in the concentration camps during the holocaust. The jewish prisoners were fed three times a day in the concentration camps, those three times were morning, noon, and evening. (living conditions, labor and executions) It wasn’t the amount of food given a day that was an issue the nutritional value that the Nazis had for the concentration camps. (living conditions, labor and executions) When the Nazis would feed the prisoners they gave the less physically demanding workers one thousand three hundred calories per day and gave the ones who engaged in hard labor one thousand seven hundred calories per day. (living conditions, labor and executions) This was an issue because after several weeks on such starvation in the camps, most prisoners began to experience what is called organic deterioration that led to the well known “Muzulman” state. (living conditions, labor and executions) This was when the prisoners ended being so tiny, extreme physical exhaustion, and soon ended up in death. (living conditions, labor and executions) In march 31, 1942 the WVHA established a minimum working day of 11 hour in all concentration camps. Labor in some concentration camps was the way of destroying prisoners, they worked them until they died. (living conditions, labor and executions) The prisoners usually labored in various sectors of

A meal time was one of the most important times of the day, for a prisoner. In the morning, a prisoner would be fed coffee or herbal tea. The Holocaust Explained states “For lunch prisoners would be given a litre of watery soup. If they were lucky, they might find a piece of turnip or potato peel.” (The Holocaust Explained.org 2014). For dinner, black bread, a tiny piece of sausage, and cheese. The black bread was supposed to be able to last prisoners throughout the night, and into the morning. Because of the bread’s durability, many prisoners secretly hid and stashed amounts of black bread to eat. In camps like Belzec, food was placed on a high value within the life of the prisoners, making reason for them to smuggle and steal it. But because of the constant work, brutality, and small portions of food that were given to the prisoners, many died and suffered from sickness caused by hunger. Through this, weight and muscle tissue were barely left on the bodies of the prisoners, with the lack of food and

During the Holocaust, the living conditions for the Jewish population were horrifying and unthought of. The lack of sanitary facilities meant they had to remove dirt and pests from clothing by waiting in a line that took up most of the day. The barracks that the prisoners slept in was in terrible conditions and the rooms were damp with leaky roofs (“Auschwitz…”). The health and how the jewish lived was no concern of the Nazi soldiers.

According to Merriam-Webster a ghetto is, “ a part of a city in which members of a particular group or race live usually in poor conditions (ghetto).” This paper will focus, however, on what daily life was like in the ghettos, what Jews did or didn’t do to prevent their fate, and how Holocaust survivors are doing now. I chose this topic because when Elie and his family were living in the ghetto in the beginning of Night, it seemed as though they had plenty of opportunities to escape that they didn’t take. It also seemed much closer to pleasant than I imagined, and I was curious to see if that was completely true.

In fact, the lack of providing nutrition to Jews caused individual disruption: “At that moment in time, all that mattered to me was my daily bowl of soup, my crust of stale bread. The bread, the soup- those were my entire life” (Wiesel 52). The desperation was penetrating as each soul depended on the small rations of food given in the concentration camps. The admiration of an extra ration was something that all Jews longed for. In any case, they would do anything in order to receive a wholeness of satisfaction. Furthermore, starvation destroyed each individual: “I was nothing but a body, perhaps even less: a famished stomach. The stomach alone was measuring time” (Wiesel 52). The Jews were forced to think that they had no other choice but to rely on the support and hospitality of the Nazis. Their only motive to live was under the fear of death and the unknown. Unsatisfying nutrition breached each individual and made them desperate for change, which often led to their brutal

The merciless starvation was a constant factor at the concentration camps. The inmates received a daily ration of soup and bread, but that was it. They were also forced to work daily on these empty stomachs, as if the starvation wasn’t bad enough on it’s own. “The bell announced that we were dismissed. We went to fetch the evening meal: bread and margarine. I was terribly hungry and swallowed my ration on the spot. My father told me, “You mustn’t eat all at once. Tomorrow is another day…” This quote is a perfect example of relentless work and merciless starvation.

The Jews of the Sighet ghettos remained within the ghettos only for a short period of time. As a result, they never encountered starvation or mass death as experienced in other ghettos. Nevertheless the Jews endured crowded living conditions. The ghettos were relatively small: “one in the center of town occupied four streets, and another smaller one extended over several alleyways on the outskirts of town”

Wild beasts of prey, with animal hatred in their eyes; an extraordinary vitality had seized then, sharpening their teeth and nails” (Weisel, 95). Clearly, food as a method survival wasn’t a particularly effective way to stay alive. It tended to kill only those who used it as an attempt to stay alive. Fighting for food did not help save very many lives during the holocaust because it all wound down to simply being selfish, and caring only about yourself, though some people chose not to succumb to greed. Many people struggled for months or even years, to stay with their family, and to help each other through the holocaust.

The people barely get to eat. “Eliezer and his fellow captives are forced to live in squalid barracks; they are fed only bread, water, and tasteless broth.” “The train with the deportees had crossed the Hungarian border and, once in Polish territory, had been taken over by the Gestapo.” “As the train passes through towns, people throw bread into the open cars, then watch as the prisoners beat and kill each other for food. (Wiesel).”

The ghettos were streets where Jewish people lived. The three main ghettos were Lodz, Warsaw, and Theresienstadt. It had horrible living conditions. They were non-sanitary, bad electricity, extremely crowded, and there was not enough food. Contagious diseases spread rapidly due to all of these bad conditions. Everyday children became orphaned, and many had to take care of younger

The Nazi made it so the Jews would feel as outsiders, having to

Of those who did get to live, they had to live off of minimal essentials. The Jews would wear the same outfit every day during winter and summer. They would also wear it during hard labor and while sleeping. During an interview with Oprah, Elie Wiesel explained, “he was only given one pair of clothes to wear while he was there”. Jews from the camps weren’t given

In the prison camps the food and water they ate and drank were full of waste and were not nutritious. For food they ate pickled beef, salt pork, corn meal, rice and bean soup. People in general need fruits and veggies and prisoners

     The prisoners are further degraded because they simply do not have enough to eat. They become very haggardly and often have difficulty in judging each other?s age. Acquisition of a sufficient amount of food becomes a daily struggle, and for those who do not rise to the occasion ultimately parish. After a certain time period, it is impossible to survive unless you become an ?Organisator, Kombinator, or a Prominent? (Levi, 89). Levi writes, ?We have learnt the value of food; now we also diligently scrape the bottom of the bowl after the ration and we hold it under our chins when we eat bread so as not to lose the crumbs? (Levi, 33). A prisoner could only survive on a normal ration for around 3 months at best. Starving to death was not the main reason to acquire an adequate amount of food. The selections had to be avoided. If a prisoner was too weak to work, he was destined for the gas chambers.

In the winter jews would get frostbite, colds, and pneumonia. Many people got sick because the camps were so crowded. Some illnesses that they suffered are, tuberculosis, diarrhea, malaria, and meningitis. Some also got skin disease, rashes, and scabies that got infected. Starvation happened to most Jews because they didn’t get fed enough. They had tea or coffee for breakfast, watery soup for lunch, and a piece of black bread with a small piece of meat or cheese for supper. The bread they had for supper was meant to last for breakfast too. If the prisoners got too weak, they were sent to be