The Holocaust in Poland: Purpose of the Ghettoes

Lodz ghetto
Figure 1.--Jewish children and the elderly were the most endangered part of the population. This was especially true for the children seoarated from their parents. Here we see a Jewish boy in the Łódź Ghetto, probably in 1941. The Germans cut food deliveries to the ghetto and they were especially interested in eliminting what they referred to as 'non-producers'. Eventually the Łódź children had to be given up to the NAZIs who immediately murdered them.

The NAZI ghettos were a key part of the evolving NAZI plan of dealing with Jews. The basic purose as in the medieval era was control and isolation. Within the Reich, Hitler was somewhat constrained as to actions against Jews, because thdey could not be carried out descretely outside of public view. In occupied Poland there were no constraints. From the NAZI perspective there were various advantages of ghettoization. 1) Once confined to the ghettos, actions against the Jews could be taken away from public view. There was no longer a free press in Poland so even outside the ghetto, there was very little reporting reaching the international press. Within the ghetto, virtually nothing leaked out. 2) Ghetoization facilitated the lucrative process of stripping Jews of their property. The Jews were forced out of their homes and required to hand over valuables as they entered the ghettoes. Whatever they managed to sneak in was soon expended in the need to purchase food and other itemnss in the black market. And of course SS officials profited by the black market sakes. 3) Once confined in ghettoes the Jews could be easily forced to work as slave labor. And the slave labor could be used to support the war effort. This proved very profitablr to the SS. It is the primary reason why some NAZI leaders did not want Jews under their control killed. 4) Ghetoization also enable the NAZIs to restrict consumption of food, clothing, and other consumer goods. And authorities profited by diverting some of the inadequste rations set. Low rations was in part a simple desire to punish Jews, but it had had various pratical advantages. It helped avoid war time shortages in Germany. It also affected the heath of the ghetto Jews, increasing 'nantural' mortalities. 5) As the Jews were concentrated and separated from the general Polish popultion, future actions could be nore easily conducted. There was not need to expend resources to collect and hunt down Jews. They were a captive population vulnerable to what ever the NAZIs decided. Here the NAZIs may have originally been thinking of deportation east, but we do not know precisely what Hitler's pre-War intentions were. What ever they were, very soon after the opportunity presented itself, Hitler ordered mass murder. The decession to establish the ghettos appears to have been taken before the decssion to commit genocide, but once that decession was taken the concentration made the killing opperation an apauling simple matter.

Isolation

NAZI policy from the inception in Germajny was to isolate Jews from the general German population. This proved a long-drawn out process and while effective was never complete. Ghetoization gave the NAZIs the ability to do in only a few months what took years in the Reich. Isolation faciltated NAZI policies because it meant that the Jews could be dealt with in reltive secrecy, especially because the ghettos were mostly located in occupied Poland and other countries under German military or civilian occupation authorities and not in the Reich. This was in part a ideological matter. The NAZIs believed the Jews to be an inferior race, thus isolationg Jews preventedthem from mixing with and thus adversely afecting the Aryan race being reconstituted by the Germans. Isolation also was the first step in the other actions officials were planning to take against them. It made them easier to hadle because it titally cut them off from the outside world. It meant that the few options they had no longer eisted. And it meant that there was virtually no source of news about what was happening to them. Rumors circulated, but there was no hard news. Jews were banned from having radios even before they arrived in the ghettoes. This isolation is why many of the Jews arriving at the death cmps did not know that thy about to be murdered. The NAZIs not only wanted to isolate Jews from the general population, but also from other Jewish communities under and beyond NAZI occupation. This enabled Jews from learning about what the NAZIs were doing and made any kind of cooperatibe effort impossible. The enforce the isolation, the ghettoes were surrounded by walls, barbed-wire fences, or gates, all manned by SS guards.

Concentration

Concentration was important for the NAZIs because it simplified what ever measures were implemented against them. The ghettos became the repositories for the round up operations underway. The ghettoes vatied grearly in size. Some smaller ghettoes were very small and set up only briefly until the killing squads were assembled or the death camps opened. Others concentrated very large numbers of Jews. Over 150,000 Jews, about a third of Lodz's population were forced into the Lodz ghetto. The largest ghetto with some 450,000 Jews was setup in Warsa. Jews from the city and surrounding towns were fiorced into it. Other major ghettos were set upm in Krakow, Bialystok, Lvov, Lublin, Vilna, Kovno, Czestochowa, and Minsk.

Secrecy

Once confined to the ghettos, actions against the Jews could be taken away from public view. There was no longer a free press in Poland so even outside the ghetto, there was very little reporting reaching the international press. Within the ghetto, virtually nothing leaked out.

Property Theft

Ghetoization facilitated the lucrative process of stripping Jews of their property. The Jews were forced out of their homes and required to hand over valuables as they entered the ghettoes. Whatever they managed to sneak in was soon expended in the need to purchase food and other itemnss in the black market. And of course SS officials profited by the black market sakes.

Slave Labor

Slave labor was an important poart if the NAZI war economy. Once confined in ghettoes the Jews could be easily forced to work as slave labor. And the slave labor could be used to support the war effort. This proved very profitable to the SS. It is the primary reason why some NAZI leaders did not want Jews under their control killed. THe Lodz ghetto was one of the largest. As Lodz was the center of the textile industry in Poland. The Lodz ghetto was thus of considerable economic value and useful to the German war economy. The ghetto Jews had no choice, but to work for the Germans. Jewish authorities in the ghettoes that there only hope for survival was to make themnselves useful to the Germans. And this included the children. If they were old enough to work, they could receive rations. And they were more likely to avoid elections, like the round up of children in the Łódź Ghettos. Despite the economiic value of the Jews, Hitler decided that the destruction of the Jewish people was a higher priority goal. His attitude expressed to Speer and others was that there was no possibility of a labor shortage. It was just a matter of recriting or seizing workers in occupied countries to replace the Jews. And Hitker appointer Fritzel Sauckel General Plenipotentiary for Labour Deployment to replave Jewish workers being murdered (1942). Bescause some SS officers were benefitting from hiring out Jewish slave labots, some Jews mnaged to survive fir some time. Jews played an important role as workers in the textile factories, they were some of the last Polish Jews killed. The deportation from the Łódź ghetto was only completed as the Whermact under pressure from the Red Army was evacuating Poland (August 1944).

Restrict Consumption

Conditions forJews in the ghettos were appalling. Ghetoization also enable the NAZIs to restrict consumption of food, clothing, fuel and other consumer goods. It also meant that by crowding them into a small area, usually in run down areas, that they occupied fewer homes and apartments. Food would prove the most vital matter for survival. Once the ghetto was closed, the SS controlled the food supply except for small anounts the captive Jews could smuggle into the ghettoes. Rations for Poles in the ourside poulatuion were set at low levels. The rations in the ghetto wre set at starvation level. Ration levels changed over time, but at a when Germans were receiving rations calculated at 2,310 calories and the Poles in the GeneraL Government 634 calories, Jews in the Warsaw ghetto were authorized only 300 calories and they did notalways get the full anount. SS authorities profited in various ways. The low rations forced Jews with assetts to buy food on the black market, controlled informally by the SS guards. And other SS authorities profited by diverting some of the inadequste rations set. Low rations were in part a simple desire to punish Jews, but it also had various pratical advantages. It helped avoid war time shortages in Germany. Restricting food and clothing were not the only aspects of the Ghetto that affected health. The Germans also restricted the water supply as well as cramed large numbers of people into small areas commonly with inadequate sanitational facilities. Few apartments in the Warsaw Ghetto were heated. During the winter the ghetto Jews had to huddle together with little or no fuel to heat their living quarters. The result was plummeting health and virtually no medical services. All of this increased 'nantural' mortalities. This was, however, taking time. After nearly 2 years of ghetoization, mortalities began to significantly increase. Even so, ultimately the process was too slow for Hitler and other leading NAZIs. Hitler became impatient leading to Aktion Reinhard.

Simplifying Actions

As the Jews were concentrated and separated from the general Polish popultion, future actions could be nore easily conducted. There was not need to expend resources to collect and hunt down Jews which could be vert time consuming and required substany\tial deoployment of rsources. They were a captive population vulnerable to what ever the NAZIs decided. Here the NAZIs may have originally been thinking of deportation east, but we do not know precisely what Hitler's pre-War intentions were. What ever they were, very soon after the opportunity presented itself, Hitler ordered mass murder. The decession to establish the ghettos appears to have been taken before the decssion to commit industrialized genocide, but once that decession was taken the concentration made the killing opperation an apaulingly simple matter.







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Created: 6:55 AM 9/3/2011
Last updated: 5:56 AM 3/16/2015