TREBLINKA: - Holocaust Handbooks

Chapter VIII: Indirect Transports of Jews to the Eastern Territories 271
Kulischer then moves on to the ghettos: 813
“The first ghettos were set up in Lodz in the winter 1939-1940. Since
spring 1940 they have been introduced in a number of cities and towns in
the Warthegau and the General Government. In the summer of 1940 the
Germans segregated the district of Warsaw inhabited mainly by Jews under
the pretext that it was a breeding-place of contagious diseases, and in
the autumn of the same year a ghetto was formally established. All Jews
living outside its confines were ordered to move into the ghetto and all
Poles living inside to leave the ghetto area. Many Jews were also brought
there from abroad. In the first half of 1942 about 500,000 persons were
crowded into the Warsaw ghetto.
The growth of the ghettos is illustrated by the following estimates. In
November 1941 the Institute of Jewish Affairs estimated the number of
Jews confined in the ghettos ‘at no less than 1,000,000’. In December 1941
figures released by Polish Jewish circles in London showed that about
1,300,000 Jews had been herded into eleven ghettos in various parts of the
country. For the early summer 1942 the Institute of Jewish Affairs gave the
number as 1,500,000. On October 28 and November 10, 1942, the Secretary
of State for Security in the General Government issued regulations
about Jewish ghettos in the five districts of the General Government (Warsaw,
Lublin, Krakow, Radom and Galicia), proving that from November
30, 1942, all General Government Jews must live in confined areas. Jews
employed in armament and other war industries and living in closed camps
are exempted. The confined areas are of two kinds: ghettos inside the larger
towns, and purely Jewish towns, cleared of their non-Jewish population.
In the whole of the General Government there are 13 ghettos, the
largest being the Warsaw ghetto, and 42 Jewish towns.
Since the invasion of the U.S.S.R., ghettos have been established in
western Bielorussia, western Ukraine and Baltic States, and also in occupied
Russia.
The primary purpose of the ghettos and special Jewish towns is the segregation
of the local Jewish population. This consists of the former inhabitants
of the area which was turned into a ghetto or a Jewish town, the inhabitants
of the same town who are removed to the ghetto, and Jews removed
from other localities of the same country. For the second and third
categories segregation in the ghetto meant compulsory removal, and for
the third category forced migration also. The number of persons affected
by this internal forced migration may have numbered many hundreds of
thousands in the General Government alone.
813 Ibid., pp. 107f.