Major Jewish Ghettos of World War II Map by Ash Stewart

Piotrków Trybunalski, Poland

stw21 — 2025-05-08 05:13:23 UTC

The Piotrków Trybunalski Ghetto was created in Piotrków Trybunalski on October 8, 1939, shortly after the 1939 German Invasion of Poland in World War II. It was the first Nazi ghetto in occupied Europe.

Warsaw, Poland

pal00361 — 2025-05-12 01:40:58 UTC

The biggest ghetto set up by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland, it started operations in 1940 and by 1942 over 200,000 jewish people were sent to Death Camps. The ghetto was demolished by the Germans in May 1943 after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising had temporarily halted the deportations. The total death toll among the prisoners of the ghetto is estimated to be at least 300,000 killed by bullet or gas.

Lida, Belarus

2025-05-12 01:41:32 UTC

The Lida Ghetto was a ghetto where the Jewish population of the city of Lida and the surrounding settlements were forcibly concentrated during the Nazi occupation of Belarus in World War II.

Budapest, Hungary

pal00361 — 2025-05-12 01:43:24 UTC

The Budapest Ghetto was a Nazi ghetto set up in Budapest, Hungary, where Jews were forced to relocate by a decree of the Government of National Unity led by the fascist Arrow Cross Party during the final stages of World War II. The ghetto existed from November 29, 1944, to January 17, 1945.

Kassa, Slovakia

duardni — 2025-05-12 01:45:26 UTC

During World War II, Kassa (modern-day Košice) was a significant location in the region. Initially, it was part of Hungary, but later became part of Slovakia. The bombing of Kassa in 1941 served as a pretext for Hungary to declare war on the Soviet Union. Slovakia, under the leadership of Jozef Tiso, was a key ally of Nazi Germany and participated in the invasion of the Soviet Union and the deportation of its Jewish population. The city also witnessed the Slovak National Uprising in 1944, which was ultimately suppressed by German forces.

Kielce, Poland

fexfox63 — 2025-05-12 01:46:30 UTC

The Kielce Ghetto was a Jewish World War II ghetto created in 1941 by the Schutzstaffel in the Polish city of Kielce in the south-western region of the Second Polish Republic, occupied by German forces from 4 September 1939. Before the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939, Kielce was the capital of the Kielce Voivodeship.

Lublin, Poland

pal00361 — 2025-05-12 01:47:20 UTC

Set up in March 1941, the Lublin ghetto was one of the first Nazi-era ghettos slated for liquidation during the deadliest phase of the Holocaust in occupied Poland. Between mid-March and mid-April 1942 over 30,000 Jews were delivered to their deaths in cattle trucks at the Bełżec extermination camp and additional 4,000 at Majdanek.

Dej, Romania

mck0042_1 — 2025-05-12 01:47:25 UTC

The Dej ghetto was one of the Nazi-era ghettos for European Jews during World War II. It was located in the city of Dej (Hungarian: Dés) in Cluj County, Transylvania, now part of Romania but administered as part of Szolnok-Doboka County by the Kingdom of Hungary from the 1940 Second Vienna Award's grant of Northern Transylvania until late 1944. The ghetto was active in the spring of 1944, following Operation Margarethe.

Mahilyow, Belarus

2025-05-12 01:48:02 UTC

Tarnów, Poland

mck0042_1 — 2025-05-12 01:48:09 UTC

Germany occupied the Polish city of Tarnow in 1939. Deportations from Tarnow began in June 1942, first to the Belzec killing center. Following the June deportations, the Germans forced the surviving Jews in Tarnow, as well as Jews from nearby towns, into a ghetto. Deportations continued and, in late 1943, Tarnow was declared "free of Jews." By the end of World War II, the Germans had murdered the majority of Tarnow's Jews.

Romania-Ukraine, Pyrohovs'ka Street, Odesa, Odesa Oblast, Ukraine

accar11 — 2025-05-12 01:48:58 UTC

The Ukrainian city of Odesa was occupied by Romania, an ally of Nazi Germany, from October 1941 to the spring of 1944. Antisemitic policies in Odesa quickly escalated to mass murder. In the first weeks of the occupation, the Romanians murdered tens of thousands of Jews in Odesa and its suburbs. The remaining Jews were then deported from the city. Most were killed elsewhere on Romanian-occupied territory in late 1941 and the first half of 1942.

Vienna, Austria

fra0039_1 — 2025-05-12 01:50:03 UTC

During World War II, Vienna, the capital of Austria, was home to a large Jewish population. After the Anschluss in March 1938, when Nazi Germany annexed Austria, the Nazis quickly applied anti-Jewish legislation to Vienna and the rest of Austria. This legislation aimed to exclude Jews from economic, cultural, and social life. In Vienna, Jewish community offices were closed and their board members were sent to the Dachau concentration camp.

Rīga, Latvia

accar11 — 2025-05-12 01:51:43 UTC

iga Ghetto was a small area in Maskavas Forštate, a neighbourhood of Riga, Latvia, where Nazis forced Jews from Latvia, and later from the German "Reich" (Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and Moravia), to live during World War II. On October 25, 1941, the Nazis evicted the ghetto's non-Jewish inhabitants and relocated all Jews from Riga and its vicinity there. Most Latvian Jews (about 35,000) were killed on November 30 or December 8, 1941, in the Rumbula massacre. The Nazis transported a large number of German Jews to the ghetto; most of them were later killed in massacres.

Miskolc, Hungary

2025-05-12 01:52:35 UTC

During World War II, Miskolc, Hungary, became a site of persecution for its Jewish population. In April 1944, a ghetto was established, forcing thousands of Jewish residents into overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. The ghetto was guarded by Hungarian and German forces, and many of its inhabitants were later deported to Auschwitz in June 1944

Łódź, Poland

2025-05-12 01:52:44 UTC

Dawid Sierakowiak was admitted to this ghetto in may 1914. as a teenager during the war Dawid was bright, talented and fluetnt in many languages. he describes the slow decline in quality of life. sharing a house with many other people. And says the hunger was unbearable and never stoped. he died in 1943 from starvation and tuberculosis.

Liepāja, Latvia

accar11 — 2025-05-12 01:53:00 UTC

In May 1942, an order was issued to establish a ghetto in Liepāja; on 1 July 1942, the remaining Jews in the city, some 830 people, were ordered to move into the ghetto within ten days. A month later, the ghetto was closed off with barbed wire. Jewish wives of Latvian men wishing to continue to live with their husbands outside of the ghetto were made to undergo sterilization; ultimately they, too, were forced into the ghetto. Other mixed couples were separated from each other under threat, with the Jewish partner taken to the ghetto.

Minsk, Belarus

accar11 — 2025-05-12 01:55:07 UTC

The Minsk Ghetto was created soon after the German invasion of the Soviet Union. It was one of the largest in the Byelorussian SSR, and the largest in the German-occupied territory of the Soviet Union.^[1] It housed close to 100,000 Jews, most of whom were murdered in The Holocaust.

Szeged, Hungary

accar11 — 2025-05-12 01:57:19 UTC

There were 4,161 Jews living in Szeged in 1941. After the German occupation (March 19, 1944), the Jews were confined to a ghetto with the Jews from surrounding villages.

Flanders, Belgium

2025-05-12 01:59:29 UTC

Kharkov, Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine

2025-05-12 01:59:47 UTC

Daugavpils, Latvia

2025-05-12 02:02:22 UTC

The city of Daugavpils is also known by the Russian name of Dvinsk and the German name of Dünaburg. Many of the killings associated with the ghetto occurred in the nearby Pagulanka forest, which is also seen spelled as Polulanka and Pogulianski. Although known as a "ghetto", this old fortress was converted into a prison to hold Jews on a temporary basis before they were killed in the Pagulanka forest. Similar places in Latvia were called "concentration camps".