Warsaw Ghetto: Living In The City Of Warsaw

Some of the Jews were able to hide out in the ghettos. Others were able to escape from the concentration camps. In some cases organized resistance was formed in the ghettos amongst the Jews. For example, in the Polish capitol of Warsaw, individual Jews continued to hide themselves in the ghetto ruins for many months after they were forcefully told to leave by the Nazis. These resistance fighters often attacked German police officials on patrol. Approximately 20,000 Warsaw Jews continued to live in hiding in Warsaw long after the liquidation of the ghetto.

Have you ever been in a room so crowded you thought you might implode? Or been so sick you questioned if you were still alive? How about so hungry you felt as though you would shrivel up and simply cease to exist? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then you may almost be able to imagine what life was like in the Jewish ghettos. There were ghettos before the Holocaust, the first being in Venice in the 16th century, there are ghettos today, and there will be ghettos in the future, but the Jewish ghettos of the Holocaust are by far the most prominent.

The Warsaw Ghetto By the middle of 1942, Jews in the ghettos realized that all their former residents were being murdered, not sent to labor camps. In the Warsaw Ghetto

In 1939, Hitler was unsure of what he was going to do with the Jews; the Nazis were tossing around options and ideas with the goal of removing Jews from the population. The German invasion into Poland, allowed for the first ghetto, regarded as a provisional measure to control and segregate Jews. Ghettos were enclosed, isolated urban areas designated for Jews. Living under strict regulations, with unthinkable living conditions, and crammed into small areas, the ghettos destroyed all hope of retaliating. In this paper, I will discuss what life would be like to be a Jew inside one of the 1,000 of ghettos within Poland and the Soviet Union. I will imagine myself a member of the Jewish council, describing the

70 years ago (Ochayon) a new Ghetto was established. The Germans built Ghetto’s to hold Jews before they could take them out to a camp. They could be taken to a Death camp, Work camp, or a concentration camp. All the camps had a different reasons for different Jews. The Ghetto was located in Warsaw, Poland and became the largest Ghetto in Europe. It was opened in September, 1939 (“Ghetto”). The German soldiers created it in Warsaw for a certain reason. Usually people think that the Germans build Ghetto’s to take up space in a town. Because Warsaw had the largest Jewish population in Europe pre World War II (Ochayon), they held Jews throughout Poland (“Ghetto”).

Holocaust ghettos; these are the over looked places where the Jews, in Nazi controlled lands, awaited their future.

When people think of the word ghetto today they think of an impoverished area of a city. The ghettos of World War II have a similar but nonetheless different definition. The ghettos of World War II were small parts of cities sectioned off to keep Jews in a confined area before eventual extermination. The Jews held there were more than just impoverished like today’s residents of ghettos. They were starved, beaten, and overworked. Ghettos were seen as just a step to Hitler’s final solution, or the extermination of Jews from Nazi occupied territory. The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest ghetto in Nazi occupied Europe. It held 400,000 Jews in 1.3 square miles. From the Warsaw Ghetto only 11,500 Jews survived. The Warsaw Ghetto was a place that

Nazis have taken over. You an your family have been sent away to suffer in a concentration camp because you're Jewish. This is what happened during the Holocaust. Millions of Jews died because of the violence, work, and living conditions in these camps.

The Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto is a place that held many people in it. It was a place you would never want to go back to. You would never want to have a transfer there or anything. At that time it was one of the worst places you could probably possibly be (thesis).

On Hitlers birthday Himmler decided to clear out the ghetto in only three days but the Jews weren’t gonna give up that easy so a big fight went on. Many Germans and Jews were killed and many injured but eventually the Germans decided to burn the Ghetto(“The Warsaw Ghetto”). After Warsaw prisoners started to decrease everything was changing. Jews started fighting back they used to hide in places that were ruined and when a German police came by they would attack. There was still about 20,000 prisoners living in Warsaw when it was starting to go down(“Warsaw”).

Like sheep led to the slaughter; this is one of the most famous analogies used to refer to the Jews during the holocaust. The Jews were being systematically murdered, beaten, and abused day after day, and there was almost no refusal on their part. Almost no one fought back. This however was not the case in the Warsaw ghetto.

Theresienstadt, A gift from Hitler. A place of hope and happiness for Jews and Jewesses alike. Theresienstadt was somewhere they could wait the war out without fear until the shadow of Nazism passed. It was a place filled with the most prosperous artists and musicians, daily shows and operas, lectures and seminars, gardens and coffee shops. A place with grace and character. An entire town that was given to the Jews as a gift from the Fuehrer. A paradise for Jews. That is at least, what the Nazis wanted people to believe.

Yesterday, on June 6th, a woman came in to tell her story of how she escaped the Holocaust, her name was Eva Paddock. She had told us that in the year of 1938, the Nazis took over Czechoslovakia, her home country. Numerous Jews were separated and then either killed or put in concentration camps to do forced labor. Many of which powerful leaders such as Amon Göth would shoot Jews whenever they wanted. And because of this, her parents had decided to get out of the country and find a place to go.

This story took place in 1945 in Poland. Soon after the Nazis took over Alicia’s country, she was forced to move to ghetto in Buczacz, Poland. She was also imprisoned in Chortok, Poland.

Their main goals were to organize uprisings, break out of the ghettos, and join partisan units in the fight against the Germans.The Jews knew that uprisings would not stop the Germans and that only a handful of fighters would succeed in escaping to join the partisans. Still, some Jews made the decision to resist. Weapons were smuggled into ghettos. Inhabitants in the ghettos of Vilna, Mir, Lachva , Kremenets, Częstochowa, Nesvizh, Sosnowiec, and Tarnow, among others, resisted with force when the Germans began to deport ghetto populations. In Bialystok, the underground staged an uprising just before the final destruction of the ghetto in September 1943. Most of the ghetto fighters, primarily young men and women, died during the fighting.The Warsaw ghetto uprising in the spring of 1943 was the largest single revolt by Jews. Hundreds of Jews fought the Germans and their auxiliaries in the streets of the ghetto. Thousands of Jews refused to obey German orders to report to an assembly point for deportation. In the end the Nazis burned the ghetto to the ground to force the Jews out. Although they knew defeat was certain, Jews in the ghetto fought desperately and