HOLOCAUST Ghettos Camps THE FIVE MAJOR GHETTOS WERE

HOLOCAUST Ghettos & Camps

THE FIVE MAJOR GHETTOS WERE LOCATED IN : • • • Warsaw Lódz Kraków, Lublin Lvov • The Nazis established 356 ghettos in Poland, the Soviet Union, the Baltic States, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Hungary between 1939 and 1945.

• On November 23, 1939 General Governor Hans Frank issued an ordinance that Jews ten years of age and older living in the General Government had to wear the Star of David on armbands or pinned to the chest or back. • Israel was added to each male’s name.

CHILDREN WITH THE STAR OF DAVID

GHETTO CONDITIONS • The ghettos were filthy, with poor sanitation. • Extreme overcrowding forced many people to share a room. • Disease was rampant. • Staying warm was difficult during bitter cold winters without adequate warm clothes and heating fuel. • Food was in such short supply that many slowly starved to death.

• The smallest ghetto housed approximately 3, 000 people. • Warsaw, the largest ghetto, held 400, 000 people. • Lódz, the second largest, held about 160, 000. • Other Polish cities with large Jewish ghettos included: • Bialystok, • Czestochowa, • Kielce, • Kraków, • Lublin, • Lvóv, • Radom

WARSAW GHETTO

CAMPS • concentration camps • forced labor camps • extermination or death camps • transit camps • prisoner-of-war camps • Dachau , one of the first Nazi concentration camps, opened in March 1933, and at first interned only known political opponents of the Nazis.

• Gradually, a more diverse group was imprisoned, including • Jews, • Jehovah's Witnesses, • Gypsies , dissenting clergy, • homosexuals, • others who were denounced for making critical remarks about the Nazis.

CHILDREN AT CAMP

SIX DEATH OR EXTERMINATION CAMPS CONSTRUCTED IN POLAND 1. Auschwitz-Birkenau 2. Treblinka 3. Belzec 4. Sobibór 5. Lublin (also called Majdanek ) 6. Chelmno • Nazis used mobile killing squads called Einsatzgruppen. The Einsatzgruppen consisted of four units of between 500 and 900 men each which shot their victims.

• In September 1941, the Nazis began using gassing vans-trucks loaded with groups of people who were locked in and asphyxiated by carbon monoxide. • January 1942: The Wannsee Conference presented the Nazi plan for eliminating all Jews the Final Solution. • Zyklon B, a pesticide gas, was used in the gas chambers. • The Nazis were responsible for the deaths of some 2. 7 million Jews in the death camps. • The total figure for the Jewish genocide, including shootings and the camps, was between 5. 2 and 5. 8 million, roughly half of Europe's Jewish population, the highest percentage of loss of any people in the war. About 5 million other victims perished at the hands of Nazi Germany.