Ghettos were tools of isolation
During the German occupation of Poland (1939–1945), the Nazis established ghettos to isolate, control, and persecute the Jewish population. The first major ghetto was created in Piotrków Trybunalski in October 1939, followed by the Warsaw Ghetto in November 1940, the Łódź Ghetto in April 1940, the Kraków Ghetto in March 1941, and the Białystok Ghetto in July 1941. Jews were forcibly relocated from their homes, confined to overcrowded districts with inadequate food, sanitation, and medical care. The ghettos served as mechanisms for exploitation, forced labor, and dehumanization. Living conditions were harsh, with rampant disease, starvation, and constant terror. Ghettos also became sites of resistance, culminating in uprisings such as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in April 1943. Ultimately, the ghettos were temporary holding areas before deportations to extermination camps, where most inhabitants were murdered during the Holocaust.
“The hunger in the ghetto was so great … every day you walked out in the morning, you see somebody is laying dead … every day thousands and thousands died just from malnutrition … If you don’t have it, you die, and that’s what it was.”
Abraham Lewent
citizen of Warsaw Ghetto