The Warsaw Ghettos During The Holocaust

The ghettos were the first step in eliminating the Jewish population. Jews were first moved to the ghettos to be easily identified and isolated from the rest of society (Altman 8). Some people were required to do manual labor for the Nazis such as, building walls around the ghettos or doing pretty much anything that would make money for the Nazis (Byers 73). The ghettos were built to be a temporary place where the Jews could stay while Hitler and his Nazis came up with a new plan, but they ended up staying until the end of the Holocaust (Ghettos). The first order to gather all Jews and move them into ghettos was sent out on September 21, 1939 (Altman 8). The first ghetto was built shortly after in Poland, in October of 1939. Jews started

Many people in the ghettos died of starvation or illness. There was a very small amount of food in the ghettos and they were very unsanitary. There were usually no showers or sources of water, so nobody could clean themselves or wash their hands. This lead to illness which spread very quickly in these tight, unsanitary places. The Warsaw ghetto was the largest ghetto during the Holocaust. It held 400,000 Jews in 1.3 square miles (Ghettos).

Jews, prisoners of war, and minorities were also sent to concentration camps. They were sent to the camps so that they were concentrated in one place. It was easier for the Nazis to control the prisoners and punish them without anybody finding out what was really happening (Strahinich 34). Jews were also moved there for fast and efficient killing. Some of the concentration camps had killing centers where thousands of people died every day.

The first concentration camp was set up in 1933 and around 1936 more and more Jews were being sent there. There were not that many camps until around the 1940’s. During that time they built several more camps including Auschwitz, the biggest and deadliest concentration camp (Nazi

There was very little food and water. People were crammed into very small spaces to sleep and they were infested with diseases and lice. It stunk horribly from the dead bodies laying around in piles everywhere and there were no showers. When the Jews first got to the camps they went through selection. The Nazis would choose whether they were capable of doing difficult outdoor work or if they should be sent to the gas chambers. 865,000 people did upon arrival, mainly due to gassing (Killing Centers). Thousands of people died from exhaustion from working since they were already weak from having no food (Byers 112). In 1941 Hitler came up with the final solution. He set up killing centers to quickly kill as many Jews as possible. 3 million people were killed in the killing centers alone. The first killing center was set up in Chelmno in December of 1941, but the largest one was Auschwitz (Killing Centers). Auschwitz was located right outside of the town Krakow. 1.3 million people died at Auschwitz, 1,095,000 of those being Jews. Auschwitz had four gas chambers that used Zyklon B gas to kill people very quickly. Approximately 6000 people were gassed every day at this location. After they gassed the people they would usually burn the bodies in a crematorium (Auschwitz). At the concentration camps, they would also conduct medical experiments on some of the patients. Some of the experiments included, testing new pharmaceuticals