Ghetto Life Under the Nazis

The term “ghettos” was first used in relation to Jews in the year 1516 when the Venetian government designated a specified living area for its Jewish population. During World War II, they were established by the Nazis to isolate and control the Jews as a first step in their eventual annihilation ("Ghettos"). Throughout the War, the Nazis established over 400 ghettos in Eastern Europe and Russia for this purpose. The Nazi ghetto overseers appointed Jewish councils, called the Judenrat, to maintain order in the ghettos, distribute food rations and to assist the Nazis with deportations to the concentration and death camps (Glazer). Daily life in the ghettos was very challenging for the Jews, and they endured extreme physical hardships from their lack of basic necessities and from the sadism of the Nazi overseers. Ghettos were enclosed either with tall brick walls or with wooden planks topped with coiled barbed wire, making it difficult for Jews to escape (Dawidowicz 206). Jews who attempted to leave the ghetto without permission were immediately shot by Nazi guards. However, despite all their suffering, the Jews still attempted to keep some level of normalcy in their lives in the ghetto.

The physical affliction the Jews experienced was unimaginable. The unsanitary and crowded living conditions, the extreme weather, rampant disease, and chronic hunger were some of the primary difficulties they encountered, and thousands of Jews perished as a result of these conditions. When Hitler invaded Poland, his army bombed out large sections of Warsaw, and approximately forty percent of the Jewish homes were destroyed. When Poland officially came under German rule, the Germans forced Jews into this heavily damaged area, thereby establishing t...

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