the meaning of words: a ghetto
It’s ...
An urban area, often enclosed, established by the Nazi authorities during the Second World War, where Jews were forced to reside in territories occupied by Germany.
The first ghettos opened in 1939, after the invasion of Poland by the Nazi regime; Piotrkow Trybunalski was the first to be created on 8 October 1939. In total, nearly 1,000 ghettos were created in Central and Eastern Europe during World War II.
What are the living conditions of the Jews in the ghettos created by Nazi Germany?
The ghettos followed a logic of exclusion, control, and dehumanization. The Nazis controlled and limited supplies. Nearly a million Jews died in the ghettos, victims of hunger, cold and disease.
From 1942, with the implementation of the "Final Solution", the ghettos became part of the logic of systematic murder of European Jews: they were liquidated by the Nazis and the Jewish populations deported to the killing centers.
In the Warsaw Ghetto, the largest in Poland, more than 400,000 Jews were crammed into an area of about 3.3 square kilometers.
When and how did the term “ghetto” appear?
The Venetian word ghetto means 'foundry'; it is also a derivative of ghettare, 'to throw'.
The term refers to the Jewish quarter of Venice, created in 1516 on the site of an old foundry. It is a closed neighborhood from which Jews can only leave during the day. Under certain conditions, they can engage in economic activity.
In 1797, with the advance of the Napoleonic troops, the gates of the Venice ghetto were demolished. The emancipation of Venetian Jews continued throughout the nineteenth century: they enjoyed equal rights in 1866 when Venice became part of the Kingdom of Italy.
What about today?
Nowadays, the term "ghetto" is often used to describe urban neighborhoods characterized by the concentration of socially marginalized groups. This use of the word 'ghetto' is often associated with negative connotations, evoking relegation neighborhoods where poverty, crime, unemployment and other social problems would predominate.
If someone says to me: "There was no resistance in the ghettos."
I answer:
During the period from 1941 to 1943, underground resistance movements emerged in many ghettos. These movements have taken various forms, whether spiritual, cultural or armed resistance; they aim to preserve the dignity and cultural identity of Jews.
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, a real armed resistance to Nazi oppression, began on 19 April 1943.
Furthermore, with the group Oyneg Shabbes (delights of Shabbat), Emanuel Ringelblum undertook to collect ghetto archives in order to resist the planned annihilation of Polish Jews.
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