Warsaw Ghetto Research Paper

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising The Holocaust affected the lives of many Jews and non-Jews during the 1930’s and 1940’s. One particular group of the Holocaust were the people of the Warsaw Ghetto. Ghettos during the Holocaust were cruel and harsh.

Living as a Jew between 1933-1945 was a hard life in Germany. They were tortured in concentration camps and death camps all over Germany. Other people were also sent to concentration camps and death camps. Some of them were criminals, handi-cap, homosexuals, and Romani.

In the ghettos, living conditions were very harsh. There were ridiculous rules like “no hands in your pockets” (Altman The Holocaust Ghettos 42). The ghettos could be described as “crowded and unsanitary living conditions” (Blohm Holocaust Camps 10), with six to seven people living in each room (Adler 57). The ghettos were always sealed, with a wall, barbed wire, or posted boundaries (Altman the Holocaust Ghettos 14). Around the ghettos they were always guarded, if any Jew tried to escape, they would be killed (Adler 57).

Jews were not allowed to have a job. All money in banks were confiscated. A Judenrat, a Jewish council created under German orders, was created putting a few Jews responsible for the entire Jewish community. Armbands were used to recognize Jews and orders came everyday for people to go work hard labor. Going against orders resulted in death.

During this time, Jews (and every other group affected) were absolutely dehumanized. Once they arrived to these camps, typically through compact trains, they were not only stripped of the few items they had brought, but were stripped of their names, families and friends, usual lives, and any dignity or hope they had once had.

The Ghettos In the fall of 1941, many Jews in Germany occupied countries of Austria and Czechoslovakia were deported to Poland.(book) They were forced to live in the ghettos , which were set up in a major towns there.(book) These were enclosed by walls and guarded at night. The jews were only permitted to take a few personal items with them to the ghetto, in the process being stripped of the homes and property that they had left behind.(Daily Life in Ghettos) Jewish councils, made up of elders, who were community leaders, were responsible for organizing the day-to day affairs of the ghettos.(book) The people working for the Jewish council forced a very difficult task.(book)

With such dreadful conditions, the Jews began initiating resistance and uprisings. Even though the prisoners knew loss was unquestionable, they fought bravely and certain. The Jews wanted the future generation to know that they would never give up without a fight. The Nazi officers kept watch of the prisoners every second; the inhumanity of the guards murdered the spirit of the Jews. Because of the environment of the camps, a countless number of Jews died every day.

The city quickly fell under the control of the SS, who were looking specifically for the Jewish civilians. They came to our workshop and shot our patriarch, my father. The remaining thirteen of us were moved into a prisoner of war camp, where we would be separated. Us six boy were decided to build another camp with some other Jewish teens from the city. This camp was brutal as it pushed and beaten us.

They were put into camps in the middle of nowhere. Their so-called “house” was poorly built, they had very thin walls, the house always leaked whenever it rained, they had to make their own furniture, the food wasn’t very good, and there was a fence keeping them in. Many people died trying to get out of the camps. Many innocent people were taken into these camps, a lot were even arrested.

The Jews were stripped from their basic god given human rights. The Jews were isolated in fenced towns called ghettos. Wiesel’s friend Moishe Chaim Berkowitz described his travels in Hungary and encounter with antisemitism, “The Jews of Budapest live in an atmosphere of fear and terror. Anti-Semitic acts take place everyday, in the streets, on the trains. The fascists attack Jewish stores, synagogues.

Edicts were made, one which being every Jewish person had to wear the yellow star to be marked and separated from other races. In the very beginning of the Holocaust, the Jews were told they could take one sack of personal belongings with them, but their sacks never even left the ghetto’s of where they lived. The Jews were forced to have their haircut, then their heads shaved. They had one pair of clothes or barely any clothing at all. For food, they had very tiny amounts of rations.

In fact, the Jews faced many horrifying obstacles in order to stay alive, such as concentration camps, death marches, ghettos, and killing centers. All of these malevolent obstacles were created by the Nazis in order to fulfill their “Final Solution,” or in other words their plan of terminating the existence of the Jews. Additionally, the Jews had their property confiscated and their lives restricted by more than four hundred decrees and regulations. With this, the Jews had lost their civil rights while being simultaneously dehumanized. They were forced to shave off all their hair, wear very thin clothing in freezing temperatures, forced to do hard labor, were given small

Daily Life at Concentration Camps Starving, cold, unclothed, sick, and hard working people were all put in concentration camps and treated horribly. The Jewish workers worked hard all day everyday or else they would get killed. The way the Nazi’s treated the Jews was extremely bad, the Jews would not get food, clothes, beds, and other necessities. There were all types of camps that had all kinds of jobs, you were assigned a job and didn 't get to pick a job. The Jews had a very compact schedule, they were busy all day, never any time to waste.

More than three million Jews were killed in concentration camps during World War Two. The concentration camps were extremely brutal and people who experienced them were treated like animals. When Jewish people were thrown into concentration camps, not only had they been stripped of their basic rights, but they had been stripped of their lives as well. Everyday they would witness fellow jews dying or being killed. Anyone who ever lived in a concentration camp knew that they could have died any day.

The people, lived in ghettos and also were transported to concentration camps, where they died from gas chambers, forced labor, etc,. It was a hard time in life for people in Germany. There were many Non- Jewish victims in the holocaust in Germany. Those Non- Jewish people consisted of: African Americans, Gypsies, Homosexuals, and countless more Non- Jewish people in the Holocaust. They were treated like the Jewish people also.