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| Version | User | Scope of changes |
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| Jun 24 2008, 3:49 PM EDT (current) | saferstein | 3 words deleted |
| Jun 24 2008, 3:46 PM EDT | saferstein | 496 words added |
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By Jonathan Nelson
The name of a district in 16th Century Venice where Jews were segregated from the majority Gentile populations. From 1940-1944, Jews were required to move into ghettos in German occupied European cities where the occupiers imprisoned them before they were systematicallly murdered. The word ghetto may possibly be derived from the Hebrew word "Get" which means separation or divorce.
During the second World War in Poland, Ghettos acted as a place of transition. Jews were herded into small parts of an urban center, usually an area that had predominately Jewish population before the war. Walls were built to restrict movement in or out of the ghetto and to prevent non-Jews from viewing the horrors and degredation within the Ghetto.
The original goal of the ghetto was to drastically reduce the number of Jews by malnutrition, overwork and crowding, and unsanitary conditions. Since the Jewish population was not diminishing fast enough a decision was made in 1942 to begin transferring remaining Jews to death camps, mostly via cattle cars on trains. The majority of the initial survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto were shipped to Treblinka Concentratioion camp for immediate execution.
During the transition period between being imprisoned in the ghettos and sent to the camps, many Jews were employed in factories making munitions and other goods used by the German army. The Ghetto factories allowed some ghettoes to remain operational longer before final liquidation. The Lodz (Poland) was not liquidated until August of 1944, ten months before the war ended.
Security within the confines of the Ghettoes was handled in most cases by a Jewish police force who took its orders from the German Gestapo. The Jewish police were also responsible for filling the transports of trains leaving the Ghettoes for the camps. At the end of the war, the German Gestapo chief Himmler said that he was sorry to have to order the liquidation of the Jewish police since they were one of the best police forces he had ever worked with.
There was heroic resistance in many o the Ghettoes except Lodz, where its Ghetto was sealed in such a way as to prevent any smuggling of arms into the Ghetto. A well-planned organized revolt took place in the Warsaw Ghetto during January of 1943. Many German, Lithuainian and Jewish police were wounded or killed. According to the official archive of the second world war fo the Soviet Union, German Panzer Divisions, which were headed to Stalingrad were detoured to Warsaw to quell the uprising As a result, Red army forces were able to surround and annihialate Von Paulus's sixth army at Stalingrad, turning the European theatre of the war permanently in favor of the Allies.
1. Official Soviet Archive of the Second World War.
2. The Kovno Ghetto Diary, 1990
3. Chronicles of the Lodz Ghetto, 1941-44. (1984)
4. Meed, Vladka. On Both Sides of the Wall: Memoirs from the Warsaw Ghetto, 1972.
5. Cholawski, Shalon. Soldiers from the Ghetto, 1980.
The name of a district in 16th Century Venice where Jews were segregated from the majority Gentile populations. From 1940-1944, Jews were required to move into ghettos in German occupied European cities where the occupiers imprisoned them before they were systematicallly murdered. The word ghetto may possibly be derived from the Hebrew word "Get" which means separation or divorce.
During the second World War in Poland, Ghettos acted as a place of transition. Jews were herded into small parts of an urban center, usually an area that had predominately Jewish population before the war. Walls were built to restrict movement in or out of the ghetto and to prevent non-Jews from viewing the horrors and degredation within the Ghetto.
The original goal of the ghetto was to drastically reduce the number of Jews by malnutrition, overwork and crowding, and unsanitary conditions. Since the Jewish population was not diminishing fast enough a decision was made in 1942 to begin transferring remaining Jews to death camps, mostly via cattle cars on trains. The majority of the initial survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto were shipped to Treblinka Concentratioion camp for immediate execution.
During the transition period between being imprisoned in the ghettos and sent to the camps, many Jews were employed in factories making munitions and other goods used by the German army. The Ghetto factories allowed some ghettoes to remain operational longer before final liquidation. The Lodz (Poland) was not liquidated until August of 1944, ten months before the war ended.
Security within the confines of the Ghettoes was handled in most cases by a Jewish police force who took its orders from the German Gestapo. The Jewish police were also responsible for filling the transports of trains leaving the Ghettoes for the camps. At the end of the war, the German Gestapo chief Himmler said that he was sorry to have to order the liquidation of the Jewish police since they were one of the best police forces he had ever worked with.
There was heroic resistance in many o the Ghettoes except Lodz, where its Ghetto was sealed in such a way as to prevent any smuggling of arms into the Ghetto. A well-planned organized revolt took place in the Warsaw Ghetto during January of 1943. Many German, Lithuainian and Jewish police were wounded or killed. According to the official archive of the second world war fo the Soviet Union, German Panzer Divisions, which were headed to Stalingrad were detoured to Warsaw to quell the uprising As a result, Red army forces were able to surround and annihialate Von Paulus's sixth army at Stalingrad, turning the European theatre of the war permanently in favor of the Allies.
1. Official Soviet Archive of the Second World War.
2. The Kovno Ghetto Diary, 1990
3. Chronicles of the Lodz Ghetto, 1941-44. (1984)
4. Meed, Vladka. On Both Sides of the Wall: Memoirs from the Warsaw Ghetto, 1972.
5. Cholawski, Shalon. Soldiers from the Ghetto, 1980.
