Jewish Ghettos Overview

The term "ghetto" originated from the name of the Jewish quarter in Venice, established in 1516, in which the Venetian authorities compelled the city's Jews to live. Various authorities, ranging from local municipal authorities to the Austrian Emperor Charles V, ordered the creation of other ghettos for Jews in Frankfurt, Rome, Prague, and other cities in the 16th and 17th centuries.

During World War II, ghettos were city districts (often enclosed) in which the Germans concentrated the municipal and sometimes regional Jewish population and forced them to live under miserable conditions. Ghettos isolated Jews by separating Jewish communities from the non-Jewish population and from other Jewish communities. The Germans established at least 1,000 ghettos in German-occupied and annexed Poland and the Soviet Union alone. German occupation authorities established the first ghetto in Poland in Piotrków Trybunalski in October 1939.

The Germans regarded the establishment of ghettos as a provisional measure to control and segregate Jews while the Nazi leadership in Berlin deliberated upon options to realize the goal of removing the Jewish population. In many places ghettoization lasted a relatively short time. Some ghettos existed for only a few days, others for months or years. With the implementation of the "Final Solution" (the plan to murder all European Jews) beginning in late 1941, the Germans systematically destroyed the ghettos. The Germans and their auxiliaries either shot ghetto residents in mass graves located nearby or deported them, usually by train, to killing centers where they were murdered. German SS and police authorities deported a small minority of Jews from ghettos to forced-labor camps and concentration camps.

There were three types of ghettos: closed ghettos, open ghettos, and destruction ghettos.

The largest ghetto in Poland was the Warsaw ghetto, where over 400,000 Jews were crowded into an area of 1.3 square miles. Other major ghettos were established in the cities of Lodz, Krakow, Bialystok, Lvov, Lublin, Vilna, Kovno, Czestochowa, and Minsk. Tens of thousands of western European Jews were also deported to ghettos in the east.

The Germans ordered Jews residing in ghettos to wear identifying badges or armbands and also required many Jews to perform forced labor for the German Reich. Daily life in the ghettos was administered by Nazi-appointed Jewish councils (Judenraete). A ghetto police force enforced the orders of the German authorities and the ordinances of the Jewish councils, including the facilitation of deportations to killing centers. Jewish police officials, like Jewish council members, served at the whim of the German authorities. The Germans did not hesitate to kill Jewish policemen who were perceived to have failed to carry out orders.

Jews responded to the ghetto restrictions with a variety of resistance efforts. Ghetto residents frequently engaged in so-called illegal activities, such as smuggling food, medicine, weapons or intelligence across the ghetto walls, often without the knowledge or approval of the Jewish councils. Some Jewish councils and some individual council members tolerated or encouraged the illicit trade because the goods were necessary to keep ghetto residents alive. Although the Germans generally demonstrated little concern in principle about religious worship, attendance at cultural events, or participation in youth movements inside the ghetto walls, they often perceived a “security threat” in any social gathering and would move ruthlessly to incarcerate or kill perceived ringleaders and participants. The Germans generally forbade any form of consistent schooling or education.

In some ghettos, members of Jewish resistance movements staged armed uprisings. The largest of these was the Warsaw ghetto uprising in spring 1943. There were also violent revolts in Vilna, Bialystok, Czestochowa, and several smaller ghettos. In August 1944, German SS and police completed the destruction of the last major ghetto, in Lodz.

In Hungary, ghettoization did not begin until the spring of 1944, after the Germans invaded and occupied the country. In less than three months, the Hungarian gendarmerie, in coordination with German deportation experts from the Reich Main Office for Security (Reichssicherheitshauptamt-RSHA), concentrated nearly 440,000 Jews from all over Hungary, except for the capital city, Budapest, in short-term “destruction ghettos” and deported them into German custody at the Hungarian border. The Germans deported most of the Hungarian Jews to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center. In Budapest, Hungarian authorities required the Jews to confine themselves to marked houses (so-called Star of David houses). A few weeks after the leaders of the fascist Arrow Cross movement seized power in a German-sponsored coup on October 15, 1944, the Arrow Cross government formally established a ghetto in Budapest, in which about 63,000 Jews lived in a 0.1 square mile area. Approximately 25,000 Jews who carried certificates that they stood under the protection of a neutral power were confined in an "international ghetto" at another location in the city. In January 1945, Soviet forces liberated that part of Budapest in which the two ghettos were, respectively, located and liberated the nearly 90,000 Jewish residents.

During the Holocaust, ghettos were a central step in the Nazi process of control, dehumanization, and mass murder of the Jews.

Resources

Corni, Gustavo. Hitler's Ghettos: Voices from a Beleaguered Society 1939-1944. London: Arnold, 2002.

Kermish, Joseph, editor. To Live With Honor and Die with Honor!: Selected Documents from the Warsaw Ghetto Underground Archives "O.S." ("Oneg Shabbath"). Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1986.

Sterling, Eric J., editor. Life in the Ghettos during the Holocaust. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2005.

Trunk, Isaiah. Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe under Nazi Occupation. New York: Stein and Day, 1977.

Trunk, Isaiah. Lodz Ghetto: A History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006.

Prewar German Laws Against The Jews Time-line

Antisemitism and the persecution of Jews represented a central tenet of Nazi ideology. In their 25-point Party Program, published in 1920, Nazi party members publicly declared their intention to segregate Jews from "Aryan" society and to abrogate Jews' political, legal, and civil rights.

Nazi leaders began to make good on their pledge to persecute German Jews soon after their assumption of power. During the first six years of Hitler's dictatorship, from 1933 until the outbreak of war in 1939, Jews felt the effects of more than 400 decrees and regulations that restricted all aspects of their public and private lives. Many of those laws were national ones that had been issued by the German administration and affected all Jews. But state, regional, and municipal officials, on their own initiative, also promulgated a barrage of exclusionary decrees in their own communities. Thus, hundreds of individuals in all levels of government throughout the country were involved in the persecution of Jews as they conceived, discussed, drafted, adopted, enforced, and supported anti-Jewish legislation. No corner of Germany was left untouched.

1933-1934

The first wave of legislation, from 1933 to 1934, focused largely on limiting the participation of Jews in German public life. The first major law to curtail the rights of Jewish citizens was the "Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service" of April 7, 1933, according to which Jewish and "politically unreliable" civil servants and employees were to be excluded from state service. The new Civil Service Law was the German authorities' first formulation of the so-called Aryan Paragraph, a kind of regulation used to exclude Jews (and often by extension other "non-Aryans") from organizations, professions, and other aspects of public life.

In April 1933, German law restricted the number of Jewish students at German schools and universities. In the same month, further legislation sharply curtailed "Jewish activity" in the medical and legal professions. Subsequent laws and decrees restricted reimbursement of Jewish doctors from public (state) health insurance funds. The city of Berlin forbade Jewish lawyers and notaries to work on legal matters, the mayor of Munich disallowed Jewish doctors from treating non-Jewish patients, and the Bavarian Interior Ministry denied admission of Jewish students to medical school.

At the national level, the Nazi government revoked the licenses of Jewish tax consultants; imposed a 1.5 percent quota on admission of "non-Aryans" to public schools and universities; fired Jewish civilian workers from the army; and, in early 1934, forbade Jewish actors to perform on the stage or screen.

Local governments also issued regulations that affected other spheres of Jewish life: in Saxony, Jews could no longer slaughter animals according to ritual purity requirements, effectively preventing them from obeying Jewish dietary laws.

1935

At their annual party rally held in Nuremberg in September 1935, the Nazi leaders announced new laws which institutionalized many of the racial theories prevalent in Nazi ideology. These "Nuremberg Laws" excluded German Jews from Reich citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of "German or German-related blood." Ancillary ordinances to these laws deprived them of most political rights. Jews were disenfranchised (that is, they had no formal expectation to the right to vote) and could not hold public office.

The Nuremberg Laws did not identify a "Jew" as someone with particular religious beliefs. Instead, the first amendment to the Nuremberg Laws defined anyone who had three or four Jewish grandparents as a Jew, regardless of whether that individual recognized himself or herself as a Jew or belonged to the Jewish religious community. Many Germans who had not practiced Judaism or who had not done so for years found themselves caught in the grip of Nazi terror. Even people with Jewish grandparents who had converted to Christianity could be defined as Jews.

The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 heralded a new wave of antisemitic legislation that brought about immediate and concrete segregation: Jewish patients were no longer admitted to municipal hospitals in Düsseldorf, German court judges could not cite legal commentaries or opinions written by Jewish authors, Jewish officers were expelled from the army, and Jewish university students were not allowed to sit for doctoral exams.

Other regulations reinforced the message that Jews were outsiders in Germany; for example, in December 1935, the Reich Propaganda Ministry issued a decree forbidding Jewish soldiers to be named among the dead in World War I memorials.

"Aryanization"

Government agencies at all levels aimed to exclude Jews from the economic sphere of Germany by preventing them from earning a living. Jews were required to register their domestic and foreign property and assets, a prelude to the gradual expropriation of their material wealth by the state. Likewise, the German authorities intended to "Aryanize" all Jewish businesses, a process involving the dismissal of Jewish workers and managers, as well as the transfer of companies and enterprises to non-Jewish Germans, who bought them at prices officially fixed well below market value. From April 1933 to April 1938, "Aryanization" effectively reduced the number of Jewish-owned businesses in Germany by approximately two-thirds.

1936

In the weeks before and during the 1936 Winter and Summer Olympic Games held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Berlin, respectively, the Nazi regime actually toned down much of its public anti-Jewish rhetoric and activities. The regime even removed some of the signs saying "Jews Unwelcome" from public places. Hitler did not want international criticism of his government to result in the transfer of the Games to another country. Such a loss would have been a serious blow to German prestige. Likewise, Nazi leaders did not want to discourage international tourism and the revenue that it would bring during the Olympics year.

1937-1938

In 1937 and 1938, German authorities again stepped up legislative persecution of German Jews. The government set out to impoverish Jews and remove them from the German economy by requiring them to register their property. Even before the Olympics, the Nazi government had initiated the practice of "Aryanizing" Jewish businesses. "Aryanization" meant the dismissal of Jewish workers and managers of a company and/or the takeover of Jewish-owned businesses by non-Jewish Germans who bought them at bargain prices fixed by government or Nazi party officials. In 1937 and 1938, the government forbade Jewish doctors to treat non-Jews, and revoked the licenses of Jewish lawyers to practice law.

Following the Kristallnacht (commonly known as "Night of Broken Glass") pogrom of November 9-10, 1938, Nazi leaders stepped up "Aryanization" efforts and enforced measures that succeeded increasingly in physically isolating and segregating Jews from their fellow Germans. Jews were barred from all public schools and universities, as well as from cinemas, theaters, and sports facilities. In many cities, Jews were forbidden to enter designated "Aryan" zones. German decrees and ordinances expanded the ban on Jews in professional life. By September 1938, for instance, Jewish physicians were effectively banned from treating "Aryan" patients.

The government required Jews to identify themselves in ways that would permanently separate them from the rest of the population. In August 1938, German authorities decreed that by January 1, 1939, Jewish men and women bearing first names of "non-Jewish" origin had to add "Israel" and "Sara," respectively, to their given names. All Jews were obliged to carry identity cards that indicated their Jewish heritage, and, in the autumn of 1938, all Jewish passports were stamped with an identifying letter "J". As the Nazi leaders quickened their preparations for the European war of conquest that they intended to unleash, antisemitic legislation in Germany and Austria paved the way for more radical persecution of Jews.

Further Reading

Edelheit, Abraham J., and Hershel Edelheit. "Legislation, Anti-Jewish." In History of the Holocaust: A Handbook and Dictionary, 299-331. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994.

Friedländer, Saul. Nazi Germany and the Jews. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.

Schleunes, Karl A. The Twisted Road to Auschwitz: Nazi Policy Toward German Jews, 1933-1939. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1970.
Source: USHMM http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?ModuleId=10005681

Holocaust 1944 Key Dates

January 22
U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt issues Executive Order 9417, creating the War Refugee Board. Roosevelt instructs the War Refugee Board to take measures to rescue victims of enemy oppression in imminent danger of death. The activities of the War Refugee Board contribute to saving tens of thousands of Jews from deportation and death, possibly up to 200,000.

March 19
German troops occupy Hungary.

Early Spring
German authorities begin the evacuation of Lublin/Majdanek and deports the remaining inmates to Auschwitz, Natzweiler-Struthof, Ravensbrück, Plaszow, and Gross-Rosen.

April 5
Under German guidance, Hungarian authorities require all Jews to wear the yellow star.

April 16
German authorities begin to establish concentration points for the deportation of Jews from Hungary.

April 29-30
Hungarian authorities send the first two transports of Hungarian Jews into German custody.

May 15-July 9
Hungarian gendarmerie officials, under the guidance of German SS officials, deport around 440,000 Jews from Hungary. Most are deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where, upon arrival and after selection, SS functionaries kill the majority of them in gas chambers.

May 15-18
German authorities deport 7,003 German, Austrian, and Czech Jews from the camp-ghetto Theresienstadt to Auschwitz-Birkenau in order to “thin out” the Jewish population of Theresienstadt in preparation for the visit of representatives of the International Red Cross and the Danish Red Cross. Upon arrival in Auschwitz-Birkenau, the prisoners on these transports are incarcerated in a “Theresienstadt family camp” in Birkenau.

May 16
The SS attempts to liquidate the Gypsy family camp BIIe at Auschwitz. Having been tipped off by a camp official, the inmates, armed with knives, shovels, and other weapons, refuse to leave their barracks. As a result of internal disagreement and in the face of resistance from the prisoners, the SS postpones the liquidation of the family camp until August 1944.

June 6
D-Day. British and American troops launch an invasion of France.

June 18-22, 1944
The Auschwitz Report, written by two Slovak Jewish prisoners who escaped from Auschwitz on April 7, 1944, and composed a report in Slovak by the end of April, goes public worldwide through media channels in Switzerland

June 22-August 1
Soviet troops destroy German Army Group Center in eastern Belorussia and sweep forward to the east bank of the Vistula River across from the center of Warsaw, Poland.

June 23
With the permission of the RSHA, representatives of the International Red Cross and the Danish Red Cross inspect a “specially prepared” Theresienstadt camp-ghetto.

June 23-July 14
The SS resumes deportations from the Lodz ghetto to the Chelmno killing center, deporting and killing more than 7,000 Jews.

June 24-August 14
War Refugee Board representative John Pehle and several U.S. Jewish organizations including the World Jewish Congress make several requests to the U.S. government to bomb the gas chambers at Birkenau or the rail lines leading to Birkenau. Assistant State Secretary of Defense John J. McCloy handles most of these requests. The U.S. government declines the requests on the grounds that Auschwitz-Birkenau was not a military target, that such a mission would divert resources needed to bring the war to a successful conclusion, and that the speedy end of the war would be most effective in saving lives.

July 2
German authorities begin liquidating the labor camps in Wilno (Vilnius) and kill approximately 3,000 Jews in the Ponary (Paneriai) woods.

July 6
Regent Miklos Horthy of Hungary issues an order that the Hungarian government will cease deporting Jews from Hungary in Germany custody. Deportations halt on July 9.

July 8-12
As the Soviet army approaches, SS authorities liquidate the Kauen concentration camp, transferring around 8,000 Jews to the Stutthof and Dachau concentration camps in the German Reich.

July 9
Raoul Wallenberg arrives in Budapest as first secretary to the Swedish legation in Hungary and with financing from the U.S. War Refugee Board. Along with numerous other legations, including the Swiss, the Turkish, the Italian, and several Latin American legations, the Sweden delegation, inspired by the activism of Wallenberg, effectively protects tens of thousands of Budapest Jews endangered by German and Hungarian plans to deport them.

July 13
The Soviet army liberates Wilno (Vilnius) in Lithuania.

July 23-24
Soviet troops liberate Lublin/Majdanek concentration camp. Although they had evacuated most of the remaining prisoners westward to evade the advancing Soviet army, the SS camp authorities are surprised by the rapid Soviet advance and fail to destroy the camp and the evidence of mass murder.

July 25-September 15
Allied forces break out of the Normandy beachhead, routing the German defenders. On August 25, Free French troops liberate Paris; by September 15, U.S. troops will reach the German border.

August 1
The Soviet army liberates the city of Kaunas.

August 1-October
The underground Polish Home Army rises against the Germans in an effort to play a role in the liberation of Warsaw.

August 2
The SS liquidates the Gypsy family camp BIIe at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The SS authorities transport 1,408 Roma from the family camp and from Auschwitz I to Buchenwald concentration camp. SS men then murder the remaining 2,897 inmates of the Gypsy family camp in the gas chambers at Birkenau.

August 6
SS authorities evacuate the few remaining Jews at Kaiserwald to Buchenwald and Dachau via Stutthof.

August 9-August 28
SS and police units liquidate the Lodz ghetto and deport more than 60,000 Jews and an undetermined number of Roma (Gypsies) to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

August 29-October 28
Slovak resistance organizations rise against the German-supported Slovakian government. Between September and October, German SS and police officials, assisted by German military units and Slovak fascist paramilitary units, deport approximately 12,600 Slovak Jews, most of them to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

October 3
SS units shoot around 3,000 prisoners at Vaivara: 1,500 Jewish men and women, 800 Soviet prisoners of war, and 700 Estonian political prisoners. The SS evacuates most of the surviving inmates to the Stutthof concentration camp.

October 7
At Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Sonderkommando (special detachment of Jewish prisoners deployed to remove corpses from the gas chambers and burn them) blows up Crematorium IV and kills the guards. About 250 participants of the revolt die in battle with the SS and police units. The SS and police units shoot 200 more members of the Sonderkommando after the battle ends.

October 28
After establishing it on August 27, 1943, as a subsidiary camp of the Buchenwald concentration camp, the SS Inspectorate of Concentration Camps redesignates Mittelbau-Dora (also known as Nordhausen-Dora) as an autonomous concentration camp.

October 30
The last transport of Jews from the camp-ghetto Theresienstadt arrives at Auschwitz. During October, SS officials deport approximately 18,000 Jews from Theresienstadt to the Auschwitz camp complex, where camp officials murder most of them in the gas chambers at Birkenau.

November 23
U.S. troops liberate Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp.

November 25
At Heinrich Himmler's order, the Auschwitz camp authorities demolish the gas chambers and crematoria at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

December 1944
The Inspectorate of Concentration Camps officially designates the Bergen-Belsen “residence camp” a concentration camp.

December 11
At Hartheim, German authorities carry out the last gassing of inmates. Under SS guard, Mauthausen prisoners dismantle the killing facility. Between April and December 1940, German authorities killed more than 6,000 prisoners from Mauthausen, Gusen, and Dachau at Hartheim. In all, the Germans killed around 30,000 people, including concentration camp prisoners and victims of the “euthanasia” programs, at Hartheim.

Holocaust 1942 Key Dates

January 7
SS authorities established the civilian prisoner camp Stutthof, near Danzig (Gdansk) on September 2, 1939. On January 7, 1942, the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps redesignates Stutthof as a concentration camp.

January 16
German authorities begin the deportation of Jews and Roma (Gypsies) from the Lodz ghetto to Chelmno. Between January 1942 and March 1943, the SS Special Detachment Lange kills at least 145,000 Jews and a few thousand Roma (Gypsies) at Chelmno. German authorities will deport approximately half of the victims from the ghetto in Lodz.

January 20
Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) chief Reinhard Heydrich convenes the Wannsee Conference in a villa outside Berlin. There he presents plans to coordinate a European-wide “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” to key officials from the German State and the Nazi Party.

March 1
The Inspectorate of Concentration Camps opens a second camp at Auschwitz, called Auschwitz-Birkenau or Auschwitz II. The first prisoners are 945 Soviet prisoners of war and a few Polish prisoners from Auschwitz I. Auschwitz-Birkenau was originally designated for the incarceration of large numbers of Soviet prisoners of war. Although it continues to serve as a concentration camp, it also functions as a killing center from March 1942 until November 1944.

March 9
Slovak authorities require all Jews to wear the yellow Star of David on their outer clothing.

March 17
German SS and police authorities begin the first deportations of Jews, from the ghettos in Lublin and Lvov, to the Belzec killing center. These are the first major deportations within the framework of Operation Reinhard. The SS Special Detachment stationed at Belzec kills at least 434,508 Jews in gas chambers with carbon monoxide gas between March 17 and December 31, 1942. The SS also kills an undetermined number of Roma (Gypsies) at Belzec.

March 26
Slovak authorities begin systematic deportations of Jews from Slovakia. Between March and October 1942, Slovak authorities deport nearly 58,000 Slovak Jews into German custody. The Germans ultimately deport nearly 19,000 of them to Auschwitz and 39,000 to Lublin District, selecting 9,000 as forced laborers in the Lublin/Majdanek concentration camp and deporting at least 24,378 on to the Sobibor killing center.

March 27
German authorities begin systematic deportations of Jews from France. The first train contains approximately 1,000 Jews from the Compiègne and Drancy detention camps; German authorities send it to Auschwitz-Birkenau. By the end of August 1944, the Germans will deport more than 75,000 Jews from France to camps in the east, mostly to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center. Fewer than 3,000 survive.

April 27
In the Netherlands, the German Higher SS and Police Leader issues a decree requiring all Jews to wear the yellow Star of David on their outer clothing.

May
SS officials perform the first selection of victims for gassing at the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center. An SS medical officer selects weak, sick, and “unfit” prisoners from the isolation ward. These prisoners are put onto a truck and taken to a bunker, where they are killed with Zyklon B (prussic acid) gas. Between May 1940 and January 1945, camp authorities kill more than one million people at the Auschwitz camp complex. SS authorities do not register 865,000 arriving prisoners, mostly Jews, whom they most likely selected for gassing immediately upon arrival.

May 7
After trial gassings in April, the SS Special Detachment Sobibor begins gassing operations at the Sobibor killing center. By November 1943, the special detachment has killed at least 167,000 Jews and an undetermined number of Poles, Roma, and Soviet prisoners of war at Sobibor by means of carbon monoxide gas or by shooting.

May 27
In occupied Belgium, German authorities issue a decree requiring all Jews to wear the yellow star.

May 29
German authorities require all Jews residing in France to wear the yellow Star of David on their outer clothing, effective June 7.

June 1
The German Security Police and SD take control of the Westerbork camp in the Netherlands, initially established by the Dutch government to intern Jewish refugees who had entered the Netherlands illegally, and transform it into a transit camp.

June 1-June 6
German authorities begin deportations of Jews from the Krakow ghetto. By June 8, the Germans deport 6,000 Jews from the ghetto to the Belzec killing center.

June 7
On May 29, 1942, German authorities require all Jews residing in France to wear the yellow Star of David on their outer clothing, effective June 7.

June 11
Auschwitz concentration camp authorities establish a camp at the site of the I.G. Farben plant near Monowitz and redesignate the Buna Labor Detachment as the Buna (or Monowitz) subcamp of Auschwitz.

July 4
German authorities begin systematically gassing Jews at the Auschwitz killing center.

July 15
German authorities begin deportation of Dutch Jews from the Westerbork, Amersfoort, and Vught camps in the Netherlands to killing centers and concentration camps in Germany and German-occupied Poland. By September 3, 1944, around 100 trains have carried more than 100,000 people to Auschwitz, Sobibor, Theresienstadt, and Bergen-Belsen, including about 60,000 Jews to Auschwitz and about 34,000 Jews to Sobibor.

July 19
Reichsführer-SS (SS chief) Heinrich Himmler issues a general order to the Higher SS and Police Leader in the Generalgouvernement that, by December 31, 1942, SS and police authorities “resettle” all Jews residing in the Generalgouvernement, either to the killing centers or in closed camps located in the major cities.

July 22
Between July 22 and September 12, German SS and police authorities, assisted by auxiliaries, deport approximately 265,000 Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka killing center. German forces kill approximately 35,000 Jews in the ghetto during the deportation operation.

July 23
SS Special Detachment Treblinka begins gassing operations at the Treblinka killing center. Between July 1942 and November 1943, the SS special detachment at Treblinka murders an estimated 925,000 Jews and an unknown number of Poles, Roma, and Soviet prisoners of war in Treblinka 2.

July 28-31
German SS and police officials and their auxiliaries kill approximately 9,000 Jews from the Minsk ghetto in mass shootings.

August 1-29
German SS and police officials and their auxiliaries deport more than 76,000 Jews from District Galicia in the Generalgouvernement, including 40,000 from the Lvov (Lwow; L'viv) ghetto, to the Belzec killing center, where the SS Special Detachment kills them.

August 5-17
German SS and police officials and their auxiliaries liquidate the Radom ghetto in German-occupied Poland, deporting about 30,000 Jews, most of them to the Treblinka killing center.

August 13
Croat authorities begin deporting Jews in Croatia into German custody. The German authorities send the Croat Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

August 15-August 28
Gerhart Riegner, representative of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) in Switzerland, sends a cable through the British Embassy to Rabbi Stephen Wise, the President of the WJC. Riegner explicitly informs Wise of the German implementation of their plan to physically annihilate the Jews of Europe.

September 12
Between July 22 and September 12, 1942, German SS and police authorities, assisted by auxiliaries, deport approximately 265,000 Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka killing center. German forces kill approximately 35,000 Jews in the ghetto during the deportation operation.

September 22-November 5
Between September 22 and November 5, 1942, German SS and police officials and their auxiliaries deport 39,000 Jews from Czestochowa, in Radom District of the Generalgouvernement, and another nearly 267,000 Jews who resided in the smaller cities and countryside of Radom District, to the Treblinka killing center.

October 26
With the assistance of collaborationist Norwegian officials, the Germans begin rounding up Jews in Norway. The Germans eventually deport approximately 770 Norwegian Jews to killing centers and concentration camps.

October 28
The first transport of Jews (mostly Austrian) from the Greater German Reich arrives in Auschwitz from Vienna. Between July 17, 1942, and October 28, 1944, German authorities have deported more than 70,000 German, Austrian, and Czech Jews from the Greater German Reich to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

November 5
Between September 22 and November 5, 1942, German SS and police officials and their auxiliaries deport 39,000 Jews from Czestochowa, in Radom District of the Generalgouvernement, and another nearly 267,000 Jews who resided in the smaller cities and countryside of Radom District, to the Treblinka killing center.

November 24
After receiving confirmation of the report on the German plan to annihilate the Jews of Europe from the U.S. Department of State, Rabbi Stephen Wise, President of the World Jewish Congress, publicizes the contents of the Riegner telegram, exposing German implementation of the “Final Solution.”

December 16
SS chief Heinrich Himmler issues a decree for the deportation of all Roma living in the Greater German Reich to a special family compound in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Under this decree, the German police authorities will deport nearly 18,000 Roma to Auschwitz in February 1943.

December 17
The Allied nations, including the governments of the United Kingdom and the United States, issue a press release stating explicitly that the German authorities were engaging in mass murder of the European Jews, and that those responsible for this “bestial policy of cold-blooded extermination” would “not escape retribution.”

December 31
On July 19, 1942, SS chief Heinrich Himmler issued a general order to the Higher SS and Police Leader in the Generalgouvernement that, by December 31, 1942, SS and police authorities “resettle” all Jews residing in the Generalgouvernement, either to killing centers or in closed camps located in major cities.

Deportation To and From Warsaw Ghetto

DEPORTATIONS TO THE WARSAW GHETTO

Between January and March 1941, Jews from smaller communities to the west of Warsaw were deported to the Warsaw ghetto. Between April and July 1942, Jews from the nearby towns east of Warsaw, from Germany, and from German-occupied areas of western Poland were deported there. The Germans also deported several hundred Roma (Gypsies) to the Warsaw ghetto.

At its height, the total population of the Warsaw ghetto exceeded 400,000 people. Miserable conditions in the ghetto, deliberately exacerbated by German policies, worsened over time. In 1941, one year before mass deportations, over 43,000 people died, more than 10 percent of the entire ghetto population.

DEPORTATIONS FROM THE WARSAW GHETTO

Between July and September 1942, German SS and police units, supported by non-German auxiliaries, deported approximately 300,000 Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka II extermination camp. German SS and police personnel used violence to force Jews to march from their homes or places of work to the Umschlagplatz (concentration point), and forced them to board freight cars bound for Malkinia, on the Warsaw-Bialystok rail line. When the trains arrived in Malkinia, they were diverted along a special rail spur to Treblinka.

The Germans demanded that members of the Jewish council (Judenrat) assist in organizing the deportations. The head of the Jewish council in Warsaw, Adam Czerniakow, refused to cooperate. Although Czerniakow did not call for resistance to the Germans, he refused to pass on the deportation order and committed suicide on July 23, 1942, by swallowing a cyanide capsule.

Generally, the Germans and their auxiliaries rounded up Jews by cordoning off a city block and systematically forcing the residents out onto the street. They then forced the Jews to march to the Umschlagplatz under heavy guard. As soon as one block was cleared, German SS and police units and their auxiliaries would secure the next block and repeat the process. German SS and police personnel viciously beat and tortured Jews to make them move more quickly; they shot those who were unable or unwilling to move. To lure Jews out of hiding, the German authorities often resorted to announcements that the deportations were over and those who not been deported would receive food. Starving and unaware that they would be transported to their deaths, some Jews reported and they too were deported to Treblinka. Toward the end of the deportations, German forces and collaborators systematically searched the then empty apartment houses and workplaces to find Jews in hiding.

In September 1942, as many as 70,000 Jews remained in the ghetto. In January 1943, German SS and police units deported roughly 6,500 Jewish residents of the Warsaw ghetto to Treblinka. During this three-day operation, 1,171 Jewish ghetto residents were shot and killed.

Between April 19 and May 16, 1943, German SS and police forces, supported by a battalion of specially trained auxiliary police guards from the Trawniki training camp, liquidated the Warsaw ghetto. When Jewish inhabitants resisted the initial deportation efforts (in what became known as the Warsaw ghetto uprising), the SS and police were caught by surprise and sustained dozens of casualties. The Germans then destroyed the ghetto block by block in order to break the resistance. More than 7,000 Jews, most of them resistance fighters or persons hidden inside the ghetto, were killed during the operation. Most of them were shot in combat with the SS and German police. The Germans deported about 7,000 more Jews to Treblinka, and about 42,000 to concentration camps and forced-labor camps in the Lublin District of the Generalgouvernement. Of this group, approximately 18,000 Jews were sent to the Majdanek camp, about 16,000 to the Poniatowa forced-labor camp, and some 6,000 to the Trawniki forced-labor camp. The remaining 2,000 were dispersed among smaller forced-labor camps such as Budzyn and Krasnik.

After the destruction of the ghetto, SS authorities established a small concentration camp on the site of the Warsaw ghetto.

Warsaw Life Victim Story
Gisha Galina Bursztyn
Born Pultusk, Poland

Gisha was raised by Yiddish-speaking, religious Jewish parents in the town of Pultusk in central Poland. She married in the late 1890s and moved with her husband, Shmuel David Bursztyn, to the city of Warsaw, where Shmuel owned and operated a bakery on Zamenhofa Street in the city's Jewish section. In 1920 the Bursztyns and their eight children moved to a two-bedroom apartment at 47 Mila Street.

1933-39: By 1939 six of Gisha's children were grown and had left home: her eldest daughters had married, and her four eldest sons had emigrated to America and Mexico. Only her youngest son and daughter still lived at home. Her husband had given up his business and was working for the Kagan Bakery. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. After being attacked for four weeks, Warsaw fell to the Germans on September 28.

1940-42: When the Warsaw ghetto was set up by the Germans in November 1940, the Bursztyn's apartment ended up within the closed-off ghetto. Shmuel continued working at the Kagan Bakery, which was also located within the ghetto. In April 1942 he was killed by the Germans. Fearing the German roundups, Gisha decided to hide in one of the ghetto's makeshift bunkers. During a massive roundup that began on July 22, 1942, Gisha was rousted from her bunker, marched several blocks to an assembly point, and herded onto a boxcar.

Gisha was deported to the Treblinka extermination camp, where she was gassed in July 1942. She was 65

Source: http://www.ushmm.org

Nuremberg Laws Against Jews

The Nuremberg Laws greatly affected the society of Germany during WWII. Many of the Jews living there were very prosperous, which really angered those who were not so lucky. The Nazis and their leader, Adolf Hitler, wanting to support the majority of people in Germany, created the Nuremberg Laws to annoy the Jews and also gain the support of the other German citizens. The laws indirectly restricted the Jew’s livelihoods, confiscated their property, took away their jobs, and encouraged emigration. The Nuremberg Laws had a huge effect on the Jews because they were denied their rights, they were abused, and their way of life changed drastically for the worse.

Behind the Laws

Because of their wealth, the Germans had a strong hatred toward the Jews. The Nazis, therefore, treated the Jews inhumanely. They destroyed synagogues and Jewish owned stores. To make matters worse, Jews were now categorized as people with at least one Jewish grandparent, in addition to those practicing Judaism (“Nuremberg Laws”). All of them were forced to wear the Star of David just to show that they were Jewish (Newman 8). The Sturmabteilung or SA, part of the Nazi party, began harassing Jews while other Nazis arrested them (Newman 13). Many people believed, “These laws demonstrate the ways in which the legal system, in the hands of the wrong people, can be perverted and used to incite violence” (Newman 9). The Nuremberg Laws were set up primarily out of jealously and Hitler’s love of power.

Other Nuremberg Laws

In September 1935, at a Nazi convention, Hitler presented the Laws to his followers (“Nuremberg Laws”). The Reich Citizenship Law proclaimed that there would be no Jewish citizens of Germany (“Nuremberg Laws”). Because of this, approximately 60,000 Jews reluctantly left Germany (Newman 19). The Law of Protection of German Blood and Honor prohibited marriage and sexual intercourse between Germans and Jews (“Nuremberg Laws”). “The Nuremberg Laws demonstrate the fear the Nazis had of ‘blood poisoning’” the people felt (Newman 66). Also, this law proclaimed the employment of German women under the age of 45 in a Jewish household was forbidden (“Nuremberg Laws”). The raising of the German flag by a Jew was also prohibited (“Nuremberg Laws”). These laws were very discriminatory.

Effect on the Jews
The Nuremberg Laws gave the Jews a very bad reputation.
Jews were no longer allowed to vote in Germany and they were excluded from schools, libraries, theaters, and public transportation facilities (Herzstein 138).

Jewish teachers lost their jobs, while artists, musicians, and actors were banned from performing for German audiences (Herzstein 138).

Jewish men were forced to add “Israel” as their middle name; Jewish women, however, added “Sarah” (Herzstein 138).

The Jews that refused to leave Germany were moved into ghettos (Newman 63). The Warsaw Ghetto, the largest, killed hundreds of thousands of Jews (newman 63). Starvation, disease, and murder were the main causes of their deaths (Newman 63).

“The Nuremberg Laws… gave an individual with a grudge against another person the power to send that person to his or her death” (Newman 61). The Nuremberg Laws brutally hurt the Jews.

Nuremberg Laws 1935. Nazi Laws Against Jews.

In his monumental book The Destruction of the European Jews, Raul Hilberg describes the Holocaust as a destruction process, one that unfolded step by step, but did not proceed from a definite plan. Nonetheless, he argues that one can trace the chronological order of the destruction process and that it runs roughly thus: definition, expropriation, concentration and killing.1

The Nuremberg Laws were the first attempt by the Nazi government to define the Jews and as such, play a pivotal role in the process that lead to their annihilation.

The Nuremberg Laws were adopted by the Reichstag at the Nazi Party Day of September 15, 1935. There were essentially two laws and a decree (adopted in November) that are of importance here.

The first of these was the Reich Citizenship Law [Reichsbürgergesetz]. Among other things, it stated that a Reich citizen was a person who was of German or related blood and was the "sole bearer of full political rights in accordance with the Law". Subjects, on the other hand, were people who enjoyed "the protection of the German Reich and who in consequence [had] specific obligations towards it". 2 Since Jews were not considered by the Nazis to be of German blood, this law effectively ended their status as citizens of the Reich and reduced them to subjects.

The second law was the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor [Gesetz zum Schutz des deutschen Blutes und der deutschen Ehre]. It forbade marriages between Germans and Jews, outlawed extramarital sexual relations between Germans and Jews, prohibited Jews from employing Germans under the age of 45 in their household and denied Jews the right to fly the German flag.

In case there was any ambiguity about the meaning of the first law, it was cleared up in a decree issued on November 14, 1938. The so-called First Regulation to the Reich Citizenship Law stated bluntly that "no Jew can be a Reich citizen. He has no voting rights in political matters; he cannot occupy a public office". 3

This set of laws obliged the Nazis to do something they had not done before – define what a Jew was. The Aryanization laws of 1933 had said what Aryans could do, and what non-Aryans could not, but made no attempt to define the terms. 4 Now, the Reich had laws that used the words "Germans" and "Jews", and definitions were therefore required. That this was a difficult job is evidenced by the fact that the Nazis were still debating it at the Wannsee Conference in 1942.

Germans had been defined as a "person of German or related blood". Jews could easily be defined as people whose 4 grandparents were Jewish, or whose parents were Jewish. But this raised several problems. First, there were many Germans and Jews who had intermarried with each other. How were they to be defined? There were Jews who did not practice their religion. And there were Jews who did not "look" Jewish.5 What was one to do with partial Jews?

After much discussion, the definitions arrived at were as follows:

* a Jew was anyone who was descended from three or four Jewish grandparents;
* a Jew was also anyone with two Jewish grandparents and who belonged to the Jewish religion, or was married to a Jew as of the date of the adoption of the Laws;
* a Mischling First Degree was anyone with two Jewish grandparents, but who did not belong to the Jewish religion and were not married to a Jew
* a Mischling Second Degree was anyone descended from one Jewish grandparent.

The word "Mischling" roughly translates into English as "half-breed" or "mongrel". Those who suffered the most under the Final Solution were the Jews and the Mischlinge First Degree. And the distinction is important because, when the physical extermination process began in 1941, it was the two categories of Jews who were targeted. Mischlinge First Degree were also victimized, but to a lesser extent, and Mischlinge Second Degree were largely left alone.

In one of the supreme ironies in history, the determination of whether someone was Jewish was based on their religion, not on their "race", and this in spite of the hideous antisemitic propaganda already mentioned. This characterization caused the Nazi endless problems that are beyond the scope of this essay.

Were the Nuremberg Laws in fact a forerunner of the Final Solution? There may be no absolute answer based on current evidence, but the following extract from a speech by Hitler on the occasion of their adoption certainly sounds ominous.

...The only way to deal with the problem which remains open is that of legislative action. The German Government is in this controlled by the thought that through a single secular solution it may be possible still to create a level ground on which the German people may find a tolerable relation towards the Jewish people. Should this hope not be fulfilled and the Jewish agitation both within Germany and in the international sphere should continue, then the position must be examined afresh.

The third [law] is an attempt to regulate by law [the Jewish] problem, which, should this attempt fail, must then be handed over by law to the National-Socialist Party for a final solution.[Endlösung]6

Notes

1 Raul Hilberg, Destruction of the European Jews, Holmes & Meier, New York, 1985, Volume 1, page 53

2 Arad, Gutman and Margaliot, Documents on the Final Solution, University of Nebraska Press (Bison Books), 1999, page 77

3 Ibid., page 80

4 Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service [Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums], April 7, 1933, Reichgesetzblatt I, 1933, page 175

5 This is meant in the stereotypical context of Nazi propaganda, and is not meant to imply that Jews have a particular appearance. See Who was Julius Streicher?

6 N.H. Baynes, ed., The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, I, London, 1942, pp. 731-732.

Holocaust Facts
What You Need to Know About the Holocaust

What Does Holocaust Mean?

* The Holocaust began in 1933 when Hitler came to power in Germany and ended in 1945 when the Nazis were defeated by the Allied powers.
* The term "Holocaust," originally from the Greek word "holokauston" which means "sacrifice by fire," refers to the Nazi's persecution and planned slaughter of the Jewish people. The Hebrew word "Shoah," which means "devastation, ruin, or waste," is also used for this genocide.

* In addition to Jews, the Nazis targeted Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the disabled for persecution. Anyone who resisted the Nazis was sent to forced labor or murdered.

* The term "Nazi" is an acronym for "Nationalsozialistishe Deutsche Arbeiterpartei" ("National Socialist German Worker's Party").

* The Nazis used the term "the Final Solution" to refer to their plan to murder the Jewish people. .

The Big Numbers

* It is estimated that 11 million people were killed during the Holocaust. Six million of these were Jews.

* The Nazis killed approximately two-thirds of all Jews living in Europe.

* An estimated 1.1 million children were murdered in the Holocaust.

Persecution Begins

* On April 1, 1933, the Nazis instigated their first action against German Jews by announcing a boycott of all Jewish-run businesses.

* The Nuremberg Laws, issued on September 15, 1935, began to exclude Jews from public life. The Nuremberg Laws included a law that stripped German Jews of their citizenship and a law that prohibited marriages and extramarital sex between Jews and Germans. The Nuremberg Laws set the legal precedent for further anti-Jewish legislation.

* Nazis then issued additional anti-Jews laws over the next several years. For example, some of these laws excluded Jews from places like parks, fired them from civil service jobs (i.e. government jobs), made Jews register their property, and prevented Jewish doctors from working on anyone other than Jewish patients.

* During the night of November 9-10, 1938, Nazis incited a pogrom against Jews in Austria and Germany in what has been termed, "Kristallnacht" ("Night of Broken Glass"). This night of violence included the pillaging and burning of synagogues, breaking the windows of Jewish-owned businesses, the looting of these stores, and many Jews were physically attacked. Also, approximately 30,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps.

* After World War II started in 1939, the Nazis began ordering Jews to wear a yellow Star of David on their clothing so that Jews could be easily recognized and targeted.

Jewish Ghettos

* After the beginning of World War II, Nazis began ordering all Jews to live within certain, very specific, areas of big cities, called ghettos.

* Jews were forced out of their homes and moved into smaller apartments, often shared with other families.

* Some ghettos started out as "open," which meant that Jews could leave the area during the daytime but often had to be back within the ghetto by a curfew. Later, all ghettos became "closed," which meant that Jews were trapped within the confines of the ghetto and not allowed to leave.

* A few of the major ghettos were located in the cities of Bialystok, Kovno, Lodz, Minsk, Riga, Vilna, and Warsaw.

* The largest ghetto was in Warsaw, with its highest population reaching 445,000 in March 1941.

* In most ghettos, Nazis ordered the Jews to establish a Judenrat (a Jewish council) to both administer Nazi demands and to regulate the internal life of the ghetto.

* Nazis would then order deportations from the ghettos. In some of the large ghettos, 1,000 people per day were loaded up in trains and sent to either a concentration camp or a death camp.

* To get them to cooperate, the Nazis told the Jews they were being transported to another place for labor

* When the Nazis decided to kill the remaining Jews in a ghetto, they would "liquidate" a ghetto by boarding the last Jews in the ghetto on trains.

* When the Nazis attempted to liquidate the Warsaw Ghetto on April 13, 1943, the remaining Jews fought back in what has become known as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The Jewish resistance fighters held out against the entire Nazi regime for 28 days -- longer than many European countries had been able to withstand Nazi conquest.

Concentration and Extermination Camps

* Although many people refer to all Nazi camps as "concentration camps," there were actually a number of different kinds of camps, including concentration camps, extermination camps, labor camps, prisoner-of-war camps, and transit camps.

* One of the first concentration camps was Dachau, which opened on March 20, 1933.

* From 1933 until 1938, most of the prisoners in the concentration camps were political prisoners (i.e. people who spoke or acted in some way against Hitler or the Nazis) and people the Nazis labeled as "asocial."

* After Kristallnacht in 1938, the persecution of Jews became more organized. This led to the exponential increase in the number of Jews sent to concentration camps.

* Life within Nazi concentration camps was horrible. Prisoners were forced to do hard physical labor and yet given tiny rations. Prisoners slept three or more people per crowded wooden bunk (no mattress or pillow). Torture within the concentration camps was common and deaths were frequent.

* At a number of Nazi concentration camps, Nazi doctors conducted medical experiments on prisoners against their will.

* While concentration camps were meant to work and starve prisoners to death, extermination camps (also known as death camps) were built for the sole purpose of killing large groups of people quickly and efficiently.

* The Nazis built six extermination camps: Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Auschwitz, and Majdanek. (Auschwitz and Majdanek were both concentration and extermination camps.)

* Prisoners transported to these extermination camps were told to undress to take a shower. Rather than a shower, the prisoners were herded into gas chambers and killed. (At Chelmno, the prisoners were herded into gas vans instead of gas chambers.)

* Auschwitz was the largest concentration and extermination camp built. It is estimated that 1.1 million people were killed at Auschwitz.