Population Density in Holocaust Ghettos

Ghettos

During the Nazi occupation of Poland, 255,000 Jews were forced to live in a ghetto in Lódz, Poland. By the end of 1941, the 4.3 square kilometer ghetto was occupied by an average of 3.5 people per room.

By October of 1940, Nazis had confined nearly 400,000 Jews in a 9.06 square kilometer area of Warsaw which normally housed about 160,000. The area was surrounded by a wall 10 feet high and was sealed off on November 15, 1940. Jews were forbidden to go outside the area on penalty of being shot on sight. No contact with the outside world was allowed.

Let's compare those numbers to how we live in Saskatchewan and Saskatoon:

 Saskatchewan

• Population:  1 053 960
• Area: 588 276 square kilometres

Saskatoon

• Population: 257 300
• Area: 144 sq. kilometers

Fairhaven School

• Population: 405
• Area: 3688 sq. meters

Complete the following sheet: Population Density: Ghettos in Poland


What problems would arise in the crowded ghettos due to such a high population denisty?

• starvation
• disease
• uprising

Activities

• After reading Smoke and Ashes: The Story of the Holocaust by Barbara Rogasky, write a poem or a journal entry about the life of a young child living in the ghettos.  Think about ideas from the reading like, "The countless children, whose parents had persihed, sitting in the streets.  Their bodies bodies are frightfully thin, the bones stick out of a yellow skin that looks like parchment....They crawl on all fours, groaning..."
• Also, make a chorcoal drawing to represent your poem or journal entry.  Here are some examples of drawings from the ghettos.