Children…

The ghettos are formed
During the Middle Ages, it was common for Jews to
live in special city quarters, which in the 16th century
began being called “ghettos”. In Germany, the ghettos
were torn down during the Napoleonic wars of the
19th century. After Germany’s occupation of Poland
in September 1939, the Nazis quickly introduced
regulations that forced Polish Jews out of their homes
and into special areas.The first ghettos were formed in
late 1939, and eventually hundreds of large and small
ghettos were formed throughout Poland and Eastern
Europe. The ghettoisation was the start of a process of
assembly and concentration which would make subsequent
steps of the Holocaust considerably easier.
Directive issued by Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the security
service and the security police, on 27 September 1939
The Jews are to be brought together in ghettos in cities in
order to ensure a better chance of controlling them and
later of removing them. The most pressing matter is for the
Jews to disappear from the countryside as small traders.
This action must have been completed within the next three
to four weeks. Insofar as the Jews are traders in the countryside,
it must be sorted out with the Wehrmacht how far
these Jewish traders must remain in situ in order to secure
the provisioning of the troops. The following comprehensive
directive was issued:
1. Jews into the towns as quickly as possible.
2. Jews out of the Reich into Poland.
3. The remaining Gypsies also to Poland.
4. The systematic evacuation of the Jews from German
territory via goods trains…
A pedestrian bridge over an “Aryan” street in the Lódz ghetto in Poland. Jews in the ghettos were
strictly segregated from the rest of the world. In larger ghettos with more than one area, such
bridges were sometimes built to connect Jewish sections divided by “Aryan” thoroughfares. The
crowding on the bridge reflects the living conditions in the ghetto: a very large number of people
existing in a very small area.
27