Jewish Ghettos

Ghettos were established by an order from Reinhard Heydrich on September 21, 1939. Three weeks after the beginning of the war, and just after Germany conquered Poland, he ordered: SECRET Berlin: September 21, 1939 To: Chiefs of all Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police Subject: Jewish question in the occupied territory I refer to the conference held in Berlin today... For the time being, the first step toward the final goal is the concentration of the Jews from the countryside into the larger cities. This is to be carried out with all speed... In each Jewish community, a Council of Jewish Elders is to be set up...The Councils of Elders are to be informed of the dates and deadlines...They are then to be made personally responsible for the departure of the Jews from the countryside...For general reasons of security, the concentration of Jews in the cities will probably necessitate orders altogether barring Jews from certain sections of the cities, or, for example, forbidding them to leave the ghetto... Heydrich

Jews are forced to build a wall around the Krakow ghetto.

This order made it the responsibility of a Nazi-appointed council of elders to force their people into the ghettos. Jews were sent from small towns and villages by train. They were separated from the non-Jewish population first by barbed wire, then by walls impregnated with shards of glass. New arrivals were crowded into rooms with other families, and hundreds of thousands of Jews were forced to live in a space of a few city blocks. A Nazi report estimated that there were seven Jews living in every room in the Warsaw (Poland) ghetto.
The Ghettos were, as is surely apparent, a dangerous place to live. In the first years, the most prevalent threat to life was starvation. Men fought over raw potatoes, and mothers traded away all their possessions in vain attempts to feed their children. Nazi allowances left each man, woman, and child with a monthly diet of 2 pounds of bread, 9 ounces of sugar, 3.5 ounces of jam, and 1.75 ounces of fat. Meat and cheese were extremely rare, and extremely valuable.

A ghetto prisoner, Professor Ludwik Hirszfeld, wrote in his diary:

"The streets are so over-populated, it is difficult to push one's way through...There are always countless children inside the ghetto...Not all the German guards are murderers and executioners, but unfortunately, many of them do not hesitate to take up their guns and fire at the children. Every day--it is almost unbelievable--children are taken to hospital with gunshot wounds. All Jews must wear the armband with its Star of David. The children are the only exceptions, and this makes it easier for them to smuggle food in...Horrifying sights are to be seen every day...One sees people dying, lying with arms and legs outstretched, in the middle of the road. Their legs are bloated, often frost-bitten, and their faces distorted with pain... I once asked a little girl: 'What would you like to be?' 'A dog,' she answered, 'because the guards like dogs.'"

A Polish historian, Emanuel Ringelblum, kept a diary of his observations in the Warsaw ghetto. These diaries survived the war, and leave a powerful image of life in this Poland ghetto. On February 28, 1941, he made the following entry:

"Almost daily people are falling dead or unconscious in the middle of the street. It no longer makes so direct an impression. [The streets] are forever full of newly arrived refugees. [There was a] terrible case of a three-year-old refugee child. [On their way to Warsaw] the guard threw the child into the snow. Its mother jumped off the wagon and tried to save the child. The guard threatened her with a revolver. The mother insisted that life was worthless for her without her child. Then the guard threatened to shoot all the Jews in the wagon. The mother arrived in Warsaw, and here went out of her mind."