Ghettos During The Holocaust

Imagine if you will, a German official taking away everything that makes up your family, your culture, and your character. You are forced into work while others have already been sent to their deaths. Your family has been separated, your home, taken away and all that you hold on has already slipped away — all because of your beliefs. You have been forced into a cramped home with many others and without access to clean water and electricity, many are ill. You are forced into hard, demanding work with no pay and severe punishment. Not only is it almost impossible to imagine life during this time period, it is difficult to conceive the sheer pain and ramifications that millions of Jews endured and suffered during the Holocaust. The Holocaust …show more content…
Ghettos were very much effective during the time period of the Holocaust because of the harsh living conditions within them. With this in mind, ghettos spread disease and forced so many Jews into them that almost all ghettos suffered from mass overcrowding. The first ghetto was created in Poland in the year of 1939 and German officials put into place at least 1,000 ghettos in the German occupied Poland and Soviet Union territories. In these ghettos, starvation, persistent food and fuel insufficiency, and fierce winter weather lead to recurring surges of outbreaks as well as an overall high mortality percentage (Glazer). These inhumane conditions left Jews within ghettos easily susceptible to disease and illness. The efficiency of ghettos can be seen when disease in these ghettos became so widespread that hundreds upon thousands of innocent Jews perished. The website, The Holocaust Explained states, “…disease was rife though lack of clean water and sanitation. Hundreds of thousands of people died in the ghettos.” (“The development of ghettos”).The population within the ghettos was grossly oversaturated and often times, many families were put into a living space meant for a single family. The conditions that Jews had to survive were worse than a modern prison today. Imagine living with many other families without access proper sanitation or clean water; children and elderly becoming ill due to lack of proper …show more content…
Demanding labor within the ghettos was a contributing factor within the persecution of Jews within ghettos. Labor shortages after WWII led to the surge of the use of Jews as forced workers. Often times, the Jews had no other choice than to work as a slave — if they refused to work or were unable to do labor, they would be the first to be either shot or deported (“Forced Labor”). Jews in the ghettos were left with no other choice than to be subject to forced labor. Not only did labor in the ghettos persecute the Jews, it exploited them for cheap labor, “Forced labor was another Nazi strategy to exploit Jews. Huge German concerns as well as the local occupation authorities reaped large profits from barely paid or unpaid Jewish labor.” (“Forced Labor in Warsaw Ghetto”). These acts were committed with abominable cruelty towards the Jews. The occupants of these ghettos were not only forced into hard work, they unpaid for their labors and treated unfairly as well as exploited. The Jews within the ghettos were not only forced to work, they were taken advantage of and utilized to benefit the authorities. Those who were already in horrid conditions were forced, with no other option than to act as cheap labor force for the Germans. How would you react if you were to face death if you were unable to work? Would you be able to survive the demanding labor placed upon the Jews within the