Warsaw Ghetto
 

 Warsaw was the capital of Poland in 1569 and in 1935 it covered 54 square miles and had a population of 1.3 million people. At one time when it was a ghetto there were 337,000 people in it that was 29% of the total population in Poland then it rose to 445,000 in March. the Jews were in the ghetto cause the Nazi's thought of themselves as the master race and whoever wasn't that race was thrown in the ghetto. The Jews meant nothing to the Nazis or Hitler.

 

 
  They kept the Jews in the ghetto by building a 19 foot wall all the way around the ghetto. In 1939 the first Jewish         decrees were made by making the Jews were a armband with the Star of David on it every Jew had to were one if they were over the age of 10. then more were made the Jews could not have over 250 zolties (dollars) per week to the holder, they couldn't own stores or or even work at some stores. When the ghetto was sealed off there were already 445 deaths in the ghetto including little kids. Then the deaths kept rising to 898 then 2,061 then 4,290 and in august there were 5,560 deaths in the Warsaw ghetto due to starvation and disease.

 
 
The Jews were also thrown out of lines for food and seized for forced labor, they lost there jobs too. Out of the 450,000 imprisoned 40,000 were children ages 7 to 15. The ghetto was the second largest ghetto in the world behind a ghetto in New York .Jews began trading goods for food or selling there belongings to buy food. The daily food amount for the Jews was about 25% of the food the Germans got and about 8% of the nutrition value.
 In 1940 there were a lot of attacks on Jews by polish gangs, they were robbed without any help by bystanders and they only stopped when German authorities said so. German manufacturers appeared in the summer of 1941. First there was a carpentry company and a fur company and then a textile goods company. That's when smuggling began. They smuggled food mostly and they snuck it through holes in the wall they threw it over and also at the ghetto gates.
 Then the uprising began the Jews used homemade weapons and smuggle weapons like pistols grenades and some rifles or machine guns. there were two groups that were resisting one was the Z.Z.W. and the other was the Z.O.B (Jewish fighting organization). they were first ordered to attack German troops who were rounding up more Jews to be sent to the death camps. total there were about 750 fighters in both groups put together there was about 500 for the Z.O.B. and about 250 for the Z.Z.W. the Jews held off for about a month when Hitler ordered the German troops to burn the ghetto down. And that's when the uprising ended and there were about 56,000 Jews captured and about 7,000 shot and the rest were deported to killing centers.

Jacob Gentry

7th grade social studies

Rossville jr. high

Holocaust project

Spring 2009

 

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