"I remember the fear, of never feeling safe. You had to hide constantly. And the hunger -- I would sit in our apartment and look out the window, and I would see the Polish children across the street bringing milk back home,It was like watching people in a storybook -- we had no food, no milk..." -Nelly Cesana: Survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto. This quote shows just some of the terror the Jews went through during the Holocaust. In 1933 before Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany, Warsaw, Poland was home to the largest population of Jews throughout all of Europe. The Jews in Warsaw had a thriving cultural and social life. After Hitler’s reign about 99 percent of the Jewish population in Poland was exterminated. The Warsaw Ghetto was …show more content…
where Jews were sent before they were forced to go to extermination camps, where they were killed. Yet, a group of people were brave enough to fight back against the intolerance. The Warsaw Ghetto was one of the worst places to be in the Holocaust because of its unbearable living conditions, very scarce amounts of food, and the way the Jews were mistreated, yet a group of people led by the Jewish Combat Organization (ZOB) and the Jewish Military Union (ZZW) Resistance groups were still brave enough to stand up and fight back against the oppression. Adolf Hitler came to power as Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933.
He was appointed Chancellor by President Paul Von Hindenburg of Germany. Hitler took many steps in reducing the rights of Jews. On September 15, 1935 the Nuremberg Laws were introduced in Germany. These laws heavily restricted the rights of Jews in Germany. They banned marriage between Jews and “subjects of the state of German or related blood.” The laws also banned Jews from employing German woman under the age of 45 in their households. One other major law declared only those of German or related blood were eligible to be Reich citizens, the remaining people were classified as “state subjects”, without citizenship rights. Then, on September 1, 1939 Hitler and his troops took over Poland. After the annexation of Poland Hitler decided he didn’t even want Jews living with those of pure German blood, the “Aryan Race.” This lead to the establishment of the first ghetto in Piotrkow Trybunalski, Poland. Hitler ghettoized Jews to separate them from the rest of society, he felt they didn’t deserve to live with those superior to them. Many ghettos started to be established after 1939 throughout all the countries Hitler had conquered, including: Poland, Germany, and Austria. Eventually, this lead to the establishment of the Warsaw Ghetto on October 12,
1940. By the orders of Warsaw District Governor, Ludwig Fischer, the construction of the Ghetto began on April 1, 1940. The Ghetto was established because of the growing number of Jewish refugees in and around Warsaw. On October 12, 1940 after the construction of the Ghetto was completed, a decree was sent out by German authorities requiring all Jewish residents of Warsaw to move into the Ghetto. The Nazis rounded up the Jews many times by simply knocking their doors down and telling the Jews they had to go with them. Many Jews were also rounded up completely unknowingly as they would be captured in the middle of the streets by Nazis passing by. After Nazis had captured the Jews, they were thrown in trucks and sent to either ghettos or extermination camps. In November of 1940, the Warsaw Ghetto was sealed off from the public so Jews could have absolutely no communication with people outside of the Ghetto. The Warsaw Ghetto was located in Warsaw, Poland and housed hundreds of thousands of Jews throughout the Holocaust. The Ghetto was enclosed with a 10 foot tall wall, which had barbed wire on top of it. There were always Nazi officers all around the wall both inside and outside of the Ghetto. The Nazis referred to the Ghetto as the “Jewish Quarter.” This was only the beginning of the Jews’ problems while living in the Ghetto. Inside of the Ghetto the Jews were severely malnourished. The daily food rations appointed by the Nazis to be given to the Jews was a painful 181 calories a day, usually consisting of bread, potatoes, and fat. The healthy average amount of calories per day for a man is 2,500, for a women is 2,000, and for a child is anywhere between 1,600-2,500. All Jews were getting thousands of less calories per day than what is the healthy amount. The Ghetto continued to receive more Jews sent there by the Nazis until the population of the Ghetto reached above 400,000 people. This caused more and more problems with food until many Jews started getting food into the Ghetto illegally. Up to 80% of food consumed in the Ghetto was brought in illegally. Many times, children had to fit through cracks in the wall or go through tunnels dug by the Jews to get food outside of the Ghetto. Jews were often caught attempting to escape the Ghetto in search of food. When they were caught by the Nazi soldiers, they were usually shot on site. If Jews were to not get caught, they usually received their food by a select few residents of Warsaw. Some people living in Warsaw had the kindness in their hearts to offer up food to the Jews, who were in desperate need. The Jews would then need to smuggle in the food discreetly. They did this usually by stuffing food in or under their clothes so the food wouldn’t be visible. This was a bad problem among other problems that made their lives almost impossible to live. With the population of the Ghetto increasing to 400,000 by late 1940 and the beginning of 1941, spacing in the Ghetto became a major problem. The Ghetto took up a space of only about 3.5 square miles, covering only about 2.4 percent of the overall metropolitan area of the city of Warsaw. 400,000 people were living in an area that normally housed only 160,000 people. Eventually, many Jews had to start crowding within the Ghetto resulting in an estimated 7.2 people per room. As a result, life in the ghetto was completely unsanitary. Jews had almost no access to any forms of self-hygiene. Plumbing broke down, and human waste was thrown about the streets along with other garbage making a completely unsanitary environment. Along with starvation and overpopulation came many deaths. Two main causes of death in the Ghetto were starvation and disease. The average mortality rate between January, 1941 through May, 1942 alone was about 3,882 Jews per month. Between 1940 and mid 1942 about 83,000 Jews died due to rampant hunger and vicious diseases. Another cause of deaths within the Ghetto was death from the cold. During the winter, Warsaw sees and average temperature of just 28°F (-3°C). Warsaw also sees a lot of snow during the winter time. Every winter there is an average of about 25-45 inches of snow. People within the Ghetto had nowhere near adequate clothing for these kinds of temperatures and conditions causing them to freeze. On April 19, 1943 the Jewish residents of the Warsaw Ghetto decided that they have had enough of the oppression and tyranny they were against. On April 19, 1943 the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto refused to surrender to to the police commander SS-Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop, thus beginning the Uprising. One of the two opposing Jewish forces was the ZOB. One of the leaders of the ZOB, Mark Edelman, stated that there were 220 ZOB fighters within the Ghetto and each one was armed with a handgun, grenades, and molotov cocktails. The ZOB was the group that commenced the first day of war on April 19, 1943. The ZZW was said to have about 400 well-armed fighters who fought beside the ZOB in an attempt to save themselves and kill the Germans. The ZOB and ZZW had little ammunition, and had to retrieve many of their weapons by stealing from the Germans, or creating their own. On April 22, 1943 the third day of fighting, the Germans led by SS-Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop, systematically burned down Jewish households one by one within the Ghetto. Though the Germans destroyed the organized military resistance just three days after the beginning of the uprising, individuals and small groups hid or fought the Germans for almost a month. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising took place from April 19, 1943 through May 16, 1943. On May 16, 1943 German SS Officer Stroop ordered the destruction of the Great Synagogue on Tlomacki Street to symbolize the German victory. The Jewish people of the Ghetto (including the resistance fighters), suffered about 13,000 deaths, and 56,885 deportations. The Germans only suffered 17 deaths and 93 injuries. Although the Jewish people lost in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, it was the largest symbol of hope seen by the Jews throughout the Holocaust. It also inspired other uprisings in different Ghettos where people had the same mission, to end the tyranny and oppression they were facing. The Warsaw Ghetto and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, are two of the most important events in history. The Warsaw Ghetto shows how truly evil people can be if there is no one to resist or stand up. Most people could never even begin to think of the action of putting a person into a place where they would have practically no food, and unbearable living conditions, but the Nazis did just that. It shows that when power rampages on without anyone attempting to put those in power in check, that evil can uprise. It is an important lesson for people around the world to follow today. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was one of the most symbolic events of hope to ever take place. The Uprising shows that when people may be losing a war or are in a really bad place, there is always hope to fix the problem. The bravery Jews showed during the Uprising is a symbol of hope that others can follow today, to know that even when you’re losing and things aren’t looking to good, it’s never too late to give up. I also have a personal connection to the events that took place during the Holocaust and the Warsaw Ghetto. I am Jewish, and the thought that this happened to my people really does affect me. It’s hard for me to even imagine humans being truly evil enough to ruin people’s lives for no reason. I think these events show what the Jewish people have shown for centuries. We have always fought back, and we have never given up. I think the events of the Warsaw Ghetto should be hope to people all around the world to stand up against intolerance. People should not be silent when intolerance is taking place right in front of their eyes. The lessons of Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. show us that if we can take responsibility for our actions, staying silent only hurts rather than helps. In places around the world where tyranny and oppression is still a problem, people need to stand up and fight for their basic human rights, because without rights and equal protection there is no point in living.
Poland was devastated when German forces invaded their country on September 1, 1939, marking the beginning of World War II. Still suffering from the turmoil of World War I, with Germany left in ruins, Hitler's government dreamt of an immense, new domain of "living space" in Eastern Europe; to acquire German dominance in Europe would call for war in the minds of German leaders (World War II in Europe). The Nazis believed the Germans were racially elite and found the Jews to be inferior to the German population. The Holocaust was the discrimination and the slaughter of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its associates (Introduction to the Holocaust). The Nazis instituted killing centers, also known as “extermination camps” or “death camps,” for being able to resourcefully take part in mass murder (Killing Centers: An Overview).
Holocaust Hero: A One of a Kind Man. What is a hero? A hero can be classified as a number of things. A hero can be a person who, in the opinions of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal.
At the start of Adolf Hitler’s reign of terror, no one would have been able to foresee what eventually led to the genocide of approximately six million Jews. However, steps can be traced to see how the Holocaust occurred. One of those steps would be the implementation of the ghetto system in Poland. This system allowed for Jews to be placed in overcrowded areas while Nazi officials figured out what to do with them permanently. The ghettos started out as a temporary solution that eventually became a dehumanizing method that allowed mass relocation into overcrowded areas where starvation and privation thrived. Also, Nazi officials allowed for corrupt Jewish governments that created an atmosphere of mistrust within its walls. Together, this allowed
It is well known that the Holocaust concentration camps were a gruesome place to be. People are aware of the millions of deaths that have occurred in these concentration camps. The Plaszow concentration camp was a dreadful place for Jews everywhere in Europe at the time. Beginning with the history of Plaszow, to the man who enjoyed torturing Jews and then the man who salvaged thousands of lives, Plaszow concentration is remembered vividly in many Jewish people’s minds.
During World War 2, thousands of Jews were deported to concentration camps. One of the most famous camps in Europe was Auschwitz concentration camp. From all of the people sent to this concentration camp only a small amount of people survived. These survivors all will be returning to Auschwitz to celebrate 70 years after liberation.
Christopher Browning believes that Hitler did not have a pre-existing plan to liquidate the Jews but rather, the Final Solution was a reaction to the cumulative radicalization amongst the German nation from 1939 to 1941. Although Hitler was notoriously one of the most anti-Semitic people to walk the Earth, he had not intended to mass slaughter the Jews, but rather attempted to find another solution to the Jewish problem. Hitler had such an obsession on finding this solution, that he promised one way or another he would reach his goal in perfecting a Judenfrei Germany (Browning 424). The first solution to the Jewish problem in Germany was through emigration. Once Hitler seized power he imposed the Nuremberg Laws, which stripped the Jews of all of their rights, expecting the Jewish people to comprehend the message and leave the country. The German officials even supported emigration and Zionistic movements. By 1939 only half of the Jews had left so the Jewish problem still rested unfinished. In September of 1939, the German declared war on Poland in an attempt to conquer Lebensraum. [Living space] After starting the war, they decided they could no longer let the Jews emigrate (Browning 12). By capturing Poland they inherited three million Jews. Hitler summoned all of the Jews in the German empire into ghettos in Poland until he could find another plan. Himmler, Hitler’s right hand man, proposed two plans to expel the Jews to either Lublin or to Madagascar. Hitler approved both but neither was put into affect. The Nazis’ inability to solve the Jewish question once again disappoints them. The obligation to solve the problem still weighed heavily upon them, which lead to frustration, which lead to the radical decisions to liquidate th...
Since there were so many polish Jews, it was impractical for the Nazis to kick so many out of the country. Instead, the Nazis chose to oppress them, making them wear yellow badges, forcing them into hard labor, stealing their property and putting them into ghettos. Ghettos were cramped and had no sanitation, so diseases swept through. If a person could not work, he would not be given food tickets and would starve. The Jundenrat, the Jewish councils, were responsible for carrying out the Nazi's orders.
The Warsaw Ghetto was a Jewish-populated ghetto in the largest city of Poland, Warsaw. A ghetto can be defined as a part of a city in which large quantities of members of a minority group live, especially because of social, legal, or economic pressure. Ghettos were commonly attributed to a location where there was a large Jewish population. In fact, the word Ghetto originated from the name of the Jewish quarter in Venice, Italy, in 16th century.The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest Ghetto, as a part of the Holocaust, and as an early stage of it, played a very significant role. Today, in our museum exhibit, we have several artifacts, including primary evidence relating to the Warsaw ghetto. We will be discussing how and why it was created, the lifestyle
The Nazi Party, controlled by Adolf Hitler, ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945. In 1933, Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany and the Nazi government began to take over. Hitler became a very influential speaker and attracted new members to his party by blaming Jews for Germany’s problems and developed a concept of a “master race.” The Nazis believed that Germans were “racially superior” and that the Jewish people were a threat to the German racial community and also targeted other groups because of their “perceived racial inferiority” such as Gypsies, disabled persons, Polish people and Russians as well as many others. In 1938, Jewish people were banned from public places in Germany and many were sent to concentration camps where they were either murdered or forced to work.
The holocaust was a catastrophic event that killed millions of innocent people and showed the world how inhuman mankind can be. This dark period in world history demonstrated unmatched violence and cruelty towards the Jewish race that led toward genocide. Genocide did not begin with the Holocaust; nor was it a spontaneous event. Many warning signs within world events helped provide Germany and Adolf Hitler the foundation to carry out increasing levels of human depravity (Mission Statement). These warning signs during the Holocaust include; Anti-Semitism, Hitler Youth, Racial profiling, the Ghettos, Lodz, Crystal Night, Pogroms, and Deportation. However, their exposure comes too late for the world to help prevent the horrors of the Holocaust. For example, Anti-Semitism was never put into reality until the holocaust overcame the attitudes of its’ German Citizens. It also provided the driving force behind the education of the Hitler youth. Hitler’s persuasive characteristics consumed the people into believing all of his beliefs. This is how racial profiling came about; Hitler made it so that the Germans had the mindset that Jews were horrible, filthy, people that did not deserve to live like the Germans or have the same luxuries. As a result, they moved all the Jews into one secluded area away from the German citizens; an area called the Ghettos. One of these Ghettos was the town of Lodz, who kept meticulous historical records of everything that went on in the city. However, it was not a safe for Jews; never feeling at ease not knowing the uncertainties or dangers lying ahead. For instance, in Crystal Night, they did not know that it would be the last night for some of them to be with their families. In general, Jews were just living...
As Hitler was rising in power, his plan all along was to “make Germany better,” as he thought he was doing. In his eyes, making Germany better was everyone being equal. He wasn’t going to hesitate to take the first chance he could to jump on the Jews. He would act on any little reason he could. A German official was assassinated in Paris and Germans were angry because it was in the hands of a Jewish teenager. It gave the Germans a chance to attack at the Jews (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). There were a lot of unnecessary laws passed that were meant to take away the Jewish peoples happiness. For example, they had a curfew of 9:00 pm and 5:00 am in the summer, and 8:00 pm and 6:00 am in the winter. Kristallnacht, or otherwise named, The Night of the Broken, was like a turning point for the Jewish people that started off the Holocaust (American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise). Hitler made a lot of laws like the one stated above and continued to do so to try and get a reaction out of them.
Starting with creating a Law to strip Jewish immigrants from Poland of their German citizenship. Then moving on to pass a law allowing for forced sterilization of those found by a Hereditary Health Court to have genetic defects. They also prohibit Jews from owning land, also from being newspaper editors. Jewish people are also banned from the German labor front and stripped of national health insurance. The Jews where also prohibited from receiving legal qualifications. The Nazis ban Jewish people from serving in the military. Hitler was trying to form his version of a perfect race by not only stripping Jews of their rights but also Gypsies, the mentally ill, homosexuals, and Jehovah’s witnesses. The name for the plan of the mass extermination was called “the final solution”. The Jews where sentenced to death there was really no escape for them. Some people where very lucky, some people of Jewish ancestry were sometimes able to escape being sent to the Nazi death camps if their grandparents had converted to Christianity before the date of January 18, of 1871. This date marked the start of Germanys unification and the start of the German empire. After the beginning of World War II, N...
He declared the Ghetto as an area of the city in which the Jewish population was required to relocate to. There were high walls that surrounded it which segregated any activity between the Jews and the rest of the people who lived in Warsaw. Thus, approximately 350,000 individuals were designated to reside in one area which only took up approximately one square mile of the entire city. Quality of life was poor, morale was low, and people who were living there were left with minimal choices to make on their own; their independence had been completely stripped away from them. Nazi officials systematically manipulated the ghetto by increasing population numbers, decreasing food supply, and deflating the labor market, making almost 60% of the Jewish population unemployed. These events caused exhaustion, panic, fear, and, anger of the Jews who were forced to live in such poor conditions. Two years after the Ghetto was up and running, in the summer of 1942, the Jewish Fighting Organization, or Z.O.B., formed to devise a plan to rebel against the Nazi party, an unheard of movement of any Jew during the
...throughout Europe as they did in Auschwitz and Majdanek. These horror stories are only a few out of the hundreds of camps that the Nazis built during World War Two. The Holocaust was a devastating event for the Jewish population as well as many other minorities in Europe. The Holocaust was the largest genocide that has ever occurred. Horrific things went on in Auschwitz and Majdenek that wiped out approximately 1,378,000 people combined. This death toll is extremely high compared to smaller camps. These camps were some of the largest concentration/death camps that existed during the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a tragic time where millions of people considered undesirable to the Nazis were detained, forced to work in the harshest of conditions, starved to death, or brutally murdered.“The Holocaust was the most evil crime ever committed.” –Stephen Ambrose
In September of 1939 German soldiers defeated Poland in only two weeks. Jews were ordered to register all family members and to move to major cities. More than 10,000 Jews from the country arrived in Krakow daily. They were moved from their homes to the "Ghetto", a walled sixteen square block area, which they were only allowed to leave to go to work.