A short introduction to the Nazi ghetto system

“ghettos were city districts (often enclosed) in which the Germans concentrated the Jewish population and forced them to live under miserable conditions”

Most ghettos were closed

From this photograph, what do you think is meant by a closed ghetto?

Jews Construct Warsaw Ghetto Wall(October 1940)

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/ghettowall.html

Why were the ghettos set up?

• As a provisional measure to control and segregate Jews.

• Nazi leadership indecision.

How were ghettos run on a day-to-day basis?

• Judenrat (Jewish Councils)

A meeting of the Warsaw Jewish council. Warsaw, Poland, between 1939 and 1942.

Liquidation of the ghettos

• In January 1942 an important conference in the suburb of Wannsee in Berlin took place.

• Participants gathered to “discuss and coordinate the implementation of what they called the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question."

• Many ghetto clearances began after this.

Deportation from the Krakow ghetto at the time of the ghetto's liquidation. Krakow, Poland, March 1943.

A scene of a ghetto clearance from the famous Holocaust film “Schindler’s List”

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1VL-y9JHuI