German brutality: NAZI medical experiments at Auschwitz

The book Nazi Medicine: Doctors, Victims and Medicine in Auschwitz by Howard Fertig explores the role of medicine and those affected by it in the Auschwitz concentration camp. The book is divided up into three parts: the experiments, the doctor’s stories, and the camps after the end of the war.

A quick biography on Dr. Helmuth Vetter tells that he was born on February 21, 1910 in Rastenburg, Turingen. He was camp physician in Auschwitz and was also an agent of the “Bayer” firm from the Hochst-Leverkusen laboratories. While in Auschwitz he conducted experiments in block 20 [the contagious diseases ward] from 1942 - 1944. More specifically he conducted research on Preparation 3582, Ruthenol and Periston for experimental purposes regarding typhus, typhoid fever, paratyphoid diseases, diarrhea, tuberculosis of the lungs, erysipelas, and scarlet fever.

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This six-part BBC documentary series, aired Stateside on PBS stations, delves into the terrifying history of Auschwitz, the largest of the concentration camps created by the Nazis during World War II for implementation of the "Final Solution" -- the extermination of millions of Jews -- from 1940-45. Using archival footage, dramatic reenactments, and computer-generated imagery, the series recounts the ominous beginnings of Hitler's rise to power, the formation of his Third Reich, and the overwhelming hatred for specific groups of people that led to the eventual murder of over 6 million Jews during the Holocaust, as well as Gypsies, homosexuals, political prisoners, and the handicapped. Writer-producer Laurence Rees and his team interviewed more than 100 survivors and eyewitnesses, including former Nazi perpetrators who speak on record for the first time. Narrated by actress Linda Hunt, this exhaustive examination of Auschwitz also includes a series of six follow-up discussions with scholars and historians hosted by journalist Linda Ellerbee, and an interview with Rees.

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Brutal Second World War: NAZI BESTIALITY: Auschwitz (Oswiecim)

A REPORTER'S ACCOUNT WHEN HE WENT TO A DEATH CAMP (eyewitnesstohistory)

"It looked singularly harmless."

The Maidanek camp was established by the Nazis in 1941 soon after their conquest of the then Russian occupied region of Poland. The primary purpose of the facility was the speedy extermination of new arrivals (mostly Jews) transported in from various countries including Czechoslovakia, France, Austria, and Holland. The majority of victims, however, came from the immediate area. It is estimated that 1.5 million died at the camp during its three years of operation.

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Soviet troops entered the camp in July 1944. A week later, Alexander Werth joined a group of fellow reporters in a guided tour of the facility:

"My first reaction to Maidanek was a feeling of surprise. I had imagined something horrible and sinister beyond words. It was nothing like that. It looked singularly harmless from outside. 'Is that it?' was my first reaction when we stopped at what looked like a large workers' settlement. Behind us was the many towered skyline of Lublin. There was much dust on the road, and the grass as dull, greenish-grey colour. The camp was separated from the road by a couple of barbed-wire fences, but these did not look particularly sinister, and might have been put up outside any military or semi-military establishment. The place was large; like a whole town of barracks painted a pleasant soft green. There were many people around - soldiers and civilians. A Polish sentry opened the barbed-wire gate to let cars enter the central avenue, with large green barracks on either side. And we stopped outside a large barrack marked Bad und Desinfektion II. 'This,' somebody said, 'is where large numbers of those arriving at the camp were brought in.'

The inside of this barrack was made of concrete, and water taps came out of the wall, and around the room there were benches where the clothes were put down and afterwards collected. So this was the place into which they were driven. Or perhaps they were politely invited to 'Step this way, please?' Did any of them suspect, while washing themselves after a long journey, what would happen a few minutes later? Anyway, after the washing was over, they were asked to go into the next room; at this point even the most unsuspecting must have begun to wonder. For the "next room" was a series of large square concrete structures, each about one-quarter of the size the bath-house, and, unlike it, had no windows. The naked people (men one time, women another time, children the next) were driven or forced from the bath-house into these dark concrete boxes - about five yards square - and then, with 200 or 250 people packed into each box - and it was completely dark there, except for a small light in the ceiling and the spyhole in the door - the process of gassing began. First some hot air was pumped in from the ceiling and then the pretty pale-blue crystals of Cyclon were showered down on the people, and in the hot wet air they rapidly evaporated. In anything from two to ten minutes everybody was dead. . .

May 5, 1945
There were six concrete boxes - gas-chambers - side by side. 'Nearly two thousand people could be disposed of here simultaneously,' one of the guides said.

But what thoughts passed through these people's minds during those first few minutes while the crystals were falling; could anyone still believe that this humiliating process of being packed into a box and standing there naked, rubbing backs with other naked people, had anything to do with disinfection?

At first it was all very hard to take in, without an effort of the imagination. There were a number of very dull-looking concrete structures which, if their doors had been wider, might anywhere else have been mistaken for a row of nice little garages. But the doors - the doors! They were heavy steel doors, and each had a heavy steel bolt. And in the middle of the door was a spyhole, a circle, three inches in diameter composed of about a hundred small holes. Could the people in their death agony see the SS man's eye as he watched them? Anyway, the SS-man had nothing to fear: his eye was well protected by the steel netting over the spyhole...

...Then a touch of blue on the floor caught my eye. It was very faint, but still legible. In blue chalk someone had scribbled the word "vergast" and had drawn crudely above it a skull and crossbones. I had never seen this word before but it obviously meant" gassed" - and not merely "gassed" but: with, that eloquent little prefix ver, 'gassed out'. That's this job finished, and now for the next lot. The blue chalk came into motion when there was nothing but a heap of naked corpses inside. But what cries, what curses, what prayers perhaps, had been uttered inside that gas chamber only a few minutes before?..."

References:
Gutman, Israel (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Holocaust (1990); Werth, Alexander, Russia at War 1941-1945 (1964).

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Jews In Nazi Germany

SS Women Forced To Bury The Dead in Belsen by British soldiers

German Troops cut off a Jewish Mans Beard

Brutal Second World War: NAZI BESTIALITY: Buchenwald concentration camp

The "Walzkommando" in Ravensbrück: the punished women had to pull this roller until they died...

Found in the pathology block of Buchenwald: tattooed and tanned skin, two shrunken heads of russian POWs, a lampshade made of human skin...

A "souvenir" made by the SS: the shrunken head of a Russian POW...

Thousands of inmates, especially Soviet POWs, were murdered in the infirmary by lethal injections, whereas others were the victim of medical experiments, especially many who were contaminated by the typhus bacillus.

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NAZI BRUTALITY: Dachau concentration camp

In 1933-34, this was the view of the moat and barbwire secured concentration camp in Dachau, Germany, in Upper Bavaria. The buildings are the barracks where the inmates slept.

Inmates in Dachau line up. This photograph was on the cover of the Munchen Illustierte Press edition on July 16, 1933.

The barbed-wire fence and a moat in Dachau.

Prisoners with their mess kits on their way to the camp kitchen. Three times a day the prisoners walked with their mess-tin outside the inner camp to the kitchen for their meals.

A prisoner who has been subjected to low pressure experimentation. For the benefit of the Luftwaffe, air pressure was created comparable to that found at 15,000 meters in altitude, in an effort to determine how high German pilots could fly and survive.

A prisoner in a special chamber responds to changing air pressure during high-altitude experiments. For the benefit of the Luftwaffe, conditions simulating those found at 15,000 meters in altitude were created in an effort to determine if German pilots might survive at that height.

A column of prisoners on a forced march from Dachau concentration camp passing through villages in the direction of Wolfratshausen, late April 1945. German civilians secretly photographed several death marches from Dachau as the prisoners slowly moved through the Bavarian towns of Grünwald, Wolfratshausen, and Herbertshausen.

Prisoners on a death march from Dachau pass through a village in April 1945.

The death train in Dachau, April 30, 1945.

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Brutal Second World War: NAZI BRUTALITY: Buchenwald concentration camp

Registration of prisoners upon arrival at Buchenwald concentration camp.

Still in their civilian clothes, newly arrived prisoners, among whom is a clergyman, stand at roll call


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.

Prisoners from Buchenwald awaiting execution in the forest near the camp.

Bones of anti-Nazi German women are visible in the crematoria in the concentration camp at Weimar, Germany, April 14, 1945.

Crematoria ovens in Buchenwald concentration camp.

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

An American soldier sorts through crates of silverware taken from prisoners in Buchenwald. The crates were hidden in a nearby cave along with other boxes of confiscated belongings.

Uprising at the Warsaw Ghetto during WW 2. April 1943

SS assault troops capture two Jewish resistance fighters pulled from a bunker during the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The original German caption reads alternately: "Pulled from a bunker" or "Bandits."

THE WARSAW GHETTO UPRISING 1943

The Warsaw insurgency started in January, 1943 with sporadic fighting by barely armed Jews. By the end of January the Ghetto was actually controlled by two armed Jewish organizations, one led by Mordechai Anielewicz, of Hashomer Hatzair, and Zivia Lubetkin (who survived the uprising) and the other led by Dawid Mordechaj Apfelbaum, a former officer in the Polish army. As Passover began on April 19th, Himmler's birthday present to Hitler also began, with thousands of German, Polish and Ukrainian forces attacking the Ghetto in force. The Nazis moved in at 4 a.m. spreading throughout the Ghetto. They occupied the entire Ghetto within 4 hours, believing that their extermination of the Jews could begin with ease. One can imagine their anticipation of a massacre of helpless Jews. Then, at the intersection of Mila and Zamenhofa Streets, the insurgents struck with a single captured machine gun, ample small arms fire, and many Molotov cocktails. The Germans were completely routed by the Jewish insurgents by 2 P.M., providing Hitler with a major embarrassment for his birthday.

The next day the German, Polish and Ukrainian forces moved in again and took part of the Ghetto, taking their revenge on those left behind in the Jewish hospital. I guess if they can't beat armed insurgents, they needed to make themselves feel manly by murdering infirm hospital patients. Shows how cowardly Nazis are.

The Jews counter attacked and drove the Nazis back once again. The next day the German general decidded to set fire to the Ghetto in an attempt to burn the problem. But the uprising continued, though more as a guerilla war rather than the pitched battles of the first two days of Passover. Mordechai Anielewicz was killed by a German assault on May 8. On May 16th the Germans declared victory over the now completely destroyed Ghetto. But attacks and assassinations continued as the Jews refused to give up. Fighters continued to exchange gunfire with Germans all the way into September. In October the rubble of the Ghetto was removed, leaving nothing behind.

But even after that, Jewish survivors of the 1943 Warsaw uprising, including Zivia Lubetkin, participated in the wider, predominantly Polish uprising in August 1944.

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The bodies of Jewish resisters lie in front of the ruins of a building where they were were shot by the SS during the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The original German caption reads: "Bandits killed in battle."

THE UPRISING IN BRIEF

On April 19, 1943 the Nazis decided to wipe out the ghetto completely.

The move sparked an uprising by hundreds of young Jews who decided to fight rather than face near-certain death in the Nazis "Final Solution".

The revolt lasted for almost a month, as 3,000 Nazi troops battled the insurgents and burned down the ghetto.

The Nazis marked their "victory over the Jews" by blowing up Warsaw's main synagogue on May 16.

Around 7,000 Jews died in the revolt, most of them burned alive, and more than 50,000 were deported to the death camps.

Estimated Nazi losses were 300, dead and injured combined.

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A German gun crew in action during the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

HOW THE BBC REPORTED IT

1943: Germans crush Jewish uprising

All resistance in the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw has ended after 28 days of fighting.

In his operational report, the local SS commander, Brigadier Juergen Stroop, said the uprising began on 19 April when SS, police and Wehrmacht units using tanks and other armoured vehicles entered the ghetto to take Jews to the railway station for transportation to concentration camps.

They were repelled by Jews using homemade explosives, rifles, small arms and "in one case a light machine-gun".

He said his troops were involved in pitched battles day and night with groups of about 20 or 30 Jews - both men and women.

"On April 23 Himmler issued his order to complete the combing out of the Warsaw ghetto with the greatest severity and relentless tenacity. I therefore decided to destroy the entire Jewish residential area by setting every block on fire."

The last battle ended with the destruction of the Great Synagogue today.

Jewish leaders had sent their own reports of the situation during the fighting.

On 28 April the Central Committee of Jewish Labour and the Jewish National Committee in Poland sent a desperate message to the National Council of Poland in London.

It said the SS and German Army have laid siege to the ghetto, attacking the 40,000 remaining Jews with artillery, flame-throwers, high explosive and incendiary bombs.

They have also planted mines in buildings known to harbouring Jewish fighters, while German guards block large drain pipes that have served as escape routes.

"The ghetto is burning," read the message, "and smoke covers the whole city of Warsaw.

"Men, women and children who are not burnt alive are murdered en masse." It said the Jews managed to kill or wound about 1,000 of the enemy and burned down factories and warehouses.

There was an appeal for an immediate response from the Allies. "It is imperative that the powerful retaliation of the United Nations shall fall upon the bloodthirsty enemy immediately and not in some distant future, in a way which will make it quite clear what the retaliation is for."

A second message sent on 11 May said the resistance was nearly over.

Jews captured during the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising are led by the SS to the Umschlagplatz for deportation. The original German caption reads alternately: "To the Umschlagplatz" or "Deportation of Jews."

AN PERSONAL ACCOUNT

 The endgame of the Nazi soldiers in Warsaw was brutally clear: "By 1945, there will not be one Jew left in Europe." Yet, as the residents of the city's Jewish Ghetto began their desperate, doomed 27-day uprising against systematic slaugher, one young woman hiding in a lice-infested, bomb-blasted bunker bagan to record a diary of the last days.

The fate of the woman, thought to have been in her late teens or early twenties, remains unknown. This is her account.

Day 6

Saturday, April 24, 1943

Quiet until 12 o'clock. "Alert", the Germans are inside our house. It went peacefully. We continue sleeping. Our daily schedule is backwards. We sleep during the day, and cook and eat at night. We're in an air-raid shelter. A deep silence prevails within. It's 8 o'clock. Steps are heard outside. Someone knocks on the judasz [camouflaged opening]. For several moments, there is enormous apprehension.

The people knocking are Mr Rosenheim and Miss Sonia, who warn us that the building is going up in flames. We open the tanks of water and pour it on the apartments above us. We look out the window and see how the ghetto is burning, enveloped in flames.

Day 8

Monday, April 26, 1943

The house on the Zamenhof Street side, where people were hiding, is also burning. People are escaping and coming to us. It looks like the disaster is drawing near. The shelter is crowded, and many more want to get in. They bang on the door. The people shout and argue. Everyone wants to get into the hiding place. It's hard to give permission to enter.

Because of the smoke and stench, staying in the basement becomes almost impossible. We seal cracks in the door with strips of paper.

I want to go to my brother, who is in another bunker in the second yard, but it's too far and too dangerous.

The air in the basement is terrible. People are nearly choking. Many faint, lose consciousness. The situation is dire. Sleep is not feasible because of the danger of choking.

Day 9

Tuesday, April 27, 1943

The people who came from other bunkers have no food. They quarrel a lot and make noise. The following decision was made: each day a bowl of soup and a cup of coffee will be distributed to each person. The portions will be distributed by the oldest, those who cook the food.

At 6am everyone lay down in the beds, if you can call them beds. A small boy was put into my bed. He was very restless, throwing himself around in his sleep, to the point that I had pains in my side but, thank God, the day passed quietly.

Suddenly, a bang, an uproar, terrible noise. A hand grenade exploded nearby. The people rise but a deep silence prevails. The enemy is surrounding our house, searching for us.

Day 10 (evening)

Wednesday, April 28, 1943

This is our 10th day in the bunker, 10 days of struggling with our blood-thirsty enemy who intends to annihilate us. [The enemy] started the fighting with grenades and tanks and is finishing it by torching houses. We must survive and hope that we will survive. We are fighting for justice and for the right to live.

Day 11

Thursday, April 29, 1943

It was a dangerous night. At 4pm, the enemy threw a grenade into our basement. The results were grave. A hole gaped in the front wall. They say that the enemy has buried a bomb. Our neighbour, Sowa, had the same kind of night. At his place, the hand grenade lifted the roof. Thank God, everything ended all right. Today was ordinary [normal]. The level of hygiene is "extremely high".

It won't be possible to exist for a long time in our basement. The air is terrible, lice and overcrowding dominate everything. What else can be done? To leave and risk our lives? Or perhaps die here?

Day 12

Friday, April 30, 1943

The day passed as usual. There was great apprehension during the night. The enemy is searching for us everywhere. Listening, knocking, circling around us. Our main defence – deepest silence.

Day 14 (morning)

Sunday, May 2, 1943

Our activities begin with cleaning the blood in front of our hiding place. The Germans found people who were living in our house and demanded that they reveal the entrances to the bunkers. Happily, these people knew nothing about it.

I am on guard duty. I have two hours ahead of me. I'll sketch the layout of our bunker, with all the entrances. The idea of building the bunker came up only after the action in January.

We always thought that we had to be well hidden. Even those with papers and authorisations [Ausweis] who appeared on the street during an action, were taken. Only those who hid remained. For this reason, the building of bunkers became common.

The work continued day and night with great fervour. Bunks, floors and stairs were made. A well was dug. The wood needed for building was taken from the [abandoned] apartments. The building continued for six weeks. During the construction, food stores were also prepared for the future. We paid for all this with our health and our nerves, but it's not worth elaborating on that.

To reach our bunker, a hidden aperture must be opened, and this is located in the left wall of the building. The dimensions of the aperture are 30cm x 45cm. After it is opened, you must descend to a depth of 90cm, pass through half a metre in a stooped position and descend several steps, and then you are in our hiding place.

Day 19

Friday, May 7, 1943

Five difficult and tragic days have passed. In this short time, we have had many experiences. Our living conditions were difficult from the moment we entered our hideaway and they became worse since we have taken in 45 people. Most of them had no food.

At midnight on Monday, the electricity was cut off. We are now faced with a serious problem: how will we cook? We do not have stoves connected to a chimney. The bunker leaders deliberated this problem for three days and, in the meantime, arguments broke out. Brother fought with sister, friend fought with friend and they all fought among themselves. Hunger skipped no one.

The quarrelling was so loud that the echoes were probably heard outside the bunker. The situation was terrible, and dangerous as well.

The emotional state of the people is dreadful. Some of them lie on the ground unconscious. The most vulnerable are the children. We have already been through three days without hot food.

In the end, the problem of the kitchen was solved. But it is preferable to avoid addressing someone in order to maintain the silence because every question brings offensive and coarse replies. The people in the bunker are behaving without courtesy and consideration.

The night was horrific. There was terrible irritability. I witnessed a shocking event when Jews were removed from the bunker in a neighbouring house.

During my night guard duty I lay next to the judasz and listened to conversations going on outside. The conversation between the Germans, full of irony and sadism, made my body go cold and my blood boil. Yes, the Germans are certain that they are justified. We are considered murderers and they want to present themselves as the epitome of morality and humanity. Descriptions of the blind hatred towards us, the persecuted and tortured, made me feel as though salt was being spread on my open wounds. Their words always ended with coarse laughter.

Wham! Boom! The enemy is shooting machine guns and throwing grenades into the bunker. The bunker is partially covered with an avalanche of rubble. The people inside are acting courageously. With complete serenity, they look death in the face.

In silence, we honour the death of the people who are burning in the flames. The Germans are shooting every Jew that they find or taking and burning the bodies on the bonfire in the community courtyard at 19 Zamenhof Street. Hitler's devotees, his dedicated servants and hangmen, who obey their leader's orders, execute everything in accordance with the order which states that in 1945 there will not be a single Jew left in Europe.

Today, silence reigned for a long time. We lay on the bunks until late in the evening after four days of hunger. Everyone was satisfied because we ate something and went to sleep in a better mood.

The appearance of these people, whose cheeks were already sunken, improved, their eyes brightened and a spark of life was once again discernible within them. Now everyone believes that he will be able to hold on.

Surprisingly, we have light again, the electricity is back. Maybe the sun will also shine for us. It's really about time. We are cut off from the entire world, helpless and relying only on our own powers. No one talks about rescue. We are extending our existence with great effort.

Our lives are extremely threatened now, the danger is constant. The living standard is very low. The people are half-naked, dressed in rags, running around morosely on the stone floor. They can't live and they can't die.

I am amazed that in such conditions we have succeeded in surviving for three weeks. We know very well what kind of action this is because they announced it in advance. This is the extermination of Warsaw Jewry and, afterwards, our end.

The Germans usually attacked us at night. Now they are expanding their attacks to the daytime as well. We must maintain absolute silence on our bunks so that the enemy will not discover us.

I am going out into the street. The streets – Mila, Zamenhof, Kurza, Nalewki, Lubecki – all are on fire. Workshops, apartments, stores, entire houses are burning. The ghetto is nothing more than a sea of flames.

A very strong wind is blowing, which fans the fire and carries the sparks from the burning houses to those that have not yet caught fire.

The fire destroys everything. The sight is horrifying, shocking. The fire spreads so quickly that people cannot escape from the buildings and they perish tragically.

People with bundles run from house to house, from street to street. There is no salvation; no one knows where to hide. They search in desperation but there is no deliverance, no refuge, death rules everything.

The walls of the ghetto are surrounded. No one goes out and no one comes in. Clothing is burning on people's bodies. Screams of pain, sobbing. Everyone wants to be saved, everyone tries to save his own life.

People are choking from the smoke. All are begging for help. Most of them, almost all of them, cry out to God: "God, show your power, have mercy on us." God is as silent as a Sphinx and does not answer. And you, the nations, why are you silent? Don't you see that they want to annihilate us? Why are you silent?

Despite the danger, Jews are running through the streets just to save their lives. Everything is engulfed in fire. It looks like the end of the world has come. "Save yourselves if you can!" The situation is horrifying, terrible. Everyone wants to be saved. Hell has come to earth. Dante's Inferno – it cannot be believed and it cannot be described.

A new day is beginning. With the new day, there is a deathly silence. People are in their corners without food or water. A cemetery in flames. The sound of metal falling and of burning walls collapsing is heard.

The ghetto is burning for the fourth day. All we see are chimneys standing and the frames of the houses that burned down. In the first moment, this spectacle arouses a shudder of horror: yes, this is the work of Hitler's vandals, who hope that the entire world will look this way. There is no doubt that they will not succeed in this.

In our thoughts, we return to the past. We've lost many things. The only thing left to us is our hiding place. Of course, it is not a safe place.

We live the day, the hour, the moment.

Source

A woman hangs from a balcony, preparing to drop to the street and the waiting SS.

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

SS troops wait at the end of a smoke-filled street for Jewish resistance fighters to exit apartment buildings set on fire on the fourth day of the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

A German gun crew prepares to shell the ruins of a building during the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Jews are found in a bunker during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in May 1943.

Nazis guard an opening in the ghetto wall with a machine gun during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 1943.

The April 28 edition of the Voice of Warsaw (a publication of the Warsaw Committee of the Polish Workers' Party) reported, "The SS thugs set ablaze entire blocks of flats in order to force the population to come out of hiding...the water, gas, and electric supplies were cut off...."

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

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

SS officers interrogate a captured resistance fighter during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which began on April 19, 1943, and ended on May 16, 1943. SS troops suppressed the uprising under the command of General Jürgen Stroop.

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NAZI BRUTALITY: Warsaw ghettos of Jews before they were sent to be exterminated

Members of the Nazi occupation authorities gather outside a wall dividing the ghetto from the rest of Warsaw. Joseph Goebbels called the ghettos "death boxes."

LIFE IN THE GHETTO: A PERSONAL ACCOUNT

The hunger in the ghetto was so great, was so bad, that people were laying on the streets and dying, little children went around begging, and, uh, everyday you walked out in the morning, you see somebody is laying dead, covered with newspapers or with any kind of blanket they found, and you found...those people used to carry the dead people in little wagons, used to bring them down to the cemetery and bury them in mass graves. And every day thousands and thousands died just from malnutrition because the Germans didn't give anything for the people in the ghetto to eat. There was no such thing. You can't walk in and buy anything, or getting any rations. It's your hard luck. If you don't have it, you die, and that's what it was.

Jews led through the streets by German police in Krakowskie Przedmiescie, Warsaw, Poland in the early 1940s.

STARVATION IN THE GHETTO: PERSONAL ACCOUNT

We came to live in the ghetto in, in October 1940. By, by March my father was dead, starved to death, literally. Because, uh, once he was cut off from the ghetto, he was cut off from his clientele and from his, from his subsistence, you know, he, and a terrible hunger was in my father's house because sometimes I was running from the kibbutz to see how my father is doing. And it was a sight which I will never forget. And I run to see my grandmother, whom I loved because she was the substitute of my mother, you know. And Randy, what can I tell you? These sights of my father and of my grandmother dying from starvation, in terrible hygienic conditions, is a picture which haunts me till this very day, you know. And this is over half a century ago, and it torments me in terrible nightmares to this very day.

Two Jewish police in Wegrów, a part of the Warsaw Province.

Leah Hammerstein Silverstein
Describes lack of burial of the corpses of people who died in the Warsaw ghetto

At that time you still could have a burial if you paid to the, to the, uh, Judenrat, to the Jewish council, about 15 zlotys, they would bring a hearse and, and carry away the dead person. But we didn't have the money. So, what people, poor people, used to do is to put the cadaver out in front of the house, and then there were special wagons who came and picked up all those dead people and brought them to the cemetery on Gesia Street. So, the next day I ran to that cemetery hoping to find my father there. And what I saw is, it was, you know, a terrible nightmare. For the first time in my life I saw a pile of dead bodies, you know, like two stories high. Because the, the, the amount of dead people was so enormous and growing from day to day that the, the gravediggers couldn't keep up with the pace of the, of the dead, you know, of the amount of people who were pouring into that cemetery. So they collected them, you know, piles, one upon the other, you know. And, and all these corpses, you know, their limbs intertwisted between, you know, with open mouths, and I was a young girl, and the stench from that pile of human, uh, corpses was so terrible. It's a sweetish smell, you know. I, I don't have the, the words to describe it, but, it was, you know, hell was, even the word hell is not a word to describe it, you know. So I couldn't find him on that pile, you know. I just couldn't make it, and I went back to the kibbutz.

Source: ushmm.org

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.

Raszka (Roza) Galek Brunswic
Describes a roundup in the Warsaw ghetto and her escape from deportation

Before the ghetto was set afire it started to become real bad. People were murdered. People were just taken out for no reason at all and just killed, especially children were just thrown against the wall...just killed. Well, at one point they rounded us up all and they had lines..."you stay here, you stay here, you stay there." At that time we were already...the people started to get separated from their families. If somebody looked well to them enough to be transported to work--which I thought was work--was in one line. People that were sickly looking or meekly looking, they went another line. Elderly parents were in another line. The people that looked too sick to them, they just took care of them right away. Like my parents were, at that time, really very bad looking, and they just shot them right then and there. And not only my parents but a lot of them. I was in the line and I tried to run out to help but I was pushed back. You couldn't do anything. My sisters were younger than I. They took them to...to a younger line. I was in the older line. However, somehow I got out of that line and I, I tried to hide. I got out of that line and I was able to, to get to a hiding place which I hide...I hid. That's how I got out.

Jews stand in line with what few possessions they can carry during their relocation to the Warsaw ghetto in late 1940. They will be searched by the German police before entry into the ghetto.

Vladka (Fagele) Peltel Meed
Describes her reaction to the burning of the Warsaw ghetto as she watched from a building outside the ghetto

While being there at night, I saw the flames of the ghetto. And I saw also certain pictures which were seared in my mind. Some Jews running from one place to the other and also seeing some Jews jumping from buildings, but I was observing this from a window and I couldn't do anything. And then flames burst into the ghetto. The Germans couldn't take over the streets, they start putting block after block on fire. They start burning the ghettos...the buildings, and this was the uprising which we...the small group on the Aryan side, we tried to get through. We tried to communicate. We decided even to go into the into the ghetto to be with them but it was, everything was in vain. We didn't have any communication. We saw only tanks coming in, tanks going out, or some ambulances going in and we're listening to the shooting and in that time it was...they...we have to let the outside know what is going on.

Warsaw ghetto. Boundary wall on Elektoralna Street.