# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Origin of the Term "Ghetto"

The term "ghetto" originated from the name of the Jewish quarter in Venice, Italy. Venetian authorities compelled the city's Jews to live in the quarter, which was established in 1516. In the 16th and 17th centuries, officials ranging from local authorities to the Austrian emperor ordered the creation of ghettos for Jews in Frankfurt, Rome, Prague, and other cities.

Ghettos during World War II

During World War II, the SS and other German occupation authorities concentrated urban and sometimes regional Jewish populations in ghettos. Living conditions were miserable. Ghettos were often enclosed districts that isolated Jews by separating Jewish communities from the non-Jewish population and from other Jewish communities. The Germans established at least 1,143 ghettos in the occupied eastern territories. There were three types of ghettos:

closed ghettos

open ghettos

destruction ghettos

German occupation authorities established the first ghetto in occupied Poland in Piotrków Trybunalski in October 1939. The largest ghetto in occupied Poland was the Warsaw ghetto. In Warsaw, more than 400,000 Jews were crowded into an area of 1.3 square miles. Other major ghettos were established in the cities of Lodz, Krakow, Bialystok, Lvov, Lublin, Vilna, Kovno, Czestochowa, and Minsk. Tens of thousands of western European Jews were also deported to ghettos in the east.

The Germans ordered Jews in the ghettos to wear identifying badges or armbands. They also required many Jews to carry out forced labor for the German Reich. Nazi-appointed Jewish councils ( Judenraete) administered daily life in the ghettos. A ghetto police force enforced the orders of the German authorities and the ordinances of the Jewish councils. This included facilitating deportations to killing centers. Jewish police officials, like Jewish council members, served at the whim of the German authorities. The Germans did not hesitate to kill those Jewish policemen who were perceived to have failed to carry out orders.

Ghettos and the "Final Solution"

In many places, ghettoization lasted a short time. Some ghettos existed for only a few days. Others lasted for months or years. The Germans saw the ghettos as a provisional measure to control and segregate Jews while the Nazi leadership in Berlin deliberated upon options for the removal of the Jewish population.

With the implementation of the " Final Solution" (the plan to murder all European Jews) beginning in late 1941, the Germans systematically destroyed the ghettos. The Germans and their auxiliaries either shot ghetto residents in mass graves located nearby or deported them. Jews were deported to killing centers. German SS and police authorities also deported a small minority of Jews from ghettos to forced-labor camps and concentration camps.

In August 1944, German SS and police completed the destruction of the last major ghetto, in Lodz.

Resistance in the Ghettos

Jews responded with a variety of resistance efforts. Ghetto residents frequently smuggled food, medicine, weapons, or intelligence across the ghetto walls. These and other such activities often took place without the knowledge or approval of the Jewish councils. On the other hand, some Jewish councils and some individual council members tolerated or encouraged the smuggling because the goods were necessary to keep ghetto residents alive.

The Germans generally showed little concern in principle about religious worship, attendance at cultural events, or participation in youth movements inside the ghetto walls. However, they often saw a "security threat" in any social gathering and would move ruthlessly to incarcerate or kill perceived ringleaders and participants. The Germans generally forbade any form of consistent schooling or education.

In the very beginning, my mother and several other women organized a clandestine school for children who were below the age of work, and it was a wonderful thing because we had something to look forward to
- Charlene Schiff

In some ghettos, members of Jewish resistance movements staged armed uprisings. The largest of these was the Warsaw ghetto uprising in spring 1943. There were also violent revolts in Vilna, Bialystok, Czestochowa, and several smaller ghettos.

Ghettos in Hungary

In Hungary, ghettoization did not begin until the spring of 1944 after the German invasion and occupation. In less than three months, the Hungarian gendarmerie, coordinating with German deportation experts from the Reich Main Office for Security, concentrated nearly 440,000 Jews from all over Hungary except for the capital city, Budapest. They forced the Jews into short-term "destruction ghettos" and then deported them into German custody at the Hungarian border. The Germans deported most of the Hungarian Jews to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center.

In Budapest, Hungarian authorities required Jews to confine themselves to marked houses (so-called Star of David houses). On October 15, 1944, leaders of the fascist Arrow Cross movement seized power in a German-sponsored coup. A few weeks later, the Arrow Cross government formally established a ghetto in Budapest. About 63,000 Jews lived in this 0.1 square mile area. Approximately 25,000 Jews who carried certificates indicating they were under the protection of a neutral power were confined in an "international ghetto" in the city. In January 1945, Soviet forces liberated that part of Budapest in which the two ghettos were located and liberated the nearly 90,000 Jewish residents.

Last Edited: Dec 4, 2019

Author(s): United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Ghettos separating Jews from the rest of the population were part of the Nazi plan to destroy Europe's Jews. Read about ghettoization during the Holocaust.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
' Notice : Undefined variable: video in /home/tubeqtng/viewpure.com/inc/layout/include.lay.php on line 14 Notice : Trying to get property of non-object in /home/tubeqtng/viewpure.com/inc/layout/include.lay.php on line 14 ' on ViewPure

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Notice : Undefined variable: video in /home/tubeqtng/viewpure.com/inc/layout/include.lay.php on line 16 Notice : Trying to get property of non-object in /home/tubeqtng/viewpure.com/inc/layout/include.lay.php on line 16

# data[].attributes.body
"The deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation"

# data[].attributes.body
Holocaust

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Holocaust was a period in history at the time of World War Two (1939-1945), when millions of Jews were murdered because of who they were.

The killings were organised by Germany's Nazi party, led by Adolf Hitler.

Jews were the main target of the Nazis, and the greatest number of victims were Jewish. Nearly seven out of every 10 Jews in Europe were murdered because of their identity.

The Nazis also killed other groups of people, including Roma ('gypsies') and disabled people. They also arrested and took away the rights of other groups, like gay people and political opponents. Many of them died as a result of their treatment.

The Holocaust was an example of genocide. Genocide is deliberately killing a large group of people, usually because they are a certain nationality, race or religion.

Who were the Nazis?

Nazis is the shortened name for the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP).

The Nazi party was a political party in Germany established in 1919 in the aftermath of World War One.

It grew in popularity throughout the 1920s, as the country struggled with the fall-out of World War One. Germany lost the war and was forced to pay a lot of money to the winners.

Many people were poor and there weren't enough jobs to go round, and one reason many Germans turned to the Nazis was the hope that they would bring about change.

Nazis were racist and believed that what they called their Aryan race was more important than others. The Nazis said an Aryan was somebody Germanic. The Nazis believed that Jews, Roma ('gypsies'), black people and other ethnic groups were inferior to Aryans.

Nazis were ruthlessly anti-Semitic and this affected all of their policies and actions.

They also believed that Germany was a better country than others and that their people's superiority meant they could and should dominate other people. This led Germany to invade and take over other countries before and during World War Two.

In 1921, a man called Adolf Hitler became leader of the party.

Then, in January 1933, the Nazis were invited to form a government after they were voted as the largest party in an election.

From the moment his party came to power, Adolf Hitler set out to impose Nazi values on all aspects of German life, taking control using fear and terror.

When the German President Hindenburg died in 1934, Hitler declared himself to be the Fuhrer or 'supreme leader of Germany'. (Nowadays, the word Fuhrer has a negative meaning of a ruthless leader who imposes brutal rule over people.)

The three most important things to Hitler and the Nazis were:

The purity of the Aryan race

The greatness of Germany

Idolising the Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler

The party used lots of propaganda to persuade people to support them. They held big gatherings called rallies, and loudspeakers in public places shouted out Nazi messages.

What was the Holocaust?

The Holocaust was a process that started with discrimination against Jewish people, and ended with millions of people being killed because of who they were. It was a process that became increasingly brutal over time.

From the moment they came to power in 1933, the Nazis persecuted people who they didn't think were worthy members of society - most notably Jewish people.

They introduced laws that discriminated against them and took away their rights. Jewish people were not allowed in certain places and were banned from getting certain jobs.

They also began to set up concentration camps where they could send people they believed to be "enemies of the state" to be imprisoned and forced to work. This included Jewish people and anybody who did not support them.

The first camp called Dachau was opened in March 1933 just outside of Munich.

Between 1933 and 1945, the Nazis created more than 40,000 camps in areas they controlled.

Some were work camps, some were transit camps to process prisoners, and others - the first of which would open in 1941 - would be extermination camps, where the Nazis could kill people in great numbers.

Many people were murdered by camp guards for no reason and many more died as a result of the terrible conditions in them.

The Nazis also set out to take control of everybody's lives.

In 1934, a law called the Malicious Gossip Law was introduced, which made it a crime to tell an anti-Nazi joke.

Jazz music was banned, textbooks were rewritten to contain Nazi ideas, pictures of Hitler were put up everywhere, and books were destroyed that were not written in ways that the Nazis liked.

In 1935, 1,600 newspapers were closed down and the ones left were only allowed to print articles approved of by the Nazis.

They set up compulsory groups for young people called Hitler Youth (for boys) and BDM (for girls), so they would become young Nazis who idolised Hitler as they grew up. Boys were taught Nazi values and prepared for war; girls were taught skills like cookery and sewing.

Kristallnacht and the murder of millions

An important date was 9 November 1938, when there was a night of terrible violence against Jewish people.

It became known as Kristallnacht - the 'night of broken glass' - due to all of the smashed glass that covered the streets from shops that were raided.

Ninety-one Jews were murdered, 30,000 were arrested and sent to concentration camps, and 267 synagogues were destroyed.

On 1 September 1939, Germany invaded in Poland which marked the start of World War Two.

Jewish people in Poland were forced to live in selected areas called ghettos where they were treated very poorly and many were murdered.

Conditions in the ghettos were very bad, and many lost their lives as a result of disease and starvation.

By the early 1940s, the Nazis were looking for a way they could kill a great number people in a short amount of time in order to get rid of Europe's Jewish population.

They came up with the idea of extermination camps in which they could kill lots of people. This is what they would call 'the final solution'.

By the end of 1941, the first extermination camp called Chelmno in Poland had been set up.

There were six extermination camps in total in areas of Poland controlled by the Nazis: Auschwitz-Birkenau (the largest), Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka.

Camps were also established outside of Poland (in Belarus, Serbia, Ukraine and Croatia) by Nazis and their allies, where many hundreds of thousands more died.

Between 1941 and 1945, people were murdered on a scale that the world had never seen before.

Millions were rounded up and put on trains to the camps, where they would be forced to work or killed.

Who was killed or persecuted in the Holocaust?

We know that the victims included:

How did the Holocaust end?

As soldiers fighting against Germany in World War Two - Britain, the US, the Soviet Union and their allies - made their way across areas of Europe controlled by the Nazis, they began to discover the camps.

As it became clear that the Nazis were going to be defeated, the Nazis tried to hide the evidence of their crimes by destroying the camps.

They forced surviving prisoners in Poland to walk back to camps in Germany. Many prisoners lost their lives on these gruelling walks.

The Nazis were not able to hide what they had done, though, and it wasn't long before the world learned of the extent of the Holocaust.

Majdanek was the first camp to be freed in the summer of 1944.

People who went in to liberate the camps have spoken of the horrific scenes that they encountered.

Many of those who were freed from the camps died even after the liberations as they were so ill from how they'd been treated.

Life would be extremely difficult even after the end of the war.

Many survivors found strangers living in their homes or were unable to find somewhere they could live.

Countries did not want to welcome such a great number of refugees.

Were Nazis punished for the Holocaust?

On 11 December 1946, the General Assembly of the United Nations ruled that genocide would be a crime under international law.

Adolf Hitler killed himself before the end of the war so it was not possible to bring him to justice.

In the years since World War Two, Nazi figures have been prosecuted for their crimes.

Even as recently as in July 2015, a German court convicted 94-year-old Oskar Groening, who was a guard at Auschwitz, for his crimes.

But it has not been impossible to bring everyone to justice.

Many Nazis went into hiding after the war and were never found, or have since died before their crimes could be found out.

How do we remember the Holocaust?

Now, the enormity of the Holocaust is recognised across the world and it serves as an example of the horrors of genocide and how certain behaviours can lead to it happening.

But, sadly, the Holocaust is not the only genocide that has happened in history. In Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur millions of people have been killed because of who they are.

Every year on 27 January, people in the UK mark Holocaust Memorial Day.

It is held on this date because this is when the largest Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, was liberated by soldiers of the Soviet Army in 1945.

Holocaust Memorial Day is not only to remember the millions of victims of the Holocaust, but also those who have been killed in other genocides around the world.

It highlights how important it is to be tolerant of other people's beliefs and differences, and not to exclude people or spread message of hate.

It also helps us to never forget the events of the Holocaust so that we can try to stop anything like it from happening again.

The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust explains how it is a day to "work together to create a safer, better future".
With thanks to the Holocaust Educational Trust

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What was the Holocaust? - CBBC Newsround

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Holocaust was a period in history at the time of World War Two (1939-1945), when millions of Jews were murdered because of who they were. The killings were organised by Germany's Nazi party, led by Adolf Hitler. Jews were the main target of the Nazis, and the greatest number of victims were Jewish.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Life in the Ghettos Life in the ghettos was usually unbearable. Overcrowding was common. One apartment might have several families living in it. Plumbing broke down, and human waste was thrown in the streets along with the garbage. Contagious diseases spread rapidly in such cramped, unsanitary housing. People were always hungry. Germans deliberately tried to starve residents by allowing them to purchase only a small amount of bread, potatoes, and fat. Some residents had some money or valuables they could trade for food smuggled into the ghetto; others were forced to beg or steal to survive. During the long winters, heating fuel was scarce, and many people lacked adequate clothing. People weakened by hunger and exposure to the cold became easy victims of disease; tens of thousands died in the ghettos from illness, starvation, or cold. Some individuals killed themselves to escape their hopeless lives.

Every day children became orphaned, and many had to take care of even younger children. Orphans often lived on the streets, begging for bits of bread from others who had little or nothing to share. Many froze to death in the winter.

In order to survive, children had to be resourceful and make themselves useful. Small children in the Warsaw ghetto sometimes helped smuggle food to their families and friends by crawling through narrow openings in the ghetto wall. They did so at great risk, as smugglers who were caught were severely punished.

Many young people tried to continue their education by attending school classes organized by adults in many ghettos. Since such classes were usually held secretly, in defiance of the Nazis, pupils learned to hide books under their clothes when necessary, to avoid being caught.

Although suffering and death were all around them, children did not stop playing with toys. Some had beloved dolls or trucks they brought into the ghetto with them. Children also made toys, using whatever bits of cloth and wood they could find. In the Lodz ghetto, children turned the tops of empty cigarette boxes into playing cards.

Key Dates

February 8, 1940
Lodz Jews ordered into ghetto
The Germans order the establishment of a ghetto in the northeastern section of Lodz. Over 160,000 Jews, more than a third of the entire population of Lodz, are forced into a small area of the city. The Jews of Lodz formed, after Warsaw, the second largest Jewish community in prewar Poland. The Lodz ghetto is separated from the rest of the city by barbed-wire fencing. The ghetto area is divided into three parts by the intersection of two major roads, which are excluded from the ghetto. Footbridges are constructed to connect the three segments of the ghetto. Streetcars for the non-Jewish population of Lodz traverse the ghetto but are not permitted to stop within it. Living conditions in the ghetto are horrible. Most of the area does not have running water or a sewer system. Hard labor, overcrowding, and starvation are the dominant features of life.

January 16, 1942
Lodz Jews deported to Chelmno killing center
Deportations from the Lodz ghetto to the Chelmno killing center begin. German police will carry out roundups in the ghetto. Hundreds of Jews, mainly children, the elderly, and the sick, are killed on the spot during the deportations. By the end of September 1942, approximately 70,000 Jews and about 4,300 Roma (Gypsies) will have been deported to Chelmno, where they are killed in mobile gas vans (trucks with hermetically sealed compartments that serve as gas chambers).

June 23, 1944
Germans resume deportations from Lodz ghetto
Between September 1942 and May 1944, there are no major deportations from Lodz. The ghetto resembles a forced-labor camp. In the spring of 1944, the Nazis decide to destroy the Lodz ghetto. By then, Lodz is the last remaining ghetto in Poland, with a population of about 75,000 Jews. On June 23, 1944, the Germans resume deportations from Lodz. About 7,000 Jews are deported to Chelmno and killed. The deportations continue in July and August; most of the remaining ghetto population is deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. The Lodz ghetto is eliminated.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Life in the Ghettos Life in the ghettos was usually unbearable. Overcrowding was common. One apartment might have several families living in it. Plumbing broke down, and human waste was thrown in the streets along with the garbage. Contagious diseases spread rapidly in such cramped, unsanitary housing. People were always hungry.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On April 19, 1943, the Warsaw ghetto uprising began after German troops and police entered the ghetto to deport its surviving inhabitants. Seven hundred and fifty fighters fought the heavily armed and well-trained Germans. The ghetto fighters were able to hold out for nearly a month, but on May 16, 1943, the revolt ended.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Ghettos in Poland Millions of Jews lived in eastern Europe. After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, more than two million Polish Jews came under German control. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, several million more Jews came under Nazi rule. The Germans aimed to control this sizable Jewish population by forcing Jews to reside in marked-off sections of towns and cities the Nazis called "ghettos" or "Jewish residential quarters." Altogether, the Germans created at least 1,000 ghettos in occupied territories. The largest ghetto was in Warsaw, the Polish capital, where almost half a million Jews were confined.

Many ghettos were set up in cities and towns where Jews were already concentrated. Jews as well as some Roma (Gypsies) were also brought to ghettos from surrounding regions and from western Europe. Between October and December 1941, thousands of German and Austrian Jews were transported to ghettos in eastern Europe. The Germans usually marked off the oldest, most run-down sections of cities for the ghettos. They sometimes had to evict non-Jewish residents from the buildings to make room for Jewish families. Many of the ghettos were enclosed by barbed-wire fences or walls, with entrances guarded by local and German police and SS members. During curfew hours at night the residents were forced to stay inside their apartments.

In the Polish cities of Lodz and Warsaw, trolley lines ran through the middle of the ghetto. Rather than reroute the lines, workers fenced them off, and policemen guarded the area to keep the Jews from escaping on the trolley cars. The passengers from outside the ghetto used the cars to get to work on weekdays, and some rode them on Sunday outings just to gawk and sneer at the ghetto prisoners.

Key Dates

October 12, 1940
Warsaw Jews ordered into a ghetto
The Germans announce the establishment of a ghetto in Warsaw. All Jewish residents of Warsaw are ordered into the designated area, which will be sealed off from the rest of the city in November 1940. Construction of a wall, more than 10 feet high and topped with barbed wire, begins. The Germans guard the ghetto boundary closely to prevent movement between the ghetto and the rest of Warsaw. The Warsaw ghetto is the largest of the ghettos in both area and population. More than 350,000 Jews-about 30 percent of the city's population-are confined in about 2.4 percent of the city's total area.

July 22, 1942
Warsaw Jews deported to Treblinka killing center
Between July 22 and mid-September 1942, over 300,000 people are deported from the Warsaw ghetto: more than 250,000 of them are deported to the Treblinka killing center. Deportees are forced to the Umschlagplatz (deportation point), which is connected to the Warsaw-Malkinia rail line. They are crowded into freight cars and most are deported, via Malkinia, to Treblinka. The overwhelming majority of the deportees are killed upon arrival in Treblinka. In September, at the end of the 1942 mass deportation, only about 55,000 Jews remain in the ghetto.

April 19, 1943
Jewish fighters resist Germans in the Warsaw ghetto
The Germans decide to eliminate the Warsaw ghetto and announce new deportations in April 1943. The renewal of deportations is the signal for an armed uprising within the ghetto. Most people in the ghetto refuse to report for deportation. Many hide from the Germans in previously prepared bunkers and shelters. Jewish fighters battle the Germans in the streets and from the hidden bunkers. The Germans set fire to the ghetto to force the population into the open, reducing the ghetto area to rubble. On May 16, 1943, the battle is over. Thousands have been killed and most of the ghetto population is deported to forced-labor camps. The Warsaw ghetto uprising was the largest and most important Jewish uprising, and the first urban uprising in German-occupied Europe.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Ghettos in Poland Millions of Jews lived in eastern Europe. After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, more than two million Polish Jews came under German control. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, several million more Jews came under Nazi rule.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
World War II History: The Holocaust for Kids

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kids learn about the history of the Holocaust during World War II. Jewish people were killed by the German Nazi Party.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
World War II History: WW2 in Europe for Kids

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kids learn about the history of World War II in Europe. Germany attacks and conquers much of Europe, but Britain and USA fight back.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Hitler Comes to Power In the early 1930s, the mood in Germany was grim. The worldwide economic depression had hit the country especially hard, and millions of people were out of work. Still fresh in the minds of many was Germany's humiliating defeat fifteen years earlier during World War I, and Germans lacked confidence in their weak government, known as the Weimar Republic. These conditions provided the chance for the rise of a new leader, Adolf Hitler, and his party, the National Socialist German Workers' Party, or Nazi party for short.

Hitler was a powerful and spellbinding speaker who attracted a wide following of Germans desperate for change. He promised the disenchanted a better life and a new and glorious Germany. The Nazis appealed especially to the unemployed, young people, and members of the lower middle class (small store owners, office employees, craftsmen, and farmers).

The party's rise to power was rapid. Before the economic depression struck, the Nazis were practically unknown, winning only 3 percent of the vote to the Reichstag (German parliament) in elections in 1924. In the 1932 elections, the Nazis won 33 percent of the votes, more than any other party. In January 1933 Hitler was appointed chancellor, the head of the German government, and many Germans believed that they had found a savior for their nation.

Key Dates

June 28, 1919
Treaty of Versailles ends World War I
In the Treaty of Versailles, which followed German defeat in World War I, the victorious powers (the United States, Great Britain, France, and other allied states) impose severe terms on Germany. Germany, under threat of invasion, is forced to sign the treaty. Among other provisions, Germany accepts responsibility for the war and agrees to make huge payments (known as reparations), limit its military to 100,000 troops, and transfer territory to its neighbors. The terms of the treaty lead to widespread political discontent in Germany. Adolf Hitler gains support by promising to overturn them.

October 24, 1929
Stock market crash in New York
The plummet in the value of stocks that is associated with the New York stock market crash brings a rash of business bankruptcies. Widespread unemployment occurs in the United States. The "Great Depression," as it is called, sparks a worldwide economic crisis. In Germany, six million are unemployed by June 1932. Economic distress contributes to a meteoric rise in the support for the Nazi party. As a result, the Nazi party wins the votes of almost 40 percent of the electorate in the Reichstag (German parliament) elections of July 1932. The Nazi party becomes at this point the largest party in the German parliament.

November 6, 1932
Nazis lose support in parliamentary elections
In the Reichstag (German parliament) elections of November 1932, the Nazis lose almost two million votes from the previous elections of July. They win only 33 percent of the vote. It seems clear that the Nazis will not gain a majority in democratic elections, and Adolf Hitler agrees to a coalition with conservatives. After months of negotiations, the president of Germany, Paul von Hindenburg, will appoint Hitler chancellor of Germany in a government seemingly dominated by conservatives on January 30, 1933.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Hitler Comes to Power In the early 1930s, the mood in Germany was grim. The worldwide economic depression had hit the country especially hard, and millions of people were out of work. Still fresh in the minds of many was Germany's humiliating defeat fifteen years earlier during World War I, and Germans lacked confidence in their weak government, known as the Weimar Republic.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Once they succeeded in ending democracy and turning Germany into a one-party dictatorship, the Nazis orchestrated a massive propaganda campaign to win the loyalty and cooperation of Germans. The Nazi Propaganda Ministry, directed by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, took control of all forms of communication in Germany: newspapers, magazines, books, public meetings, and rallies, art, music, movies, and radio.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Nazi Racism For years before Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany, he was obsessed with ideas about race. In his speeches and writings, Hitler spread his beliefs in racial "purity" and in the superiority of the "Germanic race"-what he called an Aryan "master race." He pronounced that his race must remain pure in order to one day take over the world. For Hitler, the ideal "Aryan" was blond, blue-eyed, and tall.

When Hitler and the Nazis came to power, these beliefs became the government ideology and were spread in publicly displayed posters, on the radio, in movies, in classrooms, and in newspapers. The Nazis began to put their ideology into practice with the support of German scientists who believed that the human race could be improved by limiting the reproduction of people considered "inferior." Beginning in 1933, German physicians were allowed to perform forced sterilizations, operations making it impossible for the victims to have children. Among the targets of this public program were Roma (Gypsies), an ethnic minority numbering about 30,000 in Germany, and handicapped individuals, including the mentally ill and people born deaf and blind. Also victimized were about 500 African-German children, the offspring of German mothers and African colonial soldiers in the Allied armies that occupied the German Rhineland region after World War I.

Hitler and other Nazi leaders viewed the Jews not as a religious group, but as a poisonous "race," which "lived off" the other races and weakened them. After Hitler took power, Nazi teachers in school classrooms began to apply the "principles" of racial science. They measured skull size and nose length, and recorded the color of their pupils' hair and eyes to determine whether students belonged to the true "Aryan race." Jewish and Romani (Gypsy) students were often humiliated in the process.

Key Dates

February 24, 1920
Nazis outline political agenda
The first public meeting of the Nazi party, then called the German Workers' Party, takes place in Munich, Germany. Adolf Hitler issues a "25 Point Program" outlining the party's political agenda. The party platform embodies racism. It demands racial purity in Germany; proclaims Germany's destiny to rule over inferior races; and identifies Jews as racial enemies. Point 4 concludes that "No Jew, therefore, may be a member of the Nation."

July 18, 1925
The first volume of Mein Kampf appears
Adolf Hitler wrote Mein Kampf while in prison for treason following his failed attempt to seize power in 1923. In Mein Kampf, he outlined his racial ideas. Hitler saw history as the struggle between races for living space. He envisioned a war of conquest in the east, with the Slavic peoples enslaved to German interests. He believed the Jews to be an exceptional evil, working within the nation to subvert "racial purity." He urged the "removal" of Jews from Germany.

July 14, 1933
Nazi state enacts racial purity law
Believing that "racial purity" requires state regulation of human reproduction, Adolf Hitler issues the Law to Prevent Hereditarily Diseased Offspring. Among other provisions, the measure prohibits "undesirables" from having children and mandates forced sterilization of certain physically or mentally impaired individuals. The law will affect some 400,000 people over the next 18 months.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Nazi Racism For years before Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany, he was obsessed with ideas about race. In his speeches and writings, Hitler spread his beliefs in racial "purity" and in the superiority of the "Germanic race"-what he called an Aryan "master race."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Murder of People with Disabilities Many Germans did not want to be reminded of individuals who did not measure up to their concept of a "master race." The physically and mentally handicapped were viewed as "useless" to society, a threat to Aryan genetic purity, and, ultimately, unworthy of life. At the beginning of World War II, individuals with mental or physical disabilities were targeted for murder in what the Nazis called the "T-4," or "euthanasia," program.

The Euthanasia Program required the cooperation of many German doctors, who reviewed the medical files of patients in institutions to determine which handicapped or mentally ill individuals should be killed. The doctors also supervised the actual killings. Doomed patients were transferred to six institutions in Germany and Austria, where they were killed in specially constructed gas chambers. Handicapped infants and small children were also killed by injection with a deadly dose of drugs or by starvation. The bodies of the victims were burned in large ovens called crematoria.

Despite public protests in 1941, the Nazi leadership continued this program in secret throughout the war. About 200,000 handicapped people were murdered between 1940 and 1945.

The T-4 program became the model for the mass murder of Jews, Roma (Gypsies), and others in camps equipped with gas chambers that the Nazis would open in 1941 and 1942. The program also served as a training ground for SS members who manned these camps.

Key Dates

October 1939
Hitler authorizes killing of the impaired
Adolf Hitler authorizes the beginning of the Euthanasia Program-the systematic killing of those Germans whom the Nazis deem "unworthy of life." The order is backdated to the beginning of the war (September 1, 1939). At first, doctors and staff in hospitals are encouraged to neglect patients. Thus, patients die of starvation and diseases. Later, groups of "consultants" visit hospitals and decide who will die. Those patients are sent to various "euthanasia" killing centers in Greater Germany and killed by lethal injection or in gas chambers.

August 3, 1941
Catholic bishop denounces Euthanasia Program
By 1941, the supposedly secret Euthanasia Program is generally known about in Germany. Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen of Muenster denounces the killings in a public sermon on August 3, 1941. Other public figures and clergy will also raise objections to the killings.

August 24, 1941
Hitler officially orders end to "euthanasia" killings
Mounting public criticism of the "euthanasia" killings prompts Adolf Hitler to order the end of the program. Gas chambers in the various "euthanasia" killing centers are dismantled. By this time, about 70,000 German and Austrian physically or mentally impaired patients have been killed. Although the Euthanasia Program is officially ended, the killing of physically or mentally impaired people continues in secret in individual cases.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Murder of People with Disabilities Many Germans did not want to be reminded of individuals who did not measure up to their concept of a "master race." The physically and mentally handicapped were viewed as "useless" to society, a threat to Aryan genetic purity, and, ultimately, unworthy of life.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As a result of the wartime German policies, resistance movements sprang up throughout Europe. Members of armed, irregular forces fighting the Germans in occupied areas of Europe were called partisans. They harassed the German civilian and military authorities across Europe, engaging in sabotage, demolition, and other diversionary attacks.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Jewish Life in Europe Before the Holocaust

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, Jews were living in every country of Europe. A total of roughly nine million Jews lived in the countries that would be occupied by Germany during World War II.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When the Nazis came to power, the lives of German Jews changed drastically. On April 1, 1933, the Nazis carried out the first nationwide, planned action against them: a boycott of Jewish businesses. Nazi spokesmen claimed the boycott was an act of revenge against both German Jews and foreigners, including US and English journalists, who had criticized the Nazi regime.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Nuremberg Race Laws At the annual party rally held in Nuremberg in 1935, the Nazis announced new laws which institutionalized many of the racial theories prevalent in Nazi ideology. The laws excluded German Jews from Reich citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of "German or related blood." Ancillary ordinances to the laws disenfranchised Jews and deprived them of most political rights.

The Nuremberg Laws, as they became known, did not define a "Jew" as someone with particular religious beliefs. Instead, anyone who had three or four Jewish grandparents was defined as a Jew, regardless of whether that individual identified himself or herself as a Jew or belonged to the Jewish religious community. Many Germans who had not practiced Judaism for years found themselves caught in the grip of Nazi terror. Even people with Jewish grandparents who had converted to Christianity were defined as Jews.

For a brief period after Nuremberg, in the weeks before and during the 1936 Olympic Games held in Berlin, the Nazi regime actually moderated its anti-Jewish attacks and even removed some of the signs saying "Jews Unwelcome" from public places. Hitler did not want international criticism of his government to result in the transfer of the Games to another country. Such a loss would have been a serious blow to German prestige.

After the Olympic Games (in which the Nazis did not allow German Jewish athletes to participate), the Nazis again stepped up the persecution of German Jews. In 1937 and 1938, the government set out to impoverish Jews by requiring them to register their property and then by "Aryanizing" Jewish businesses. This meant that Jewish workers and managers were dismissed, and the ownership of most Jewish businesses was taken over by non-Jewish Germans who bought them at bargain prices fixed by Nazis. Jewish doctors were forbidden to treat non-Jews, and Jewish lawyers were not permitted to practice law.

Like everyone in Germany, Jews were required to carry identity cards, but the government added special identifying marks to theirs: a red "J" stamped on them and new middle names for all those Jews who did not possess recognizably "Jewish" first names-"Israel" for males, "Sara" for females. Such cards allowed the police to identify Jews easily.

Key Dates

September 15, 1935
Nuremberg Laws are instituted
At their annual party rally, the Nazis announce new laws that revoke Reich citizenship for Jews and prohibit Jews from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of "German or related blood." "Racial infamy," as this becomes known, is made a criminal offense. The Nuremberg Laws define a "Jew" as someone with three or four Jewish grandparents. Consequently, the Nazis classify as Jews thousands of people who had converted from Judaism to another religion, among them even Roman Catholic priests and nuns and Protestant ministers whose grandparents were Jewish.

October 18, 1935
New marriage requirements instituted
The "Law for the Protection of the Hereditary Health of the German People" requires all prospective marriage partners to obtain from the public health authorities a certificate of fitness to marry. Such certificates are refused to those suffering from "hereditary illnesses" and contagious diseases and those attempting to marry in violation of the Nuremberg Laws.

November 14, 1935
Nuremberg Law extended to other groups
The first supplemental decree of the Nuremberg Laws extends the prohibition on marriage or sexual relations between people who could produce "racially suspect" offspring. A week later, the minister of the interior interprets this to mean relations between "those of German or related blood" and Roma (Gypsies), blacks, or their offspring.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Nuremberg Race Laws At the annual party rally held in Nuremberg in 1935, the Nazis announced new laws which institutionalized many of the racial theories prevalent in Nazi ideology. The laws excluded German Jews from Reich citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of "German or related blood."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The information from the 1939 census helped Nazi official Adolf Eichmann to create the Jewish Registry, containing detailed information on all Jews living in Germany. The Registry also recorded the names of Jews in Austria and the Sudetenland of western Czechoslovakia, which were occupied by German troops in 1938 and 1939 and made part of the Reich (German empire).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The "Night of Broken Glass" On the night of November 9-10, 1938, the Nazi regime coordinated a wave of antisemitic violence in Nazi Germany. This became known as Kristallnacht or the "Night of Broken Glass." It was named for the shattered glass from store windows that littered the streets after the violence.

The violence was supposed to look like an unplanned outburst of anger against Jews. In fact, Nazi leaders actively coordinated it with Adolf Hitler's support. On the night of November 9, they ordered members of the Nazi Party's paramilitaries (the SS, the SA, and the Hitler Youth) to attack Jewish communities.

In the hours and days that followed, organized groups of Nazis wreaked havoc on Jewish life in Nazi Germany. They burned hundreds of synagogues. They vandalized thousands of Jewish-owned businesses, shattering the glass in storefronts. They damaged Jewish cemeteries and homes. Nazi leaders told the police and fire brigades to ignore the attacks. Police forces did not protect Jews or their property. Fire brigades did not put out fires in synagogues. Hundreds of Jews died during Kristallnacht and its aftermath.

The next morning, the Nazi regime ordered the police to arrest about 30,000 German Jewish men. These men had not committed any crime. The police arrested them simply for being Jewish. They were sent to such concentration camps as Dachau and Buchenwald. The arrests shocked and terrified Jewish families and communities. The Nazi authorities released many of these men if families could prove they had plans to leave Germany. Other men died in these camps.

The Night of Broken Glass was an important turning point for Germany's Jews. Afterwards, many Jews concluded that there was no future for them in Nazi Germany.

Key Dates

November 7, 1938
The catalyst for Herschel Grynszpan shoots Ernst vom Rath. Grynszpan is a 17-year-old Polish-German Jew living in Paris. Vom Rath is a minor German diplomat posted to the German embassy in Paris. Grynszpan apparently acts out of despair over the fate of his parents, whom the Nazi regime had expelled from Germany to Poland. The Nazis use the shooting to incite antisemitic fervor. They claim that Grynszpan did not act alone, but was part of a wider Jewish conspiracy against Germany. When vom Rath dies on November 9, Nazi leaders use this theory as a pretext for Kristallnacht .

November 9, 1938
Joseph Goebbels instigates Nazi Party leaders from across Germany gather in Munich to commemorate the Beer Hall Putsch. The Beer Hall Putsch was a failed attempt by Adolf Hitler in 1923 to seize power in Germany. During the event, they learn vom Rath has died of his wounds. In response, German propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels delivers a passionate antisemitic speech. With Hitler's permission, Goebbels calls for an attack on Germany's Jewish communities. After the speech, Nazi officials call their home districts and communicate Goebbels' instructions. This results in the violence known today as Kristallnacht , or the "Night of Broken Glass."

November 15, 1938
Americans condemn American newspaper headlines condemn the violence of Kristallnacht . At a press conference on November 15, 1938, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt denounces the antisemitic attack. In an official statement, he writes, "I myself could scarcely believe that such things could occur in a twentieth-century civilization." The president recalls the US ambassador to Germany.

Last Edited: Jan 15, 2021

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The "Night of Broken Glass" On the night of November 9-10, 1938, the Nazi regime coordinated a wave of antisemitic violence in Nazi Germany. This became known as Kristallnacht or the "Night of Broken Glass." It was named for the shattered glass from store windows that littered the streets after the violence.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Ghettos in Poland Millions of Jews lived in eastern Europe. After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, more than two million Polish Jews came under German control. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, several million more Jews came under Nazi rule. The Germans aimed to control this sizable Jewish population by forcing Jews to reside in marked-off sections of towns and cities the Nazis called "ghettos" or "Jewish residential quarters." Altogether, the Germans created at least 1,000 ghettos in occupied territories. The largest ghetto was in Warsaw, the Polish capital, where almost half a million Jews were confined.

Many ghettos were set up in cities and towns where Jews were already concentrated. Jews as well as some Roma (Gypsies) were also brought to ghettos from surrounding regions and from western Europe. Between October and December 1941, thousands of German and Austrian Jews were transported to ghettos in eastern Europe. The Germans usually marked off the oldest, most run-down sections of cities for the ghettos. They sometimes had to evict non-Jewish residents from the buildings to make room for Jewish families. Many of the ghettos were enclosed by barbed-wire fences or walls, with entrances guarded by local and German police and SS members. During curfew hours at night the residents were forced to stay inside their apartments.

In the Polish cities of Lodz and Warsaw, trolley lines ran through the middle of the ghetto. Rather than reroute the lines, workers fenced them off, and policemen guarded the area to keep the Jews from escaping on the trolley cars. The passengers from outside the ghetto used the cars to get to work on weekdays, and some rode them on Sunday outings just to gawk and sneer at the ghetto prisoners.

Key Dates

October 12, 1940
Warsaw Jews ordered into a ghetto
The Germans announce the establishment of a ghetto in Warsaw. All Jewish residents of Warsaw are ordered into the designated area, which will be sealed off from the rest of the city in November 1940. Construction of a wall, more than 10 feet high and topped with barbed wire, begins. The Germans guard the ghetto boundary closely to prevent movement between the ghetto and the rest of Warsaw. The Warsaw ghetto is the largest of the ghettos in both area and population. More than 350,000 Jews-about 30 percent of the city's population-are confined in about 2.4 percent of the city's total area.

July 22, 1942
Warsaw Jews deported to Treblinka killing center
Between July 22 and mid-September 1942, over 300,000 people are deported from the Warsaw ghetto: more than 250,000 of them are deported to the Treblinka killing center. Deportees are forced to the Umschlagplatz (deportation point), which is connected to the Warsaw-Malkinia rail line. They are crowded into freight cars and most are deported, via Malkinia, to Treblinka. The overwhelming majority of the deportees are killed upon arrival in Treblinka. In September, at the end of the 1942 mass deportation, only about 55,000 Jews remain in the ghetto.

April 19, 1943
Jewish fighters resist Germans in the Warsaw ghetto
The Germans decide to eliminate the Warsaw ghetto and announce new deportations in April 1943. The renewal of deportations is the signal for an armed uprising within the ghetto. Most people in the ghetto refuse to report for deportation. Many hide from the Germans in previously prepared bunkers and shelters. Jewish fighters battle the Germans in the streets and from the hidden bunkers. The Germans set fire to the ghetto to force the population into the open, reducing the ghetto area to rubble. On May 16, 1943, the battle is over. Thousands have been killed and most of the ghetto population is deported to forced-labor camps. The Warsaw ghetto uprising was the largest and most important Jewish uprising, and the first urban uprising in German-occupied Europe.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Ghettos in Poland Millions of Jews lived in eastern Europe. After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, more than two million Polish Jews came under German control. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, several million more Jews came under Nazi rule.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Wannsee Conference and the "Final Solution"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Wannsee Conference, as it became known to history, did not mark the beginning of the "Final Solution." The mobile killing squads were already slaughtering Jews in the occupied Soviet Union. Rather, the Wannsee Conference was the place where the "final solution" was formally revealed to non-Nazi leaders who would help arrange for Jews to be transported from all over German-occupied Europe to SS-operated "extermination" camps in Poland.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
After deportation trains arrived at the killing centers, guards ordered the deportees to get out and form a line. The victims then went through a selection process. Men were separated from women and children. A Nazi, usually an SS physician, looked quickly at each person to decide if he or she was healthy and strong enough for forced labor. This SS officer then pointed to the left or the right; victims did not know that individuals were being selected to live or die. Babies and young children, pregnant women, the elderly, the handicapped, and the sick had little chance of surviving this first selection.
At the Killing Centers
Those who had been selected to die were led to gas chambers. In order to prevent panic, camp guards told the victims that they were going to take showers to rid themselves of lice. The guards instructed them to turn over all their valuables and to undress. Then they were driven naked into the "showers." A guard closed and locked the steel door. In some killing centers, carbon monoxide was piped into the chamber. In others, camp guards threw "Zyklon B" pellets down an air shaft. Zyklon B was a highly poisonous insecticide also used to kill rats and insects.

Usually within minutes after entering the gas chambers, everyone inside was dead from lack of oxygen. Under guard, prisoners were forced to haul the corpses to a nearby room, where they removed hair, gold teeth, and fillings. The bodies were burned in ovens in the crematoria or buried in mass graves.

Many people profited from the pillage of corpses. Camp guards stole some of the gold. The rest was melted down and deposited in an SS bank account. Private business firms bought and used the hair to make many products, including ship rope and mattresses.

Key Dates

October 1939
Germans begin killing of the impaired
The systematic killing begins of those Germans whom the Nazis deem "unworthy of life." Groups of "consultants" visit hospitals and nursing homes and decide who is to die. Selected patients are sent to one of six gassing installations established as part of the "Euthanasia" Program: Bernburg, Brandenburg, Grafeneck, Hadamar, Hartheim, and Sonnenstein. These patients are killed in gas chambers using carbon monoxide gas. The experts who participated in the "Euthanasia" Program are later instrumental in establishing and operating the extermination camps.

December 8, 1941
First killing center begins operation
The Chelmno killing center begins operation. The Nazis later establish five other such camps: Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Auschwitz-Birkenau (part of the Auschwitz complex), and Majdanek. Victims at Chelmno are killed in gas vans (hermetically sealed trucks with engine exhaust diverted to the interior compartment). The Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka camps use carbon monoxide gas generated by stationary engines attached to gas chambers. Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of the killing centers, has four large gas chambers using Zyklon B (crystalline hydrogen cyanide) as the killing agent. The gas chambers at Majdanek use both carbon monoxide and Zyklon B. Millions of Jews are killed in the gas chambers in the killing centers as part of the "Final Solution."

JUNE 22, 1944
First gassing at Ravensbrück concentration camp
The first documented gassing at the women's camp at Ravensbrück occurs. The gas chambers at Ravensbrück and at other camps that were not designed specifically as killing centers-including Stutthof, Mauthausen, and Sachsenhausen-are relatively small. These gas chambers were constructed to kill those prisoners the Nazis deemed "unfit" for work. Most of these camps used Zyklon B in their gas chambers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
After deportation trains arrived at the killing centers, guards ordered the deportees to get out and form a line. The victims then went through a selection process. Men were separated from women and children. A Nazi, usually an SS physician, looked quickly at each person to decide if he or she was healthy and strong enough for forced labor.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
At the same time that ghettos were being emptied, masses of Jews and also Roma (Gypsies) were transported from the many distant countries occupied or controlled by Germany, including France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Hungary, Romania, Italy, North Africa, and Greece. The deportations required the help of many people and all branches of the German government.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Cruel "medical experiments" were conducted at Auschwitz. Men, women, and children were used as subjects. SS physician Dr. Josef Mengele carried out painful and traumatic experiments on dwarfs and twins, including young children. The aim of some experiments was to find better medical treatments for German soldiers and airmen.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Although Jews were the main target of Nazi hatred, they were not the only group persecuted. Other individuals and groups were considered "undesirable" and "enemies of the state." Once the voices of political opponents were silenced, the Nazis stepped up their terror against other "outsiders."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Nazis exploited the forced labor of "enemies of the state" for economic gain. Labor shortages in the German war economy became critical especially after German defeat in the battle of Stalingrad in 1942-1943. This led to the increased use of prisoners as forced laborers in German industries.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Prisoners were forced to march long distances in bitter cold, with little or no food, water, or rest. Those who could not keep up were shot. The largest death marches took place in the winter of 1944-1945, when the Soviet army began its liberation of Poland.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Prisoners of the Camps As the Jews were the main targets of Nazi genocide, the victims of the killing centers were overwhelmingly Jewish. In the hundreds of forced-labor and concentration camps not equipped with gassing facilities, however, other individuals from a broad range of backgrounds could also be found.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Blanka was an only child in a close-knit family in Lodz, Poland. Her father died in 1937. After the German invasion of Poland, Blanka and her mother remained in Lodz with Blanka's grandmother, who was unable to travel. Along with other relatives, they were forced into the Lodz ghetto in 1940.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
View West German Chancellor Willy Brandt's visit to Poland where he signed the Treaty of Warsaw and his historic visit to the Warsaw Ghetto memorial, 1970

Contunico © ZDF Enterprises GmbH, Mainz See all videos for this article

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, resistance by Polish Jews under Nazi occupation in 1943 to the deportations from Warsaw to the Treblinka extermination camp. The revolt began on April 19, 1943, and was crushed four weeks later, on May 16.

As part of Adolf Hitler's "final solution" for ridding Europe of Jews, the Nazis established ghettos in areas under German control to confine Jews until they could be executed. The Warsaw ghetto, enclosed at first with barbed wire but later with a brick wall 10 feet (3 metres) high and 11 miles (18 km) long, comprised the old Jewish quarter of Warsaw. The Nazis herded Jews from surrounding areas into this district until by the summer of 1942 nearly 500,000 of them lived within its 840 acres (340 hectares); many had no housing at all, and those who did were crowded in at about nine people per room. Starvation and disease (especially typhus) killed thousands each month.

Beginning July 22, 1942, transfers to the death camp at Treblinka began at a rate of more than 5,000 Jews per day. Between July and September 1942, the Nazis shipped about 265,000 Jews from Warsaw to Treblinka. Only some 55,000 remained in the ghetto. As the deportations continued, despair gave way to a determination to resist. A newly formed group, the Jewish Fighting Organization (Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa; ŻOB), slowly took effective control of the ghetto.

On January 9, 1943, Heinrich Himmler, the chief of the SS (the Nazi paramilitary corps), visited the Warsaw ghetto. He ordered the deportation of another 8,000 Jews. The January deportations caught the Jews by surprise, and ghetto residents thought that the end had come. Making use of the many hiding places that they had created since April, Jews did not report as ordered. The resistance sprang into action. Jewish fighters could strike quickly, then escape across the rooftops. German troops, on the other hand, moved cautiously and would not go down to cellars. When the German deportation effort ended within a few days, Jews interpreted this as a victory. From then on, the resistance dominated the ghetto. The resistance fortified hideouts and strengthened fighting units in preparation for the next battle. As one ŻOB leader recalled,

We saw ourselves as a Jewish underground whose fate was a tragic one, the first to fight. For our hour had come without any sign of hope or rescue.

Having withdrawn, the Germans suspended deportations until April 19, when Himmler launched a special operation to clear the ghetto in honour of Adolf Hitler's birthday, April 20. April 19 was also the first day of Passover, the Jewish holy days celebrating freedom from slavery in Egypt. Before dawn, 2,000 SS men and German army troops moved into the area with tanks, rapid-fire artillery, and ammunition trailers. While most remaining Jews hid in bunkers, by prearrangement, the ŻOB and a few independent bands of Jewish guerrillas, in all some 1,500 strong, opened fire with their motley weaponry-pistols, a few rifles, one machine gun, and homemade bombs-destroying a number of tanks, killing German troops, and holding off reinforcements trying to enter the ghetto. The Germans withdrew in the evening. The next day the fighting resumed and casualties mounted. The Germans used gas, police dogs, and flamethrowers in an effort to rout the Jews from their bunkers, leaving the city under a pall of smoke for days. On the third day the Germans' tactics shifted. They no longer entered the ghetto in large groups but roamed it in small bands. Then they made a decision to burn the entire ghetto.

The Germans had planned to liquidate the ghetto in three days. The Jews held out for nearly a month. Resistance fighters succeeded in hiding in the sewers, even though the Germans tried first to flood them and then force them out with smoke bombs. Not until May 8 did the Nazis manage to take the ŻOB headquarters bunker. Civilians hiding there surrendered, but many of the surviving ŻOB fighters took their own lives to avoid being captured alive; so died Mordecai Anielewicz, the charismatic young commander of the underground army. The one-sided battle continued until May 16, becoming sporadic as Jewish ammunition was exhausted. Total casualty figures for the uprising are uncertain, but the Germans likely lost several hundred soldiers during the 28 days that it took them to kill or deport over 40,000 Jews. SS Major General Jürgen Stroop supervised the coup de grace: the dynamiting of the Great Synagogue of Warsaw. Thereupon he wrote his report: "The Warsaw Ghetto Is No More."

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was nothing less than a revolution in Jewish history. Jews had resisted the Nazis with armed force. The significance and symbolic resonance of the uprising went far beyond those who fought and died. As Anielewicz wrote to his colleague Yitzhak Zuckerman,

My life's dream has now been realized: Jewish self-defense in the ghetto is now an accomplished fact....I have been witness to the magnificent, heroic struggle of the Jewish fighters.

Some aspects of the Warsaw uprising were common to all ghetto insurrections. Resistance came at the end, when all hope for survival was abandoned and when trust in the leadership of the Nazi-created Judenräte ("Jewish Councils") was lost. More than 300,000 had died at the extermination camps; the rail cars were at the station. The fighters knew that they were bound to lose. There was no longer a choice between life and death, but the honour of the Jewish people was at stake. They chose to die fighting and to inflict casualties on the enemy.

Jewish fighters faced overwhelmingly superior forces. Even if they are understated with regard to their losses, the German figures reported after the battle reflect the mismatch. Of the Jews captured, the Germans shot 7,000 and transported 7,000 to the death camp at Treblinka, 15,000 to Majdanek, and the remainder to forced-labour camps. The Germans captured 9 rifles, 59 pistols, and several hundred grenades, explosives, and mines. Among the Germans and their collaborators, the stated losses were 16 dead and 85 wounded.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising | Definition, Facts, & History

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, resistance by Polish Jews under Nazi occupation in 1943 to the deportations from Warsaw to the Treblinka extermination camp. The revolt began on April 19, 1943. While the Germans had planned to liquidate the ghetto in three days, the Jews held out for nearly a month.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On April 19, 1943, the Warsaw ghetto uprising began after German troops and police entered the ghetto to deport its surviving inhabitants. Seven hundred and fifty fighters fought the heavily armed and well-trained Germans. The ghetto fighters were able to hold out for nearly a month, but on May 16, 1943, the revolt ended.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Nazis sealed the Warsaw ghetto in mid-November 1940. German-induced overcrowding and food shortages led to an extremely high mortality rate in the ghetto. Almost 30 percent of the population of Warsaw was packed into 2.4 percent of the city's area. The Germans set a food ration for Jews at just 181 calories a day. By August 1941, more than 5,000 people a month succumbed to starvation and disease.

National Center for Jewish Film

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Nazis sealed the Warsaw ghetto in mid-November 1940. German-induced overcrowding and food shortages led to an extremely high mortality rate in the ghetto. Almost 30 percent of the population of Warsaw was packed into 2.4 percent of the city's area. The Germans set a food ration for Jews at just 181 calories a day.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
After the Germans established the Warsaw ghetto in October 1940, conditions deteriorated rapidly. The Germans strictly controlled the movement of goods into and out of the ghetto. There was not enough food to feed the ghetto residents. At great personal risk, many Jews attempted to smuggle in food. The German food ration for Warsaw ghetto inhabitants amounted to less than 10 percent of the ration for a German citizen. Thousands of Jew died in Warsaw each month because of starvation or disease.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
After the Germans established the Warsaw ghetto in October 1940, conditions deteriorated rapidly. The Germans strictly controlled the movement of goods into and out of the ghetto. There was not enough food to feed the ghetto residents. At great personal risk, many Jews attempted to smuggle in food.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
After the Germans established the Warsaw ghetto in October 1940, conditions deteriorated rapidly. The Germans strictly controlled the movement of goods into and out of the ghetto. There was not enough food to feed the ghetto residents. At great personal risk, many Jews attempted to smuggle in food. The German food ration for Warsaw ghetto inhabitants amounted to less than 10 percent of the ration for a German citizen. Thousands of Jew died in Warsaw each month because of starvation or disease.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
After the Germans established the Warsaw ghetto in October 1940, conditions deteriorated rapidly. The Germans strictly controlled the movement of goods into and out of the ghetto. There was not enough food to feed the ghetto residents. At great personal risk, many Jews attempted to smuggle in food.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Nazis sealed the Warsaw ghetto in mid-November 1940. German-induced overcrowding and food shortages led to an extremely high mortality rate in the ghetto. Almost 30 percent of the population of Warsaw was packed into 2.4 percent of the city's area. The Germans set a food ration for Jews at just 181 calories a day. By August 1941, more than 5,000 people a month succumbed to starvation and disease.

National Center for Jewish Film

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Nazis sealed the Warsaw ghetto in mid-November 1940. German-induced overcrowding and food shortages led to an extremely high mortality rate in the ghetto. Almost 30 percent of the population of Warsaw was packed into 2.4 percent of the city's area. The Germans set a food ration for Jews at just 181 calories a day.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
After the Germans established the Warsaw ghetto in 1940, the Jewish council in Warsaw became responsible for the full range of city services inside the ghetto area. In this German footage, prisoners from the ghetto's "Jewish prison" run into the courtyard and walk in circles during inspection.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
After the Germans established the Warsaw ghetto in 1940, the Jewish council in Warsaw became responsible for the full range of city services inside the ghetto area. In this German footage, prisoners from the ghetto's "Jewish prison" run into the courtyard and walk in circles during inspection.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
After the Germans established the Warsaw ghetto in 1940, the Jewish council in Warsaw became responsible for the full range of city services inside the ghetto area. In this German footage, prisoners from the ghetto's "Jewish prison" run into the courtyard and walk in circles during inspection.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
After the Germans established the Warsaw ghetto in 1940, the Jewish council in Warsaw became responsible for the full range of city services inside the ghetto area. In this German footage, prisoners from the ghetto's "Jewish prison" run into the courtyard and walk in circles during inspection.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Abraham was raised in Czestochowa, Poland, and became a barber. He and his family were deported to the Treblinka killing center from the Czestochowa ghetto in 1942. At Treblinka, Abraham was selected for forced labor. He was forced to cut women's hair before they were gassed, and he sorted clothing from arriving transports. Abraham escaped from the camp in 1943 and made his way back to Czestochowa. He worked in a labor camp from June 1943 until liberation by Soviet troops in 1945.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A-Z: Oral Histories | Holocaust Encyclopedia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Abraham was raised in Czestochowa, Poland, and became a barber. He and his family were deported to the Treblinka killing center from the Czestochowa ghetto in 1942. At Treblinka, Abraham was selected for forced labor. He was forced to cut women's hair before they were gassed, and he sorted clothing from arriving transports.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
German mobile killing units (Einsatzgruppen) operated in German-occupied territories in eastern Europe during World War II. This rare footage shows a mobile killing unit during a massacre in Liepaja, Latvia. The film was taken, contrary to orders, by a German soldier. Before the war, the Jewish population of Liepaja stood at more than 7,000 residents. German mobile killing squads shot almost the entire Jewish population of the town. When the Soviet army liberated the city in 1945, just 20 to 30 Jews remained.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
German mobile killing units (Einsatzgruppen) operated in German-occupied territories in eastern Europe during World War II. This rare footage shows a mobile killing unit during a massacre in Liepaja, Latvia. The film was taken, contrary to orders, by a German soldier. Before the war, the Jewish population of Liepaja stood at more than 7,000 residents.