Jewish+Ghettos

 September 1939 the 21st, R einhard Heydrich  told several Schutz Staffeinel  commanders in Poland that all Jews were to be confined to special areas in cities and towns. These ghettos were to be surrounded by barbed wire, brick walls and armed guards.  The first ghetto was set up in Piotrkow October 1939 the 28th. Jews living in rural areas had their property confiscated and they were rounded up and sent to ghettos in towns and cities. The two largest ghettos were established in Warsaw and Lodz. 

In October 1939, the Schutz Staffeinel began to deport Jews living in Austria and Czeckolavia  to ghettos in Poland. Transported in locked passenger trains, large numbers died on the way. Those that survived the journey were told by Adolf Eichmann the head of the Gestapo's Department of Jewish Affairs that that there are no apartments and no houses but if you build your homes you will have a roof over your head.  In Warsaw, the capital of Poland, all 22 entrances to the ghetto were sealed. The German authorities allowed a Jewish Council of 24 men to form its own police to maintain order in the ghetto. The Jewish Council was also responsible for organizing the labour battalions demanded by the German authorities.  Conditions in the Warsaw Ghetto were so bad that between 1940 and 1942 an estimated 100,000 Jews died of starvation and disease in the Warsaw Ghetto.