Ghettos are an urban section of a city serving as compulsory residential quarter for Jews. Ghettos were generally surrounded by a wall shutting if off from the rest of the city. The Germans created a station in which hard labor, malnutrition, overcrowding, and substandard contributed to the death of a large number of Jews. For every ghetto, the German authorities appointed a Judenrat, which was usually composed of Jewish leaders acceptable to the community. Ghetto life was one of the squalor, hungry, diseases, and despair (Ghetto: History & Overview).
Life in the ghettos overcrowding was common. One apartment might have had several families living in them. Diseases spread quickly in the ghettos. People were always hungry (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum).Small children in the Warsaw ghetto sometimes helped smuggle in food to their families and friends by crawling through narrow openings in the ghetto walls. Smuggling began at the very moment that the Jews area of residents was established. (The Warsaw Ghetto: Smuggling Food into the Ghetto). The Germans authorities did everything to seal off the ghetto hermetically and not allow in a single gram of food. A wall was …show more content…
The vast majority of ghetto inhabitants died from disease or starvation, was shot, or was deported to killing centers. The term “ghetto” originated from the name of the Jewish quarter in Venice, Italy. There were three types of ghettos: closed ghettos, open ghettos, and destruction ghettos (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). Closed Ghettos: closed off by walls, or fences with barbed wire. Most ghettos were closed. Open Ghettos: had no walls or fences, but were restrictions on entering and leaving. Destruction Ghettos: were tightly sealed off and existed for between two and six weeks for the Germans and/ or their collaborators deported or shot the Jewish population concentrated in them ( United States Holocaust Memorial