What was life like in a ghetto?

The day to day was heavy. The European neighborhoods where Jews were forced to live during World War II were filthy, crowded and disease-ridden. Residents suffered from hunger and cold – they lacked clothing and fuel to cook or heat the population.

The ghettos were made sadly famous by the Nazis in the 1940s. But their origins go much further back. There are records of forced segregation of Jews in 1280 in Morocco. During the 14th and 15th centuries, the practice spread across Europe, and it wasn’t abolished until 400 years later. But in 1939, shortly after the invasion of Poland by German troops, the Nazi command determined that all Jews in the occupied territories should be deported to “special areas” in the main cities of these regions.

In total, the Nazis established around 400 ghettos, mostly in the invaded countries in Eastern Europe such as Poland, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Hungary between 1939 and 1945. “During this period, they lived in ghettos or other forms of confined housing. between 3.5 million and 4.5 million Jews, mostly Poles and Soviets. In some ghettos, in addition to Jews, there were also groups of gypsies”, says historian Peter Black, from the Holocaust Memorial Museum, in the United States.

There are no reliable figures, but a large number of ghetto dwellers during World War II were killed in death camps. The harsh reality of the ghettos can be seen in these pages. In this free recreation, we gathered characteristics of several ghettos, especially the largest one, in Warsaw, Poland.

architecture of discrimination
In the largest ghetto – Warsaw – 450,000 people lived in an area of ​​3 square kilometers

(Alexandre Jubran/)

1. WORSE THAN PRISON
Most ghettos were surrounded by walls guarded by guards to control entry and exit. In the capital of Poland, Warsaw, where the largest of all ghettos were located, the walls were 3 meters high and reinforced with barbed wire to confine 450,000 people in an area of ​​3 square kilometers

2. CLANDESTINE CULTURE
The Nazis prohibited the operation of schools within the ghettos, but in many of them clandestine classrooms were created, hidden in attics or basements. Works of art made in the ghetto were hidden – if the Nazis took it, they destroyed everything

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3. SAD STAR
In 1939, the Nazis forced the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto to wear a yellow badge with the Star of David on their clothes, to differentiate themselves from the other inhabitants of the city. In the following years, this system of discrimination was implemented in almost all other ghettos.

4. RATIONED RATION
Hunger and malnutrition were constant: the rations authorized by the Nazis provided less than 10% of the food needed to feed the inhabitants. The menu was miserable: potatoes (almost always few and rotten), a daily bowl of watery soup and a loaf of bread a week.

5. NAZIST SHED
Overcrowding turned ghettos into slums: entire families crammed into a single room, sleeping in hastily built multi-story bunks. The space – which could be just 2 square meters per person – was bathroom, kitchen and bedroom at the same time

6. DEATH RAIL
At the train terminal in the Warsaw ghetto, Jews forced to move to the area disembarked. From there, Jews also left for the death camps. The Nazis decided how many people were exterminated, but let the Jewish leaders decide who was shipped.

7. WASTE AND DISEASES
Epidemics spread rapidly, causing high mortality – the most common diseases were dysentery, typhoid and tuberculosis. The living quarters and dining halls were infested with rats, fleas, bedbugs, flies and mosquitoes, further worsening health problems.

8. CHAOS CAREER
The day-to-day administration of the ghetto was handled by the judenrate, a kind of council of Jews that took care of activities such as sanitary services and food distribution. The autonomy of judenrate was small: all actions had to be approved by the Nazi command

9. PAIN MEMORY
In many ghettos, Jewish groups set up secret archives, recording and storing diaries and testimonies that portrayed the lives of those confined. All of this served as a testament to Nazi atrocities, giving residents a sense of community and historic preservation.

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