"I would sit in our apartment, and I would see the Polish children across the street bringing milk back home. It was like watching people in a storybook-we had no food, no milk..." These words of Nelly Cesana, a survivor of the Warsaw ghetto, are just a slight insight to the torture and neglect that Jews endured while living at the ghettos of the Holocaust.
The concept of separation of people by religion actually began in the Middle Ages. By the time the Nazis came to power, the ghettos were no longer in use, but the Nazis revived the idea of separation by religion. The Nazis wanted the Jews separated from the rest of the population, allowing them to practice their religion without impacting the rest of the population (Wood 58-59).
While living in the ghettos, Jews lived very different lives, experiencing limited types of social interactions, poor living conditions, malnutrition, and horrible health problems.
While living in the confined spaces of the ghettos, Jews lived extremely different lives than they were ever used to. Jews ages 12 years old and over living within the walls of the ghettos were required to wear blue and white armbands more commonly known as "The Badge of Shame". These armbands were used to humiliate the Jews and to isolate them from the Polish ("Everyday Life in the Ghettos 6/7").
Praying and praising: Jewish worship continued in the ghettos and was even more intense during the Holocaust, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that the Nazis forbade it. Many, like those studying Jewish texts in the Krakow ghetto, made huge sacrifices to practice their religion, running the risk of being caught. (Wood 67)
Schools and orphanages were run by the Judenraete (Wood 65). The Judenraete were Jewish co...
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...ghettos were just a start to the mass amounts of torture that the Jews endured during the Holocaust.
Works Cited
Wood, Angela. Holocaust:The Events and Their Impact on Real People. New York, NY: DK, 2007. Print.
Vashem, Yad. "Everyday Life in the Warsaw Ghetto Part 6/7: The 'Bage of Shame' and Cultural Life." Youtube. Yad Vashem, n.d. Web. 14 Apr, 2014.
Ayer, Elenor H. In the Ghettos: Teens Who Survived the Ghettos of the Holocaust. New York: Rosen Pub. Group, 1999. Print.
Vashem, Yad. "Everyday Life in the Warsaw Ghetto Part 3/7: Overcrowding." Youtube. Yad Vashem, n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.
Vashem, Yad. "Everyday Life in the Warsaw Ghetto Part 4/7: Day-To-Day Life and Survival." Yad Vashem, n.d. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.
Baumel-Shwartz, Judith Taylor. "Ghettos: Hunger and Disease." The Holocaust Encyclopedia. Ed. Walter Laquer. New Haven: Yale, UP, 2001. 259-65. Print.
The main character in this story is a Jewish girl named Alicia. When the book starts she is ten years old, she lives in the Polish town of Buczacz with her four brothers, Moshe, Zachary, Bunio, and Herzl, and her mother and father. The Holocaust experience began subtly at first when the Russians began to occupy Buczacz. When her brother Moshe was killed at a “ Boys School” in Russia and her father was gathered up by German authorities, the reality of the whole situation quickly became very real. Her father was taken away shortly after the Russians had moved out and the Germans began to occupy Buczacz.
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).
In Night, Elie Wiesel descriptively portrays the Holocaust and the experiences he has in each part of his survival. From the ghettos to the Death March and liberation, Elie Wiesel shares his story of sadness and suffering. Specifically Wiesel speaks about his short experience in the Sighet ghetto, a historically accurate recount illustrating the poor living conditions, the Judenrat and Jewish life in the ghetto as well as the design and purpose of the two Sighet ghettos. Wiesel’s description of the Sighet ghettos demonstrates the similar characteristics between the Sighet ghetto and other ghettos in Germany and in German-annexed territories.
Because the Holocaust has captured so much attention in the media, researchers are interested to get stories about the Holocaust from people who actually lived through it. There aren’t many people that are living today that survived the Holocaust, so there is a website to find children that survived the horrific time period by identifying themselves by finding t...
Botwinick, Rita Steinhardt. A History of the Holocaust. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2004.
Orlando: Houghton Publishing Company, 2012. 510-564. Print. The. Achieve 3000 “Remembering The Holocaust” 13 Mar. 2006.
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
The term ghetto, originally derived from Venetian dialect in Italy during the sixteenth century, has multiple variations of meaning. The primary perception of the word is “synonymous with segregation” (Bassi). The first defining moment of the ghetto as a Jewish neighborhood was in sixteenth century Italy; however, the term directly correlates with the beginning of the horror that the Jewish population faced during Adolph Hitler’s reign. “No ancient ghetto knew the terror and suffering of the ghettos under Hitler” (Weisel, After the Darkness 20). Under Hitler’s terror, there were multiple ghettos throughout several cities in numerous countries ranging in size and population. Ghettos also differed in purpose; some were temporary housing until deportation to the final solution while others formed for forced labor. Although life in the ghetto was far better than a concentration camp, it shared the commonality of torment, fear, and death.
“But many of the Jewish children were forced to become Catholic to remain hidden from the Nazis. ”(Feldman 391) The Jews had many restrictions before they were taken away from their homes. Anne Frank wrote in her diary, “Jews were forced to wear yellow stars” (that said Jude on them), they were banned from trains and were forbidden to drive, mostly walking from place to place. They could only shop at Jewish shops, but only between the hours of three through five.
Rittner, Carol, & Roth, John. Different Voices: Women and the Holocaust. New York: Paragon House, 1993. Print.
Dwork, Deborah, and R. J. Van Pelt. Holocaust: a History. New York: Norton, 2002. Print.
Bard, Mitchell G., ed. "Introduction." Introduction. The Holocaust. San Diego: Greenhaven, 2001.
"A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust-Victims." A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust-Victims. University of South Florida. Web. 19 May 2014.
The poem “The action in the ghetto of Rohatyn, March 1942” by Alexander Kimel is an amazing literary work which makes the reader understand the time period of the Holocaust providing vivid details. Kimel lived in an “unclean” area called the ghetto, where people were kept away from German civilians. The poet describes and questions himself using repetition and rhetorical questions. He uses literary devices such as repetition, comparisons, similes and metaphors to illustrate the traumatizing atmosphere he was living in March 1942.