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(The Netherlands)
(Hungary)
(Poland)
(Romania)
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(Poland)
(Lithuania)
(Poland)
(Hungary)
(Yugoslavia)
(Latvia)
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The Germans set up ghettos—sectioned off portions of cities—in or near some European cities over the course of World War II. The ghettos were meant to hold Jews before they were deported out of German territory or to camps in Poland.
Most were located in central and eastern Europe. A selection are presented on this map to represent the scope of the ghetto system.The Germans occupied the Netherlands in May 1940, soon launching anti-Jewish riots and deporting several hundred Jews to concentration camps.
In January 1942, many Dutch Jews were forced to move to Amsterdam to live in several sections of the city’s Jewish Quarter. Other Jewish citizens, German refugees included, were relocated directly to camps at Westerbork and Vught in the Netherlands and at Mauthausen in Austria.
The Germans deported over 100,000 Jews from the Netherlands, almost all from Westerbork. Over 34,000 people were deported from Westerbork to Sobibor between March and July of 1943 and 60,000 were sent from Westerbork to Auschwitz between 1943 and 1944.
Amsterdam city officials cooperated in the deportations. Others, though, aided the estimated 25,000 – 30,000 Jews hiding throughout Holland.
Among the Jews was Anne Frank. She and her family were betrayed and deported to Auschwitz in 1944. She later died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
The Germans occupied Hungary in March 1944. By July, almost all Hungarian Jews had been deported to Auschwitz except for those in Budapest.
By October, the city's 200,000 Jews had been moved into two ghettos: one for Budapest residents, the other for those who had obtained safe-conduct passes from neutral countries (Switzerland, Sweden, the Vatican, Portugal and Spain).
During the German occupation, Hungarian fascists killed thousands of Budapest Jews.
The Germans planned to deport the ghetto inhabitants to Auschwitz in January 1945, but the Soviet Army liberated the city before the Germans could carry out the plan.
The Germans occupied Cracow on September 6, 1939. After months of persecutions, mass expulsions, and random murders, a ghetto was formed in March 1941.
The ghetto enclosed approximately 20,000 people in an area six hundred meters long and four hundred meters wide.
In June and October of 1942 about ten thousand ghetto inhabitants were deported to the Belzec and Auschwitz death camps. Orphaned children and many of the elderly were murdered in the ghetto.
In March 1943, the remaining Jews were killed in the ghetto, sent to forced labor camps or deported to Auschwitz.
Cluj was subjected to Nazi influence upon its annexation by Hungary (an ally of Germany) in 1940.
Persecution and slave labor was thus widespread before the Germans occupied Hungary on May 3, 1944.
Soon after the Germans arrived, Cluj's approximately 17,000 Jews were ghettoized in a brickyard, which the Germans placed under the administration of the local police chief.The Jews were then rapidly deported to Auschwitz between May 25 and June 9, 1944.
Debrecen came under the control of Germany on March 20, 1944.
At the beginning of the war, over 9,000 Jews lived in the town. Within days after the Germans arrived, Jews were ordered to wear badges, Jewish stores closed and Jewish books burned.
A ghetto was created on April 28, and was guarded by Hungarian police. Each Jew was allocated forty-three square feet of living space. Several families often had to share a single room.
On June 21, the Jews were moved to a nearby brickyard, from which some were taken for forced labor in Austria.
Most, however, were deported to Auschwitz.
The Germans occupied the city of Grodno on June 22, 1941. On November 1, two ghettos were established.
The first held people between the ages of sixteen and sixty deemed fit to work as slave laborers. The second ghetto held those unsuitable for forced labor. Jews from surrounding areas were also confined in the ghetto.
In late November, the Germans seized 2,400 Jews and deported them to Auschwitz. Over the next several months, more than 44,000 were deported from Grodno to Auschwitz, Treblinka, and other locations.
Approximately two hundred Jews remained in the city when the Soviet Army liberated it on July 14, 1944.
The Germans occupied Kovno on June 24, 1941. Approximately 10,000 Jews were killed by the end of July.
In August, about 30,000 Jews were ghettoized, and most were subjected to forced labor. Himmler had the status of the ghetto changed to that of a concentration camp in June 1943.
As the Soviet Army approached Kovno in July 1944, the Germans began deporting the remaining inmates to concentration camps in Germany. The deportations were a final effort to destroy the inmates, and several thousand of them attempted to hide. Most were discovered and killed by the Germans.
Lodz had a Jewish population of 223,000 when the Germans invaded Poland in September 1939.
In January 1940, 164,000 Jews were forced into a two square mile ghetto. The Jews were subjected to random violence and forced labor.
Thousands, though, died from starvation, disease, exposure and exhaustion from overwork. Still, the ghetto community struggled to maintain schools, hospitals and relief organizations.
The Germans began deportations to the Chelmno death camp in early 1942 and eliminated 55,000 Jews in the first half of the year. The Germans then closed community organizations and turned the ghetto into a slave labor facility.
Deportations resumed in June 1944 and by September 1, almost all of the remaining 76,701 Jews were deported to Auschwitz.
The 13,500 Jews of Munkacs formed 43 percent of the town's population.
The Jews of Munkacs were confined to a ghetto in April 1944 after the Germans took control of Hungary. A second ghetto, located in a brickyard, was created to confine Jews from surrounding areas.
The ghettos were short-lived, as by 1944 the Germans had mastered the art of quickly and efficiently concentrating the Jews and deporting them to death centers.
By the end of May 1944 the Jews in Munkacs had been deported, many of them to Auschwitz.
There were 2,584 Jews in Osijek when the Germans occupied Yugoslavia in April 1941.
Jewish property was looted, Jews were excluded from participation in the local economy, and the synagogue and cemetery were destroyed.
In December 1941, two hundred women and children were confined in a mill and later deported to the Jasenovac concentration camp.
In June 1942, the Jews of Osijek were forced to build a settlement outside the town in which they were told they could live free of persecution. In truth, they Jews had been tricked into building their own ghetto.
The ghetto held three thousand Jews from Osijek and surrounding areas. By August 1942, they were all deported to Jasenovac or Auschwitz.
The Germans occupied Riga on July 1, 1941. The city's population included 40,000 Jews.
Joined by Latvian fascists, the Germans burned synagogues and killed several hundred Jews. A ghetto containing 30,000 Jews was created in September.
In November and December, approximately 25,000 people were taken from the ghetto to nearby forests and shot to death. Those not killed were sent to a forced labor camp.
Another ghetto was created in 1941-42 for 25,000 Jews who had been deported to Riga. Many were forced to work at nearby labor camps.
On November 2, 1943, the Nazis killed those too young or old to work. The ghetto was then closed and survivors imprisoned in the Kaiserwald concentration camp.
The Terezin (Theresienstadt) ghetto was located in an old army fortress, and initially intended to hold privileged Jews from Germany and Western Europe.
The Germans used Terezin as a facade to camouflage their program of mass murder. At times the ghetto was patched up and made to look humane in order to be presented to the Red Cross or made the subject of propaganda films.There were many scholars and artists in the ghetto who, when conditions permitted, organized a vibrant cultural life.
Still, thousands died from malnutrition and disease. From November 1941 to the end of the war, 140,937 Jews were sent to the ghetto; 33,529 died in Terezin and 88,196 were sent to Auschwitz and other camps.
Fifty thousand Jews lived in Salonika when the Germans occupied the town on April 9, 1941.
Anti-Jewish laws and restrictions created harsh living conditions, which led to several hundred deaths during the winter of 1941-42. The Nazis began a ghettoization process the following summer.
No single ghetto was created. Instead, a number of small districts where ghettoized.
Living areas were severely overcrowded, with four to six families living in spaces adequate only for one. Jews could not use telephones, leave their homes at night or use public transportation.
Almost all Jewish property was confiscated. Any Jew who changed his or her residence was subject to execution.
Impoverished and concentrated in specific areas, the Jews were easy targets. About 43,850 were deported to Auschwitz, most of whom were sent directly to the gas chambers.
The German army occupied Vilna on June 24, 1941. On September 6, the Jews were confined in two ghettos.
Six weeks later, the inhabitants of the smaller ghetto were taken to the nearby Ponary forest and shot.
The Jews of the first ghetto were subjected to forced labor and periodic mass killings. Others were deported to the Sobibor death camp. Most of the ghetto's inhabitants were ultimately murdered at Ponary.
A resistance movement was formed in the ghetto. It was unable to launch an uprising, but some members were able to escape the ghetto and join partisan fighters in the forests.
Almost 400,000 Jews lived in Warsaw when the Germans occupied the city in September 1939.
The ghetto was sealed off in November 1940. The Jews were crowded into an area no larger than 840 acres. The average room held five to thirteen people.
Thousands of homeless lived on the streets. The daily allotment of food consisted of about 180 calories.
Survival was impossible without other means of obtaining food. Tens of thousands died from exposure, disease, starvation and random murders.
Deportations to the Treblinka death camp were carried out from July 21 to September 13, 1942. Five to thirteen thousand people were taken to their deaths each day.
Resistance groups, though, had acquired and manufactured weapons. On April 19, 1943, they repelled German forces that had arrived to resume the deportations. The resistance lasted for several weeks and was defeated only after the Germans burned the entire ghetto.
