The Holocaust 3/20/09

On October 2, 1940, the Warsaw ghetto was formally established. Six weeks later, on November 15, the ghetto was sealed with walls, as shown in this 1941 photograph. "Ghettoization" restricted the rights of Jews, created deplorable living conditions, and clustered Jews into condensed areas facilitating the eventual deportations to extermination camps.

In 1940, this brick wall was built sealing the Warsaw ghetto off from the rest of the city. Approximately 138,000 Jews were herded into this ghetto while 113,000 Poles were evacuated from this section of the city.

Warsaw ghetto, Homeless children.

A typical room in a ghetto

Some Warsaw ghetto walls were made of barbed wire running down the center of a street.

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising The most famous attempt by Jews to resist the Germans in armed fighting occurred in the Warsaw ghetto. In the summer of 1942, about 300,000 Jews were deported from Warsaw to Treblinka. When reports of mass murder in the killing center leaked back to the Warsaw ghetto, a surviving group of mostly young people formed an organization called the Z.O.B. (for the Polish name, Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa, which means Jewish Fighting Organization).

The Z.O.B., led by 23-year-old Mordecai Anielewicz, issued a proclamation calling for the Jewish people to resist going to the railroad cars.

In January 1943, Warsaw ghetto fighters fired upon German troops as they tried to round up another group of ghetto inhabitants for deportation.

Fighters used a small supply of weapons that had been smuggled into the ghetto. After a few days, the troops retreated. This small victory inspired the ghetto fighters to prepare for future resistance.

Seven hundred and fifty fighters fought the heavily armed and well-trained Germans. The ghetto fighters were able to hold out for nearly a month, but on May 16, 1943, the revolt ended. The Germans had slowly crushed the resistance.

Of the more than 56,000 Jews captured, about 7,000 were shot, and the remainder were deported to killing centers or concentration camps.

Jews captured during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising are led by German soldiers to the assembly point for deportation

One of the most famous pictures of the Holocaust. German stormtroopers force Warsaw ghetto dwellers of all ages to move, hands up, during the Jewish Ghetto Uprising in April-May 1943.

One way Nazis suppressed the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was to burn blocks of buildings.

The SS-men lie in wait for the fighters and civilians forced out of their bunkers by fire, gas, and a lack of water.

Jews captured during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising are marched off through a debris-covered street to the Umschlagplatz for deportation.

Ghetto ration card for October This card officially entitled the holder to 300 calories daily.

Children from an orphanage in Marysin, Poland wait in line to board a truck which will take them to the Chelmno concentration camp where they will be killed.

Lódz January From January 16 to January 29, 1942, about 10,000 Jews were deported from the Lódz ghetto to the death camp in Chelmno. Another 34,074 were deported between February 22 and April 2, 1942.

Jews from Amsterdam and Rotterdam in the Netherlands stand for roll call in the Buchenwald concentration camp soon after their arrival on February 28, 1941.

German soldiers look on as a member of the SS prepares to shoot a Ukrainian Jew kneeling on the edge of a mass grave filled with the bodies of previous victims.

A woman about to be executed in the Belzec concentration camp

Prisoners from Buchenwald awaiting execution in the forest near the camp

View of the entrance to the main camp of Auschwitz. The gate bears the motto "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work makes one free).

View of the kitchen barracks, the electrified fence, and the gate at the main camp of Auschwitz

The interior of a barracks in the Flossenbürg concentration camp that was intended to house 1500 prisoners; Date: May 5, 1945.

SS officer Eichelsdoerfer, the commandant of the Kaufering IV concentration camp, stands among the corpses of prisoners killed in his camp.

Crematoria in the concentration camp at Weimar, Germany. April 14, 1945.

Survivors in Mauthausen open one of the crematoria ovens for American troops who are inspecting the camp.

A crematoria oven in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

A crematoria oven in Ebensee, a sub-camp of Mauthausen.

Ruins of Crematorium II at Birkenau

Photograph taken immediately after the departure of the Germans from Auschwitz-Birkenau. Sacks of human hair packed for dispatch to Germany.

A warehouse full of shoes and clothing confiscated from the prisoners and deportees gassed upon their arrival.

A crate full of rings confiscated from prisoners in Buchenwald and found by American troops in a cave adjoining Buchenwald

American soldiers of the U.S. 7th Army force boys, believed to be Hitler youth, to examine boxcars containing bodies of prisoners starved to death by the SS.

German civilians from the town of Nordhausen bury the corpses of prisoners found in the Nordhausen concentration camp in mass graves.

Slave laborers in Buchenwald are liberated by the American Army in April, They survived in spite of miserable conditions: overcrowding, lack of food, hard labor, and psychological torture. Eli Weisel appears as the last full face on the second bunk from the bottom.

Emaciated Jewish survivors, who had been confined to the infirmary barracks at Ebensee, are gathered outside on the day after liberation.