Nazi Ghettos

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During WWII, the formation of ghettos marked a central step in the Nazi 's systematic process of control, dehumanisation, and mass murder of the Jewish population. The ghettoisation of European Jewry was plainly an extension of the Nazis already established anti-Semitic regime that would ultimately lead to one of the worst cases of genocide in modern history - the murder of 6 million Jews. Ghettos were city districts (primarily enclosed) in which the Germans concentrated the municipal and sometimes regional Jewish population and forced them to live in extremely squalid conditions. Ghettos were designed to confine and segregate Jewish communities; separating them both from the non-Jewish population as well as from other Jewish people. The Germans …show more content…
The extremity of this was foreshadowed as early as 1920, when they published their 25 point party program in which Nazi party members publicly announced their intention to segregate Jews from “Aryan” society as well as to abolish Jews ' political, legal, and civil rights. The persecution of the Jews began systematically almost as soon as Hitler came to power, taking form in anti-Jewish boycotts, anti-Jewish legislation and escalating in ‘Kristallnacht’ A.K.A the night of the broken glass, a violent anti-Jewish pogrom in November, …show more content…
Located in Warsaw, the capital of Poland, it was the largest of all the ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe holding over 400,000 Jews. Although Poland’s pre-war Jewish community represented roughy 30% of the city’s total population, the area allocated to the Jews was only about 2.4% of that of Warsaw. On the 16th of November 1940 the Warsaw ghetto was sealed off from the outside world; enclosed by a wall that was over 10 feet high and topped with barbed wire. Furthermore, it’s perimeter was closely guarded to prevent any movement between the ghetto and the rest of Warsaw. This was a “closed ghetto”, one of the several distinct types of ghettos along with ‘open ghettos’ and ‘destruction ghettos’. Closed ghettos were the most prevalent type of ghetto and were situated primarily in German-occupied Poland. They were surrounded by brick walls, fences or barbed wire stretched between posts with entrances guarded by local and German police and SS members. Open ghettos were not enclosed by walls or fences, and existed primarily in the initial stages of World War II in German-occupied Poland and the occupied Soviet Union. Despite this perceived freedom there were still severe restrictions on entering and leaving these ghettos. Destruction ghettos existed in the final stages of the Holocaust

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