The Warsaw Ghetto
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In September 1939 the Germans took control of Poland and Warsaw after a three week siege. There was no love lost between the Germans and the Poles and it soon became clear that the Nazis, considering themselves a 'Master Race', valued Polish life at next to nothing. As was later demonstrated, on an unprecedented scale, this was one step up from the value they put on Jewish life.
As early as November 1939 in Warsaw the first decrees intended to denigrate the Jewish people were issued by the Nazis - the most notable of which was that all Jews over the age of twelve years were forced to identify themselves by wearing a Star of David on their sleeve. These first measures were just the start of a long process however, and with more edicts issued every month it wasn't long before the Jews were reduced to the status of slaves and chattel. They were forbidden to work in either key industries or government institutions, to bake bread, to earn more than 500 zloty a month, to travel by train or trolley-bus, to leave the city limits without special permits, or to possess gold or jewellery. Furthermore, all Jewish shops and enterprises had also to be marked with the Star of David. In addition to these official oppressions, Jews were summarily humiliated, beaten or even executed for little or spurious reasons. In short they lived their lives in a state of constant fear.
Plans for a Jewish ghetto had in fact existed since the beginning of the Nazi occupation of Warsaw, but in October 1940 they finally began to take form. A small district South West of the Old Town, in the centre of the city, was chosen and 113,000 Poles were evacuated to make way for Warsaw's 400,000 Jews. Thirty percent of the city's population were now living in an area that constituted less than three square miles, or 2.4 % of the capital. In November that area was closed off by a formidable wall, topped with barbed wire.
Life in the ghetto started off tough and quickly got worse. At first some semblance of normal life presided: cafes were still open, newspapers published (newspapers from 'the outside' were forbidden), school lessons took place and people strived to continue a normal existence as best as they could. Those who had managed to hold on to any of their wealth in particular were able to live in a small degree of comfort. Smuggling food into the ghetto was common, either by bribing guards at the gates, or carrying it in via underground canals - whilst poorer people would send their children over to the 'Aryan side' to steal what they could. The official food ration of around 200 calories a day per person was less than 10 percent of the ration for Germans (and about 25% of the ration for Poles).
As more and more Jews were brought in from the neighbouring towns and villages, conditions became yet more cramped. Money for bribes was drying out (and was only ever the privilege of a few) and the poor people of the ghetto, skeletal and wretched, began starving en masse. In addition to death by starvation a typhoid epic, caused by the poor sanitary conditions, broke out; meaning that by April 1941 the mortality rate in the ghetto was a staggering six thousand people per month. Funeral carts would come and collect the bodies every morning, between 4-5am; mostly the corpses were dumped naked on the streets - the families having been forced to strip their relatives in order to sell the clothes.
Whilst the Jews in the ghetto were dying, they weren't dying quickly enough as far as Berlin was concerned. Hitler's original plans to ship all European Jews to Africa had proved impractical, and so it was that the chilling 'Final Solution' was decided upon, early in 1942. Between July and September of that year 300,000 ghetto Jews were transported to the Treblinka Extermination Camp, in the Nazis first mass deportation effort. At first few believed, including the Jews themselves, that the rumours of these death camps were real - preferring to believe that they being sent to hard labour camps. Eventually the evidence that was fed back (by escapees from the camps and by various secret agents and journalists) became irrefutable. The 60,000 remaining occupants of the ghetto had no choice but to confront the awful truth.
When the Nazis prepared to organise a second deportation to Treblinka in 1943 the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began.
* Several survivors of the ghetto are still alive today. And out of respect to all the internees of the ghetto, we kindly ask that reviewers write only essential comments. Thank you.
This article on the Warsaw Ghetto is meant to be an informative introduction to Warsaw's history for travellers, and is not meant to be used for academic research. Please do not use it for any academic papers, but instead refer to published academic works and textbooks.*
Comments
this pulled my heart strings... SO SAD POOR PEOPLES!!
ReplyI love this article
Replythat is so sad .I don`t want to belive it but it`s true
Replyits so sad
ReplyI want an example about life in the ghetto
ReplyMay I suggest the book "The Warsaw ghetto" by Sir Alistair Cooke.
Replyi suggest milkweed by jerry spinelli
ReplyThe man in the photo with the mustache was my uncle, Bernard Ryzak.
ReplyThat is so cool!
ReplyPlease read "Tunnel, Smuggle and Collect: A Holocaust Boy." The author of this true story donates all royalties to Holocaust education. 100%
Replyhelpful for a school project
Replynot helpful
ReplyVery useful for my school project. Thanks!!!
ReplyWow
Replyits just unfair what they are doing to the Jews
ReplyWhat they were*
ReplyIt is old but it is beautiful, and its colors they are fine It was worn at Derry, Aughrim, Enniskillen and the Boyne. My father wore it as a youth in bygone days of yore, And on the 12th I love to wear the sash my father wore.
ReplyEwan and Chris come straight to my office before break!
Replyloved it
ReplyHelpful a lot. Thank you.
ReplyVery helpful, thank you.
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Replygreat useful evidence
ReplyRealllllllllly????????????????
ReplyPaul shut up
ReplyGood very helpful
ReplyThis was awful & pathetic
ReplyReally very helpful! Thank you!!!!
ReplyHelped with my research on wasrsawa ghetto ✌️
Replyw2 was crazy
Replyhelped me on my religious homework thx
ReplyThank you for sharing this.
ReplyVery great for my school project. Thank you a lot!
ReplyVery helpful
Replythank you so much really helped me on my school work. i might be German but i would never do any of these things and i just hate what my ancestors did. but thank you for creating this website website creator.
Replywhere/when did they get their food rations?
ReplyDa best, tots amaze, it was GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD, really helped me. The best article thingy EVER!!!!!!!!
ReplyGood it helped me
Replyit helped me on my research project
Replyit was a good review paper I made about warsaw ghetto because of all this great information
ReplyReally good info for my report and a great insight on what actually happened in the Warsaw ghettos
Replyvery helpful
Replyvery helpful for me to find quotes for my journal, that is for school.
ReplyThis helped me with my paper for class as well. Interesting facts about the horrible things the Nazis did.
ReplyThis helped alot for the paper I am doing for a class. I hate the horrible things the Nazis did to the Jews. It makes me sick to my stomach
ReplyIt helped me a lot.
Replygood for a essay that I am writing
ReplyJust another article referencing the fact that most of the people who experienced this, whether they lived or died, had no political motives and had to pay the ultimate price for the narrow-minded whims of those in power. Until we eliminate borders and boundaries and restrictions caused by intolerance of different kinds of people we can never ensure ourselves that history would not repeat itself.
ReplyThis helped me with my history HW, thanks.
ReplyAn incredibly handy website that is really educational but throws a new perspective on life in the ghetto. Thank you!
ReplyDid you have any contact or knowledge of the work done by Irena Sendler? Beyond the book Life in a Jar, can you share important experiences of rescue? Thank you. Gratefully, Irene
ReplyWork on spelling please :)
ReplyThis helped me on my English project as well. Thanks
ReplyThis helped me on my literature assignment, thanks.
ReplyThis just makes me sick to the stomache and just curl in a ball and cry for all the people who went through this. The information of this article helped me understand more about World War II so thank you.
ReplyThe " Final Solution " should have been the " First Solution "
ReplyA Derrin, you are a horrible human being please do not leave comments like this again
ReplyThis article helped me with my history assignment, thanks a lot.
Replywow thanks helped me a lot now i can finish my paper:)
ReplyDecent article, it provided a good deal of information.
ReplyI love this article! It has helped me a lot with my history assignment. Thanks to whowever wrote it
ReplyThis was not helpful!! I found no info that related to how warsaw was like back then.
Replythis was not helpful i found no info that related to how warsaw was like back then.
ReplySick
ReplyThat is so terrible what they did
ReplyWow! This has so much information! This has really helped with my humanities assignment! Thanks a lot!
Replythis was very handy helped a lot
Replythis is good info thank you
ReplySo helpful, thankyou so much, had a massive essay to do as well! :))))
ReplyAs stated before, accuracy helps, 184 calories and not 200 calories for rations. Despite this, it is very informative, and it's free information, of course people are using it for academic research!
ReplyWhat in trying to find is how some eventually saved themselves and how they fought agsints the gremans
ReplyThis is tots a 10 it helped me a lot with my research paper thank you so much to who ever wrote this your amazing trust me best site for the warsaw ghetto especially when you have to write 5,000 word research essay!!!!!
ReplyI believe the daily diet limit in the Warsaw Ghetto was set at only 184 calories per day, by the Nazis. Accuracy helps us to recognize evil again; like the upcoming 20% cut in the overall spending on Disability Living Allowance, (DLA), benefits in the UK, its like the Nazi's T4 program all over again!
ReplyThis is a very good article! Thanks so much, it helped me a lot with the ten page report i have to do on this topic!!!
Replythis article was fantastic and has very good information! I am working on a project for school and this gave me lost of information! Since I have to do a 3 page paper!
ReplyAlthough there is basically nothing left of the Warsaw Ghetto wall,you can still sense the horror in that place,especially at such places as Ul Próżna and the sites of Pawiak prison and the Umschlagplatz Monument at ul.Stawki.
Reply