Everyday life in the Warsaw Ghetto by Yad Vashem - HTML preview

Everyday Life in

the

Warsaw Ghetto

Warsaw, Poland - 1941

Scott Masters

Crestwood College – adapted from the Yad Vashem Archives

•  A tram at the entrance to the Warsaw Ghetto – was it an “open ghetto” ?

•  Why did the Nazis create ghettoes? What reasons did they give; what were the real reasons?

–  To thwart the black market…

–  To thwart Jewish

“subversion” …

–  To stop the spread of disease…

•  What was the process for creating the ghetto? What were the various

reactions?

•  Why did some Polish Jews favour the ghetto?

•  A German

guard

checking

Jews’ papers

•  Who guarded

the ghetto

entrance?

•  What was the

Judenrat?

•  Jews with

armbands on a

ghetto street

•  Why was there so

much congestion

in the ghetto?

•  An old man a on

a ghetto street –

why is he taking

off his hat?

•  A horse-drawn cart – what types of transportation were Jews forced to use?

What does this tell you about their

circumstances?

•  Jewish

women on a

rickshaw in

the ghetto

•  Children sitting

on a ghetto

street – who

were they? How

did the other

residents treat

them?

•  Selling clothes in the market

•  How did this fit into the ghetto economy?

•  What were the differences between the official and clandestine economies?

•  saleswomen on a ghetto street

•  How are they different from the stores in the background?

•  Did economic equality exist in the ghetto?

•  Woman beggar in

the ghetto

•  Why would the

owners of the

food store in the

background not

help her?

•  A Jewish beggar playing the violin in the ghetto

•  A starving woman lying in the street

•  A woman in the

ghetto eating some

soup

•  Waiting in line for a drink of water

•  Who were these

public kitchens

important? What

roles did they play?

•  A baby carriage filled with books for sale

•  What does this photograph show about ghetto life?

•  Is this a type of resistance?

•  What is the boy selling? Was censorship used in the ghetto?

•  A woman selling

armbands

•  Why did residents

continue to have

children? What happened to birth rates over time?

•  What do you notice about the urban landscape?

•  Wealthier Jews on a ghetto street

•  A poster advertising a nightclub

•  Why did this create conflict in the ghetto?

How did the Nazis exploit this?

•  A Jewish

policeman and

a woman in the

ghetto

•  Who were these

policemen?

What role(s) did

they play in the

ghetto as time

went by?

•  The Hevra

Kadisha (Jewish burial society)

•  A funeral in the

cemetery

•  Coffins and

wagons of the

Jewish Burial

Society

•  A man placing

bodies in an open

mass grave

•  Swans on the lake

in Chopin Park,

Warsaw