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.
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).
...located in central Poland. The building of the ghetto started on February 8, 1940, but took weeks to establish. The Jews lived there until January 6, 1942, when the Jews were beginning to be deported. By August 1944 only a few remained. The ghetto was liberated by the Soviets on January 19, 1945 but only 877 Jews survived. Another ghetto was in Krakow, an important city located in the south of Poland. A ghetto was established by 1941 containing 15,000 to 20,000 Jews behind barbed wire and stone walls. Throughout the ghetto's life there were resistance groups first supporting underground education then advancing to preparing to fight Germans. Another ghetto was in the city of Lvov in southeastern Poland containing 200,000 Jews. A ghetto was established in 1941, and many Jews stayed there until deportation began in March 1942. In June 1943, the ghetto was destroyed.
Synopsis – Hitler’s Willing Executioners is a work that may change our understanding of the Holocaust and of Germany during the Nazi period. Daniel Goldhagen has revisited a question that history has come to treat as settled, and his researches have led him to the inescapable conclusion that none of the established answers holds true. Drawing on materials either unexplored or neglected by previous scholars, Goldhagen presents new evidence to show that many beliefs about the killers are fallacies. They were not primarily SS men or Nazi Party members, but perfectly ordinary Germans from all walks of life, men who brutalized and murdered Jews both willingly and zealously. “They acted as they did because of a widespread, profound, unquestioned, and virulent anti-Semitism that led them to regard the Jews as a demonic enemy whose extermination was not only necessary but also just.”1 The author proposes to show that the phenomenon of German anti-Semitism was already deep-rooted and pervasive in German society before Hitler came to power, and that there was a widely shared view that the Jews ought to be eliminated in some way from German society. When Hitler chose mass extermination as the only final solution, he was easily able to enlist vast numbers of Germans to carry it out.
that all Jews over 6 years had to wear a Star of David. Also Jews were
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.
Searching for the word “Ghetto” in Longman’s Dictionary of Contemporary English, it can be read the following definition:
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.
As mentioned earlier, white flight is referred to as a process in which whites decided to move out and create their own neighborhoods, such as the suburbs. Once all of the white working population and middle class blacks moved on, all that was left were the predominantly lower income blacks. This particular process contributed to the creation of the “ghetto”. 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 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.
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.
How Jews were Discriminated Against in Germany from 1933-1939 The discrimination of Jews was prevalent in Germany in the 1930’s. Attacks on the Jews had occurred in Christian countries since the Middle Ages, but intensified between 1933 and 1939 due to the Reign of Hitler’s power. According to Hitler’s racial theories, the Jews deliberately planned to destroy the German people, as they did at the time of war.
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,
Edwin Black informed the world that the IBM computer company helped out Hitler during the Holocaust. Their role in the Holocaust was to track the people down, take the numbers down of people they killed, and they would help identify what race, religion, or gender the people were in certain regions. When IBM got caught they apologize for the mistake they made (IBM’s Role in the Holocaust). The leader of the Holocaust was Adolf Hitler. Hitler said that, “ Jews are like an alien threat to the world and us so we need to get rid of them before they get rid of us”(Introducing the Holocaust) .That is why the Holocaust. The Holocaust was so bad and tragdic for the world. First, the destruction caused by Nazis, also the number of babies, people, and
A Holocaust is a disaster that results in the large-scale destruction of life. Although this name has been used to describe many catastrophes over centuries, today it has a more specific meaning. The Holocaust refers to the annihilation of 6 million Jews, men, women, and children, in addition to other groups of people by Hitler and the Nazi party during World War II. Such a destruction of a particular group or race is called genocide. (Resnick 9)