During the Holocaust, the creation of ghettos was a key step in the Nazi process of separating, persecuting, and ultimately destroying Europe 's Jews.
KEY FACTS Ghettos were set up to segregate Jews from the rest of the population.
They were designed to be temporary; some lasted only a few days or weeks, others for several years.
The vast majority of ghetto inhabitants died from disease or starvation, were shot, or were deported to killing centers
ORIGIN OF THE TERM “GHETTO” The term "ghetto" originated from the name of the Jewish quarter in Venice, Italy. Venetian authorities compelled the city 's Jews to live in the quarter, which was established in 1516. In the 16th and 17th centuries, officials ranging from local authorities to the Austrian emperor ordered the creation of ghettos for Jews in Frankfurt, Rome, Prague, and other cities.
GHETTOS DURING WORLD WAR II
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Living conditions were miserable. Ghettos were often enclosed districts that isolated Jews by separating Jewish communities from the non-Jewish population and from other Jewish communities. The Germans established at least 1,000 ghettos in German-occupied and annexed Poland and the Soviet Union alone. There were three types of ghettos: closed ghettos, open ghettos, and destruction ghettos.
German occupation authorities established the first ghetto in Poland in Piotrków Trybunalski in October 1939. The largest ghetto in Poland was the Warsaw ghetto. In Warsaw, more than 400,000 Jews were crowded into an area of 1.3 square miles. Other major ghettos were established in the cities of Lodz, Krakow, Bialystok, Lvov, Lublin, Vilna, Kovno, Czestochowa, and Minsk. Tens of thousands of western European Jews were also deported to ghettos in the