...Life in the Warsaw Ghetto 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. There were about 350,000 Jews in the Warsaw city before the war. There were the second largest Jewish community in the world behind New York City. Germans disliked Jews and discriminatory against them. Therefore when the Germans invaded Poland and captured Warsaw, they separated the Jews and the other Poles by asking them to wear white armbands with a blue star David on it. They then moved all the Jews into a designated area in the city and built a 10 feet high wall around it. The wall was topped with barbed wire and was heavily guarded. The Ghetto was closed to the outside world and the Jews were forced to a slow death. Thus the Warsaw Ghetto was born. The living quarters in the Ghetto were very cramped and congested. Almost 400,000 Jews were squeezed into an area of 1.3 square miles with seven persons per each room. As there was no way out of the Ghetto, food was in short supply. Between 1940 and 1942, 83,000 Jews died of starvation. There were no medicines available to cure diseases either. The life inside the Ghetto was one of poverty and hardship. However...
Words: 1446 - Pages: 6
...wasn't 100% German blood was also killed because they were perceived as "racial inferiority" so Polish people, Soviet prisoners of war, Blacks, Jehovah witness, the handicapped, homosexuals, etc. In 1933, there was about 9 million Jews, and 2 out of every 3 Jews were killed. Killing them was part of the "Final Solution", the plan to annihilate all Jewish people. In the 1930's Germany's conditions were not the best. The economic depression hit the country very hard, and lots of people became unemployed...
Words: 1442 - Pages: 6
...II (1929-45) residents of the Jewish Ghetto in Nazi Occupied Warsaw. Poland staged an armed revolt against deportations to expiration camps. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising inspired other revolts in extermination camps and Ghettos throughout German-occupied Eastern Europe. After the German invasion of Poland, in September 1939 more than 400,000 Jews in Warsaw, the capital were confined to an area of the city that was little more than 1 square mile.(Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 2009.) In November 1940, this Ghetto was sealed off by brick walls, barbed wire and armed guards, and anyone caught leaving was shot on sight. (Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 2009) The Nazis controlled the amount of food that was brought into the...
Words: 484 - Pages: 2
...In 1943, with the increased danger of being discovered by German patrols, the Bielskis took their entire group deeper into the most inaccessible regions of the forest. In the Bielski camp, everyone worked—some built huts, others fixed clothing, guns, and tools. There were shoemakers, metal workers, nurses—everyone did what they could. They set up a school, metalworking shop, synagogue, kitchen, mill, bakery, bathhouse, and a medical clinic. The group became a real community. “At the same time that it saved lives and protected the noncombatants in the camp, the Bielski group carried out several operational missions. It attacked the Belorussian auxiliary police officials, as well as local farmers suspected of killing Jews. The group disabled...
Words: 1661 - Pages: 7
...The ghetto. The depravation. The sealed cattle car.The fiery altar upon which the history of our people and future of mankind were meant to be sacrificed” (Weisel). The holocaust in 1940 was a tragedy, were Jews were taking out of their homes to Ghettos, concentration camps, and mass killings. But Jews tried their best to keep their humanity by spiritually and armed resistasting. During the Holocaust, Jews used armed and unarmed forms of resistance in order to retain their humanity. Armed resistance in ghettos was common, Jews went at Nazi soldiers with weapons. Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto had an armed uprising against German soldiers in 1943. For example, “As German SS and police units entered the ghetto, members of the Jewish Fighting Organization and other Jewish groups attacked German tanks with Molotov cocktails, hand grenades, and a handful of small arms” (Jewish Resistance).This fits in armed REsistance because jews fought back with weapons against Nazi’s. Armed resistance helped Jews keep their humanity because they were not just dying without a fight. Another way jews resisted was unarmed resistance...
Words: 446 - Pages: 2
...millions of people were tortured and murdered by the Nazis. Hitler was an anti-Semitic political leader of the Nazi regime, who believed that the Jewish “race” contaminated the Aryan population, and therefore needed to be eliminated. The Nuremberg Laws were laws that excluded Jews and non-Aryans from German citizenship as well as their natural rights. In addition, “Jewishness” was defined in racial terms. One strategy that allowed the Nazis to carry out the Holocaust was their disregard for non-Germans, treating them as less than human. Dehumanization is considered...
Words: 2143 - Pages: 9
...Concentration camps were used for forced labor, transit, and a few other things. Living conditions in these camps were horrifying; thousands of people died of starvation, dehydration, exhaustion, and exposure (ushmm.org). People were literally worked to death. People were as skinny as skeletons and were so desperate that they would fight over food. Even if someone didn’t even do anything they would still be beaten; if someone was found doing something, they would be killed on the spot. No one had any possessions in concentration camps (except for very few lucky people), everyone was equal. The SS units (which were basically Nazi police) watched over these camps. The SS made people shower in disinfectant and put on random clothes from other people after the showers. Some Nazi doctors were in concentration camps and some of them performed cruel experiments on people. The notorious Dr. Mengele was one these doctors that performed numerous experiments, especially on twins to see if there could be a way to make more “Aryans”. There were selections where people were pointed left or right to see which people were the most fit, those that didn’t pass where sent to the side that goes to the death camps (very lucky people were able to switch sides in order to live). Concentration camps were split up by gender during selections. Dr. Mengele attended as many selections as possible...
Words: 877 - Pages: 4
...bringing the total of eleven million The persecution and genocide were carried out in stages. During the era of the Holocaust, German authorities also targeted other groups because of their perceived. Other groups were persecuted on political, ideological, and behavioral grounds, among them Communists, Socialists, Jehovah's witnesses, and homosexuals. At least 200,000 mentally or physically disabled patients, mainly Germans, living in institutional settings, were murdered. In the early years of the nazi regime, the National Socialist government established concentration cmaps to detain real and imagined political and ideological opponents. Increasingly in the years before the outbreak of war, SS and police officials incarcerated Jews, Roma, and other victims of ethnic and racial hatred in these camps. To concentrate and monitor the Jewish population as well as to facilitate later deportation of the Jews, the Germans and their collaborators created ghettos transit camps, and forced-labor camps for Jews during the war years. The German authorities also established numerous forced-labor camps, both in the so-called Greater German Reich and in German-occupied territory, for non-Jews whose labor the Germans sought to exploit. to killing centers often called extermination camps, where they were murdered in specially developed gassing facilities. The day the German armed forces surrendered unconditionally to the Allies was the day they called victory day on may 8th. In the aftermath of...
Words: 485 - Pages: 2
...mass murder of six million Jewish Europeans during World War Two. The Nazi Party in Germany, led by Adolf Hitler, exterminated about two thirds of the Jewish population residing in Europe. The Nazis placed the blame of all of Germany’s problems on the Jewish people. The Nazis referred to the holocaust as the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question.” This paper will discuss the terrible things that happened throughout the holocaust by the Nazi party to the Jewish population. The holocaust was not the first plan by the Nazis to get rid of the Jewish race in Europe. Their first plan was to deport all of the Jews to German colonies such as Tanganyika and South West Africa (90 facts). Hitler was against these places because he argued that no place where “so much blood of heroic Germans hath spilled” should be made available as a residence for the worst enemies of the Germans. Madagascar became the most seriously discussed location for a Jewish relocation. Madagascar was perfect because it was a remote location that had unfavorable conditions so it would hasten deaths. This plan was approved by Hitler in 1938 and was carried out until the mass murder began in 1941(Facts about the holocaust). This first step was an important psychological step on the path to the mass murders of the Holocaust. Concentration camps were where the Nazis kept Jews, political prisoners, criminals, homosexuals, gypsies, and the mentally disabled. These camps were founded at first as a place of incarceration...
Words: 2057 - Pages: 9
...Due to the encouragement of the Nazis, the rioters managed to trash and loot over 7000 Jewish owned businesses over the course of two days. They also burned down 250 synagogues. Many Jewish schools, hospitals, cemeteries and houses were also vandalized. The mobs inflicted violence towards Jewish people and many Jews ended up being killed. The morning after, thousands of Jews were arrested for simply being Jewish. This event is known as The Night of the Broken Glass (also known as Kristallnacht). It received its name due to the fact that many glass windows were shattered by rioters. It appears this event was triggered by the Germans’ anger over the murder of a German diplomat at the hands of a Jew. Many people consider Kristallnacht as the beginning of the...
Words: 1178 - Pages: 5
...document a scholarly paper.) The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Could Have Succeeded: But Would It Have Mattered? One of the most horrifying realities of World War II surrounded the genocide of millions of people the Axis Powers deemed inferior. Jewish. Of those, the best known group was Every nation in Europe that fell under Axis control had some Jewish citizens, and millions of these people were arrested, detained, and eventually executed, worked, or starved to death. Poland’s Jews were the most numerous group outside of Germany itself and, from the beginning of the war, suffered under Nazi rule. Initially confined to ghettos in major cities, the Jewish population was systematically deported to concentration camps and exterminated. When Jews failed to report for deportation 1 in sufficient numbers, the Germans decided to demolish the ghettos in every city, the largest of which was in Warsaw. In the spring of 1943, some Jews in the Warsaw ghetto elected to resist militantly, and they held the German Army at bay for weeks longer than Poland itself had held out against the invaders in 1939. The ghetto uprising failed for a number of reasons, but it could have succeeded if different decisions had been made sooner and if the outside world had been willing to help.1 When the Germans decided to construct the Warsaw ghetto, the city held more than a million Jews. Through the passage of laws and military decrees, the Germans forced Jews who lived outside the Jewish...
Words: 1860 - Pages: 8
...Related Articles * Related Links * Comments * How to cite this article Two German Jewish families at a gathering before the war. Only two people in this group survived the Holocaust. Germany, 1928. — US Holocaust Memorial Museum * VIEW PHOTOGRAPHS * VIEW PERSONAL HISTORIES * VIEW ARTIFACTS * VIEW MAPS * VIEW HISTORICAL FILM FOOTAGE The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. "Holocaust" is a word of Greek origin meaning "sacrifice by fire." The Nazis, who came to power in Germany in January 1933, believed that Germans were "racially superior" and that the Jews, deemed "inferior," were an alien threat to the so-called German racial community. During the era of the Holocaust, German authorities also targeted other groups because of their perceived "racial inferiority": Roma (Gypsies), the disabled, and some of the Slavic peoples (Poles, Russians, and others). Other groups were persecuted on political, ideological, and behavioral grounds, among them Communists, Socialists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals. WHAT WAS THE HOLOCAUST? In 1933, the Jewish population of Europestood at over nine million. Most European Jews lived in countries that Nazi Germany would occupy or influence during World War II. By 1945, the Germans and theircollaborators killed nearly two out of every three European Jews as part of the "Final...
Words: 856 - Pages: 4
...already a very racial country, and judged people strongly on their religious beliefs, and their political communities. The Nazis, also known as the National Socialist German Worker's Party, planned to murder the Jewish people. They called this plot, “the final solution.” The Holocaust was a devastating time during World War Two,that changed the lives of many people all over the world. The name holocaust comes from the Greek word “holokauston”, meaning sacrifice from fire. The holocaust killed many groups of people such as the Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the disabled for persecution, but mostly the Jews. When Hitler first gained power, he formed an advanced police and military force to smother anyone who criticized his authority. With this force, Hitler developed the first concentration camp, Dachau. A concentration camp was used to work and starve prisoners to death. Later Dachau became a huge concentration camp to exterminate Jews. Hitler made life miserable for Jews. On April of 1933, the Nazis initiated by boycotting all Jewish ran businesses. The Nuremberg Laws issued in September of 1935, made it so Jews were excluded from most public life. The law included exposing the German Jews of their citizenship, and outlawed marriages and extramarital sex between Jews and Germans. This law was the start of all legal standards for additional anti-Jewish legislation. After the Nuremberg Laws, many new laws against Jews were created...
Words: 1015 - Pages: 5
...Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933. He quickly put into motion his plans of racial purification by organizing the military and police for this purpose. The three nazi groups that were important to Hitler were the SS, S.D Security service and the gestapo. The gestapo were above the law and in charge of terrorized, murdered,and sending people to concentration camps. They were free to arrest anyone they pleased without any consequences. During the Holocaust, the main job of the gestapo was to arrest Jews and others who opposed them. Before the gestapo was formed they were the secret police of Prussia. They were part of the political department in Berlin and part of the Weimer Republic. They were like the Federal Bureau of Investigation...
Words: 913 - Pages: 4
...how to document a scholarly paper.) The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Could Have Succeeded: But Would It Have Mattered? One of the most horrifying realities of World War II surrounded the genocide of millions of people the Axis Powers deemed inferior. Jewish. Of those, the best known group was Every nation in Europe that fell under Axis control had some Jewish citizens, and millions of these people were arrested, detained, and eventually executed, worked, or starved to death. Poland’s Jews were the most numerous group outside of Germany itself and, from the beginning of the war, suffered under Nazi rule. Initially confined to ghettos in major cities, the Jewish population was systematically deported to concentration camps and exterminated. When Jews failed to report for deportation 1 in sufficient numbers, the Germans decided to demolish the ghettos in every city, the largest of which was in Warsaw. In the spring of 1943, some Jews in the Warsaw ghetto elected to resist militantly, and they held the German Army at bay for weeks longer than Poland itself had held out against the invaders in 1939. The ghetto uprising failed for a number of reasons, but it could have succeeded if different decisions had been made sooner and if the outside world had been willing to help.1 When the Germans decided to construct the Warsaw ghetto, the city held more than a million Jews. Through the passage of laws and military decrees, the Germans forced Jews who lived outside the Jewish area...
Words: 1860 - Pages: 8