The Role of Ghettos in the Holocaust and German Rule
A Ghetto is a section of a city were members of a racial group are
segregated. Before the period of Nazi rule there were more than half a
million Jews living in Germany. After Germany invaded Poland in 1939,
more than two million Polish Jews came under German control. After
Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, several million more
Jews came under Nazi rule. The Germans aimed to control this sizable
Jewish population by forcing Jews to reside in segregated sections of
towns and cities the Nazis called "ghettos". The Nazis believed that
they were the "Herrrenvolk" which means master race and that the Jews
were the "Untermenschen" which means sub human. The Nazis felt that it
was not right to mix with these sub human people. Reinhard Heydrich's
first created the idea of the ghetto in his order of September 21,
1939.
The first ghetto in Poland was in Piotrkow Trybunalski, set up in
October 1939; the second was in Lodz, which was closed off on April
30, 1940. In October and November 1941, the first group of German and
Austrian Jews was transported to ghettos in Eastern Europe.
Map showing the major Jewish ghettos in Europe under the Nazis -
http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/resource/gallery/maps.htm
In total, the Nazis established 356 ghettos in Poland, the Soviet
Union, the Baltic States, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Hungary between
1939 and 1945. The largest ghetto was in Warsaw, the Polish capital,
where almost half a million Jews were confined.
Ghettos were usually established in the poor sections of a city, Often
surrounded by barbed wire or walls. Guards were placed strategically
at gateways and other boundary openings. They were extremely
overcrowded, infested with rats that then brought along disease. It
was extremely cold at night temperatures fell below 15 degrees
celcius. They were usually in lack of clean water and food. During the
first 18 months of the ghetto's existence, 15-18 percent of the people
starved to death. In other ghettos, the situation was much the same.
By this time several people in the ghetto had been feeling the effects of the impoverished
Poland was devastated when German forces invaded their country on September 1, 1939, marking the beginning of World War II. Still suffering from the turmoil of World War I, with Germany left in ruins, Hitler's government dreamt of an immense, new domain of "living space" in Eastern Europe; to acquire German dominance in Europe would call for war in the minds of German leaders (World War II in Europe). The Nazis believed the Germans were racially elite and found the Jews to be inferior to the German population. The Holocaust was the discrimination and the slaughter of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its associates (Introduction to the Holocaust). The Nazis instituted killing centers, also known as “extermination camps” or “death camps,” for being able to resourcefully take part in mass murder (Killing Centers: An Overview).
A Ghetto Takes Shape: Black Cleveland, 1870-1930 explains in detail how the author deciphers the ghettoization process in Cleveland during the time period. Kusmer also tries to include studies that mainly pertained to specific black communities such as Harlem, Chicago, and Detroit, which strongly emphasized the institutional ghetto and dwelled on white hostility as the main reasons as to why the black ghetto was
the city, and the small suburb of Watts turned into a black ghetto inside of a single
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.
Housing segregation is as the taken for granted to any feature of urban life in the United States (Squires, Friedman, & Siadat, 2001). It is the application of denying minority groups, especially African Americans, equal access to housing through misinterpretation, which denies people of color finance services and opportunities to afford decent housing. Caucasians usually live in areas that are mostly white communities. However, African Americans are most likely lives in areas that are racially combines with African Americans and Hispanics. A miscommunication of property owners not giving African American groups gives an accurate description of available housing for a decent area. This book focuses on various concepts that relates to housing segregation and minority groups living apart for the majority group.
The Warsaw Ghetto was a Jewish-populated ghetto in the largest city of Poland, Warsaw. A ghetto can be defined as a part of a city in which large quantities of members of a minority group live, especially because of social, legal, or economic pressure. Ghettos were commonly attributed to a location where there was a large Jewish population. In fact, the word Ghetto originated from the name of the Jewish quarter in Venice, Italy, in 16th century.The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest Ghetto, as a part of the Holocaust, and as an early stage of it, played a very significant role. Today, in our museum exhibit, we have several artifacts, including primary evidence relating to the Warsaw ghetto. We will be discussing how and why it was created, the lifestyle
Superiority and discrimination have been the underlying problem in many world-wide events throughout history leading into present day. Whether it be a caste system issue or a race issue, there’s always a group that labels themselves greater than that of another. This affair was apparent in 1940s Germany. The German people would be persuaded into a dictatorship led by Adolf Hitler, who while in power would give rise to Nazism, allowing the mistreatment of Jews to commence. This extermination would be known as “The Holocaust” translated to “sacrifice by fire” and would affect many different people groups during and after the event.
By looking at The Dog in the Wood, we can see that the treatment of Germans after World War II was unfair. The people of Germany after the war were beaten, stolen from, raped, put in refugee camps, and were forced to deal with many other hardships. They had to learn to deal with the consequences presented before them, so they could retain their culture. This is important because an entire way of life was being torn apart and was being replaced against the peoples’ will.
...ely minority, the reality of the situation is that the fight against street gangs is a fight that is played out predominantly in inner-city, minority communities(177).
The word “ghetto”, can have many different meanings, such as a black residential area, or it can be referred to an area for the poor (Massey & Denton, 1993). Basically, a ghetto is a neighborhood or neighborhoods, which is only made for one particularly group of race (Massey & Denton, By creating the ghettos, African Americans were residential separated from other races. These ghettos were created to keep the African American race down. When it comes to income, most black families who lived in these certain areas were unemployed and very poor (William, 1980).
However, this isn’t the first time we see the term ‘ghetto’. The term ‘ghetto’ first originated from the name of the Jewish neighborhood in Venice, where the Jews had to live segregated from the non-Jewish population, according to Venetian authorities.
On April 19, 1943, after months of secret planning, something revolutionary occurred for Jews during the Holocaust. It was the day of the largest Jewish revolt against German-occupied Europe; the uprising of the Warsaw Ghetto. On the eve of Passover, around 750 Jewish resistance fighters stood up to the Nazi soldiers in refusal of mass deportation, an attempt to save themselves from what was thought to be the inevitable. The heavily-armed and well-trained German troops eventually defeated the resistance; this event demonstrated the dedication of the Jewish fighters to attempt to save the others during a time of life or death. The Jews initiated this uprising because it was thought to be the only option of continued life for Jews in the Ghetto,
This is known as de jure segregation which essentially states that the segregation was implemented by public policy and law instead of private discrimination practices held by individuals (Rothstein). Thus, “racial segregation in housing was not merely a project of southerners in the former slaveholding confederacy [but instead] it was a nation-wide project of the federal government in the twentieth century, designed and implemented by its most liberal leaders” (Rothstein). With this nation-wide project, numerous racially explicit laws and government practices were combined in order to develop a system of urban ghettos where African Americans were designated to live (Rothstein). Moreover, highlighting that while privately held discrimination did play some role on the residential segregation of African Americans, the government primarily played a crucial part in reinforcing the racially explicit laws that inevitably led to racial discrimination in
Gang members are typical members of the same ethnic group. Fear and hatred for people of another race is called xenophobia. People who are victims of racism are often racists themselves. Rap music often features lyrics that are offensive to Asians, Jews, and African Americans. Earlier this century, the United States was divided into ghettos. Those days' gangs were from all races. Gangs today sell drugs to every race and share or compete for street corners. Most of gang's enemies are gang members of the same background. The Crips and Bloods continuously wage war at one or another. They even shoot members of the same ethnic group.