31-523: The Izbica ghetto was a Jewish ghetto created by Nazi Germany in Izbica in occupied Poland during World War II, serving as a transfer point for deportation of Jews from Poland , Germany , Austria and Czechoslovakia to Bełżec and Sobibór extermination camps . The ghetto was created in 1941, although the first transports of Jews from the German Reich started arriving there as early as 1940. Izbica
62-640: A "Jewish Quarter", though Spain hasn't had a significant Jewish population for over 500 years. Over the course of World War II , Nazi Germany reestablished Jewish ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe (which they called Jewish quarters) for the purpose of segregation, persecution, terror, and exploitation of Jews, mostly in Eastern Europe. According to USHMM archives, "The Germans established at least 1,000 ghettos in German-occupied and annexed Poland and
93-639: A massive programme of uprooting Polish Jews from their homes and businesses through forcible expulsions . Entire Jewish communities were deported into these closed off zones by train from their places of origin systematically, using Order Police battalions , first in the Reichsgaue , and then throughout the Generalgouvernement territory. The Nazis had a special hatred of Polish and other eastern Jews. Nazi ideology depicted Jews, Slavs and Roma as inferior race Untermenschen ("subhumans") who threatened
124-598: Is "Di yiddishe gas" ( Yiddish : די ייִדישע גאַס ), or "The Jewish quarter." While in Ladino , they are known as maalé yahudí , meaning "The Jewish quarter". Many European and Near Eastern cities once had a historical Jewish quarter and some still have it. The history of the Jews in Iraq is documented from the time of the Babylonian captivity c 586 BC. Iraqi Jews constitute one of
155-550: The Sonderdienst battalion of Ukrainian Trawnikis in an assembly-line-style, and dumped into hastily dug mass graves. The murders were committed by trained killers who drank heavily, but the soldiers of German Reserve Police Battalion 101 who rounded up the condemned prisoners drank also, especially at night. A second, smaller ghetto was set up in its place for about 1,000 local Jews. It was dismantled on April 28, 1943 with all remaining inmates sent to Sobibor death camp . Of all
186-528: The Jewish diaspora , a Jewish quarter (also known as jewry , juiverie , Judengasse , Jewynstreet , Jewtown , Juderia or proto- ghetto ) is the area of a city traditionally inhabited by Jews . Jewish quarters, like the Jewish ghettos in Europe , were often the outgrowths of segregated ghettos instituted by the surrounding Christian or Muslim authorities. A Yiddish term for a Jewish quarter or neighborhood
217-610: The Warsaw Ghetto alone to Treblinka over the course of 52 days. In some ghettos, local resistance organizations staged ghetto uprisings . None were successful, and the Jewish populations of the ghettos were almost entirely killed. On June 21, 1943, Heinrich Himmler issued an order to liquidate all ghettos and transfer remaining Jewish inhabitants to concentration camps . A few ghettos were re-designated as concentration camps and existed until 1944. Jewish Quarter (diaspora) In
248-590: The Warsaw Ghetto in October. Most Jewish ghettos were established in 1940 and 1941. Subsequently, many ghettos were sealed from the outside, walled off with brickwork, or enclosed with barbed wire. In the case of sealed ghettos, any Jew caught leaving could be shot. The Warsaw Ghetto, located in the heart of the city, was the largest ghetto in Nazi occupied Europe, with over 400,000 Jews crammed into an area of 3.4 square kilometres ( 1 + 3 ⁄ 8 square miles). The Łódź Ghetto
279-505: The ghetto uprisings . The first anti-Jewish measures were enacted in Germany with the onset of Nazism ; these measures did not include ghettoizing German Jews: such plans were rejected in the post- Kristallnacht period. However, soon after the 1939 German invasion of Poland , the Nazis began to designate areas of larger Polish cities and towns as exclusively Jewish, and within weeks, embarked on
310-450: The Germans to be giving any help to a Jew was subject to the death penalty. In 1942, the Nazis began Operation Reinhard , the systematic deportation of Jews to extermination camps . Nazi authorities throughout Europe deported Jews to ghettos in Eastern Europe or most often directly to extermination camps built by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland . Almost 300,000 people were deported from
341-982: The Jewish citizens of Izbica (over 90% of its pre-war population), only 14 survived the Holocaust . The Jewish cemetery in Izbica is being reconstructed by the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland. Ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe Beginning with the invasion of Poland during World War II , the Nazi regime set up ghettos across German-occupied Eastern Europe in order to segregate and confine Jews , and sometimes Romani people , into small sections of towns and cities furthering their exploitation. In German documents, and signage at ghetto entrances,
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#1732870159351372-445: The Jewish point of view, concentration of Jews within a limited area offered a level of protection from outside influences or mob violence. In many cases, residents had their own justice system. When political authorities designated an area where Jews were required by law to live, such areas were commonly referred to as ghettos , and were usually coupled with many other disabilities and indignities. The areas chosen usually consisted of
403-535: The Nazis usually referred to them as Jüdischer Wohnbezirk or Wohngebiet der Juden , both of which translate as the Jewish Quarter . There were several distinct types including open ghettos , closed ghettos , work , transit , and destruction ghettos , as defined by the Holocaust historians. In a number of cases, they were the place of Jewish underground resistance against the German occupation, known collectively as
434-480: The Polish Jews from inside the ghetto. Denunciations were commonplace. In the early stage of the ghetto existence, the Nazis destroyed the local Jewish cemetery. The tombstones were desecrated and used to build walls of a new prison. The entire ghetto in Izbica was liquidated beginning November 2, 1942, which led to a week of horrific killings at the cemetery. Several thousand Jews (estimated at 4,500) were massacred by
465-422: The bacteria that causes epidemic typhus, were publicized, and the respected status of German doctors helped spread the belief that the Jews were responsible for spreading typhus. The German public health officials in occupied Poland were concerned only with the health of German personnel, so they repeatedly urged occupation authorities to isolate Jews further from the rest of the population. German forces regarded
496-626: The city overall population, were forced to live in 2.4% of the city's area, a density of 7.2 people per room. In the ghetto of Odrzywół , 700 people lived in an area previously occupied by five families, between 12 and 30 to each room. The Jews were not allowed out of the ghetto, so they had to rely on smuggling and the starvation rations supplied by the Nazis: in Warsaw this was 1,060 kJ (253 kcal) per Jew, compared to 2,800 kJ (669 kcal) per Pole and 10,930 kJ (2,613 kcal) per German. With
527-567: The color of the obligatory star of David signs, yellow for German, and blue for the Polish Jews. In order to make space for the incoming transports, 2,200 local Jews were sent to the Belzec death camp on March 24, 1942. Between March and May 1942, approximately 12,000 to 15,000 new Jews were transported to Izbica from across Europe as part of secretive Operation Reinhard ; among them engineers, doctors, economists, army generals and professors from Vienna , The Hague , Heidelberg and Breslau , including
558-446: The crowded living conditions, starvation diets, and insufficient sanitation (coupled with lack of medical supplies), epidemics of infectious disease became a major feature of ghetto life. In the Łódź Ghetto some 43,800 people died of 'natural' causes, and 76,000 in the Warsaw Ghetto before July 1942. To prevent unauthorised contact between the Jewish and non-Jewish populations, German Order Police battalions were assigned to patrol
589-536: The establishment of ghettos as temporary measures, in order to allow higher level Nazis in Berlin to decide how to execute their goal of eradicating Jews from Europe. Nazi officials had an Endziel , an unarticulated final goal that would take time to reach, and also an Endlösung , a "final solution" which was a euphemism for the murder of Jews. Toward the Endziel and Endloesung there were intermediate goals to be carried out in
620-478: The formation of Jewish ghettos caused hunger and poverty, crowding and unsanitary conditions, which in turn actually created typhus epidemics in occupied Poland. German physicians and public health officials in the Nazi regime did not acknowledge this; instead, German medical professionals published essays blaming Jewish people's supposed "low cultural level" and "uncleanliness" for the typhoid epidemics. Posters depicting Jews as lice, which transmit from person to person
651-489: The ghetto had to have identification papers proving they were not Jewish (none of their grandparents was a member of the Jewish community), such as a baptism certificate. Such documents were sometimes called "Christian" or "Aryan papers". Poland's Catholic clergy massively forged baptism certificates, which were given to Jews by the dominant Polish resistance movement, the Home Army ( Armia Krajowa , or AK). Any Pole found by
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#1732870159351682-683: The most undesirable areas of a city. In the English city of Norwich , the Jewish quarter was close to the castle, as a source of protection in times of local pogroms . This pattern was seen in other English towns, where Jews were under the protection of the Normans. In the 19th century, Jewish ghettos were progressively abolished, and their walls taken down, though some areas of Jewish concentration continued and continue to exist. In some cities, Jewish quarters refer to areas which historically had concentrations of Jews. For example, many maps of Spanish towns mark
713-512: The perimeter. Within each ghetto, a Jewish Ghetto Police force was created to ensure that no prisoners tried to escape. In general terms, there were three types of ghettos maintained by the Nazi administration. The parts of a city outside the walls of the Jewish Quarter were called "Aryan". For example, in Warsaw , the city was divided into Jewish, Polish, and German Quarters. Those living outside
744-464: The purity of Germany's Aryan Herrenrasse ("master race"), and viewed these people and also political opponents of the Nazi party as parasitic vermin or diseases that endangered the overall health of the Volksgemeinschaft , the German racial community. German doctors and public health officials helped advance these racist fearmongering ideas. The German invasion of Poland (Sept. 1, 1939) and
775-607: The short term, and one of these was to concentrate Jews from the countryside into larger cities, thus making certain areas Judenrein ("clean of Jews"). The first ghetto of World War II was established on 8 October 1939 at Piotrków Trybunalski (38 days after the invasion), with the Tuliszków ghetto established in December 1939. The first large metropolitan ghetto known as the Łódź Ghetto ( Litzmannstadt ) followed them in April 1940, and
806-504: The vice-president of Prague . They were housed in a few wooden barracks which could accommodate about half of the prisoners, pressed against each other like sardines. The rest were forced to subsist outdoors. Jews stayed in the barracks usually for no more than four days, with almost nothing to eat. Many victims succumbed to typhus due to poor sanitary conditions in the ghetto. The foreigners, many of whom were proficient in German, had an easier time identifying with their Nazi oppressors than
837-622: The world's oldest and most historically significant Jewish communities. From the late medieval and early modern period onwards Jews, the only remaining dhimmi , were increasingly confined to ghettolike quarters, such as the mellah in Morocco, the hara in Algeria and Tunisia and the qa'a in Yemen. The mellah of Fez , founded in the fifteenth century, became the prototype of the Moroccan ghetto. Though it
868-402: Was probably founded in order to protect and not to punish the Jews, they resented the transfer and viewed it as bitter exile and manifestation of a painful segregation. Later foundation were founded with the explicit intent of ostracism rather than protection. As such, Jews often had to wear distinguishing clothes and were not allowed to wear shoes outside the mellah . In cities, a mellah
899-523: Was surrounded by a wall with a fortified gateway , often close to kasbah of the king or governor, whereas rural mellahs were separate villages inhabited solely by the Jews. Jewish quarters in Europe existed for a number of reasons. In some cases, Christian authorities wished to segregate Jews from the Christian population so that Christians would not be "contaminated" by them or so as to put psychological pressure on Jews to convert to Christianity. From
930-496: Was the largest transit ghetto in the Lublin reservation , with a death rate almost equal to that of the Warsaw ghetto . SS- Hauptsturmführer Kurt Engels, known for his exceptional cruelty, served as its only commandant. The Jews who lived in Izbica were kept separate from the new arrivals. They were housed on the other side of the railroad tracks. Also, the Jews shipped in from Germany and Austria were differentiated from Polish Jews by
961-546: Was the second largest, holding about 160,000 people. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum archives, there were at least 1,000 such ghettos in German-occupied and annexed Poland and the Soviet Union alone. Ghettos across Eastern Europe varied in their size, scope and living conditions. The conditions in the ghettos were generally brutal. In Warsaw , the Jews, comprising 30% of