Created by Ilan Clemens; Cass Myler, Colter Martin, & Will Cook
Introduction
In our project about the ghettos, we didn’t just want to talk about the ghettos, but how they came to be and what their effect was on the Jewish people and how they tied into WWII.
Video Script
Before the Holocaust, Jews were integrated into German society. Kids went to the same schools, and people were paid fairly in the same jobs. Adolf Hitler became the chancellor of Germany in 1933, and implemented the Nuremberg laws. These laws discriminated against German Jews, “legally”, which began establishing the framework that eventually led to the Holocaust. After the Nuremberg laws and the rebuilding of the German military, Hitler and the Nazi party decided to invade Poland on September 1st, 1939 to gain the land that they lost in the Treaty of Versailles. He had a nefarious idea to exterminate all of the Jewish people from Europe. He displayed a thought that they were to blame for losing the war extremely charismatically, and didn’t want them to have kids that were Jewish too. Hitler demonstrated that the Jews were the inferior race in his speeches with the people’s near full support.
One way he tried to exterminate the Jews was by segregating them into Ghettos. The term ghetto originated in the Jewish quarter of Venice Italy, where the police forced the Jewish people to this certain quarter of Venice in 1516. These ghettos, and ghettos around Europe, were examples of what the Nazis wanted to do with the Jews. Hitler established many ghettos, there were ghettos in Warsaw, Łódz, Krakow, Bialystok, Loc Lublin Villa, and Kovno. The Nazis wanted to know who was Jewish and who was not, so they forced the Jewish to wear armbands. The Jews had to wear the armbands even before the ghettos, due to one of the Nuremberg laws. The Jews had to be identified before they could systematically be separated from the whole population. The Nazis established 1,143 Ghettos in occupied territories, and there were three types of ghettos: closed, open, and destruction ghettos. The Nazis established the first ghetto in October 1939 in Piotrków Trybunalski, and they forbade any religious services, so the Jews had to hide in cellars and attics to pray. Inside the ghettos, Jewish people were forced into them; and they did not choose to go. They did manual labor and they had little to no food, they got so little food it forced them to smuggle it into the ghetto. They were also not given medicine so they were forced to smuggle that as well. There were also many examples of antisemitism in the ghettos. Kovno, Lithuania was a flamboyant center of Jewish life before World War II, with a rich cultural heritage. The German invasion in 1941 resulted in violence against Jews, including mass killings and the establishment of the Kovno ghetto.
The Holocaust had also captured over 200,000 Jews into the Ghettos under the pretexts of the Nazis. The Ghettos had many forced into manual labor such as building their own schools, digging their own graves, and a plethora of horrific human atrocities. Throughout the Ghettos depriving atrocities during the Holocaust, there were many forced torturous, sadistic, and disturbing ways to die in the Ghettos, and in vastly different ways. Amongst these deaths, many were of starvation, disease, shooting, and the deportation of some to concentration camps. These camps were under the rule of the German political and police authorities. The Nazis primarily had a goal of preventing a new generation of Jews in Europe, which was fueled even more by the authoritarian power the Nazis had throughout the 1930s-1940s. Someone who had experienced these extreme times was Herman Cohn, who survived the Holocaust and suffered significantly as a Jewish survivor, one of few. Herman faced discrimination, and fear, and most likely witnessed violent human rights violations against himself and others. Cohn endured this discord and the hardships that the Holocaust brought like forced labor, hunger, and abuse in concentration camps.
Throughout life in the Ghettos, a thin sense of normalcy was brought despite the atrocious conditions. The local government, under German supervision, attempted to make life productive with workshops and factories. The Jewish council, set up by the Germans, helped with housing, transportation, and cultural activities. Even with hunger, crowding, and sickness, people found ways to keep going, such as having secret schools and enjoying performances, especially music. Leaders such as Jacob Gens, and Dr. Elchanan Elkes, guided the community in the Kovno ghetto. The orchestra, led by Yaakov Gershteyn, brought amongst the many hardships, whilst people like George Kadish took pictures to capture moments of happiness.
Violence was always an imminent threat, as shown by a terrible massacre when the Germans invaded. Germany, 1940, the Soviet Union had begun the occupation of Lithuania, which began disruption amongst the Jewish community in the Kovno ghetto. In June 1941, the Germans invaded Kovno and the Lithuanians helped carry out the mass killings of the Jews in the ghetto. The Lithuanians were eager to help the Nazis because of the longstanding antisemitism in Lithuania. In July/August 1941, the establishment of the Kovno Ghetto under the Germans had begun. This was the life of many throughout the Holocaust, which had all been led to an eventual collapse by outside forces; the allied powers consisting of the Soviet Union, Britain, and the U.S.
It is 1942, and 55,000 Jews have been murdered from January to May. Germany was slowly losing the war, so they decided to make life a lot harsher for the people living in the ghettos. They imposed a 5-12 curfew in September of 1942 and also gave them less food. The Nazis moved many people -20,000- inmates, children, sick, and elderly were sent to the Chelmno concentration camp. The theater in the Łódź ghetto was closed in the summer of 1942 to be a factory for blankets and pillows. Even though the shows were causing no harm, the Nazis still shut it down to gain more resources. In October 1941, “Great Action” resulted in the massacre of thousands of ghetto inhabitants. Learning about Herman Cohn’s experiences helps us understand the human side of history and the importance of empathy. Testimonial His testimony provides valuable firsthand information that helps us learn from the past and prevent similar tragedies in the future. Herman Cohn’s testimony gives us a personal view of the Holocaust, helping us understand its impact on individual lives.
1941 was one of the worst years in the Holocaust, because the Germans knew that they had little time left to exterminate the Jews, so the Nazis implemented the “Final Solution” at the end of 1941 led the Nazis to destroy these ghettos. The Łódź ghetto was set to be liquidated in 1944 and was completed in the summer. The Nazis made eight mass graves for all of the people in the Łódź ghetto.
Some ghettos even turned into concentration camps, like the Kovno ghetto. In the autumn of 1943, the Kovno ghetto was converted into the Karen concentration camp. On July 8, 1944, the Germans evacuated the camp, deporting the remaining Jews to concentration camps. On August 1, 1944, Kovno was liberated by the Soviet army. Despite these horrors, the Jewish community documented their plight and engaged in resistance efforts. The Holocaust deeply affected Herman Cohn, leaving emotional scars that lasted his whole life. His words show how much pain and suffering he endured and the importance of never forgetting what happened. Cohn’s determination to share his story reflects his commitment to keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive. His quotes emphasize the need to remember so that history doesn’t repeat itself. After the Holocaust, Herman had to rebuild his life while coping with the trauma and loss of loved ones.“I learned from the Holocaust that people can be very cruel, but also very kind.”
Now, once World War II reached its resolution, the survivors who emerged from the ghettos, including Herman Cohn, carried stories of unspeakable suffering and resilience that served as a great testimony to the lack thereof which characterized the Holocaust. Their testimonies show the depths of human endurance during the harshest conditions imaginable, the Ghettos were not only physical torture, but also psychological and moral war grounds where the people living in the ghettos fought for their survival against persecution and violence. Through Cohn’s testimony, and those of many others, we can see the horror of the Holocaust not as a historical event, but as a scary reminder of the consequences of hatred. Their voices make us stare in the face of the darkest human behavior rather than facades of demeanor whilst also demonstrating how the human spirit prevails in the face of adversity. The suffering the Nazis had put the Jews through in the Ghettos all led to extreme PTSD and had been a time that fueled normalized discrimination and repression of Jews.
The remembrance of the Ghettos is not only our own act of preserving the past but also a solemn commitment to honor the memory of the millions of people who perished and fell. Those who had died because of the discrimination and oppression of the Nazis, since they had been slaughtered, we make sure that such atrocities will never happen in the future because of what this history has shown us. This also reinforces our responsibility to sustain the values of compassion and justice for all rather than negative past historical events..
Bibliography & Resources
IWitness | IWitness – Education Through Genocide Testimony. iwitness.usc.edu/watch?searching=false&theme=21&clip=248&entry=0_s8ysznq7.
Ghettos. encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/ghettos.
Music of the Holocaust: Vilna Ghetto. www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/music/vilna-ghetto.asp.
IWitness | IWitness – Education Through Genocide Testimony. iwitness.usc.edu/testimony/31815?search=Holocaust%20Ghettos&category=testimonies&from=%2Fsearch.
—. iwitness.usc.edu/watch?searching=true&theme=35&clip=868&entry=0_ts2kx3r9&search=Ghettos.
Lodz Ghetto | Heartstrings. Music of the Holocaust. www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/music/lodz-ghetto.asp.
Kovno: Historical Background During the Holocaust. www.yadvashem.org/righteous/stories/kovno.html.
Ghettos – Photograph. encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/gallery/ghettos-photographs?parent=en%2F286.
Lodz Ghetto | Heartstrings. Music of the Holocaust. www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/music/lodz-ghetto.asp.
Kovno Ghetto and Lithuania | Music of the Holocaust. www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/music/kovno-ghetto-and-lithuania.asp.
Case Study: Theresienstadt Ghetto – the Holocaust Explained: Designed for Schools. 5 Mar. 1933, www.theholocaustexplained.org/the-camps/theresienstadt-a-case-study.
“Life in the Ghetto.” Copyright 2024, www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/life-in-the-ghetto.
The Associated Press. “A Firefighter’s 1943 Photos of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Have Been Found.” NPR, 21 Jan. 2023, www.npr.org/2023/01/21/1150586336/warsaw-ghetto-uprising-1943-photos-found.
Chmielewski, Kenny. “Warsaw Ghetto | Statistics, Holocaust, Map, and Uprising.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 1 Mar. 2024, www.britannica.com/place/Warsaw-Ghetto.
Kevindupuy. “Nazi Germany and the Establishment of Ghettos.” The National WWII Museum | New Orleans, 18 Oct. 2023, www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/nazi-germany-and-establishment-ghettos.
—. “Nazi Germany and the Establishment of Ghettos.” The National WWII Museum | New Orleans, 18 Oct. 2023, www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/nazi-germany-and-establishment-ghettos.
Ghettos in Poland. encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/ghettos-in-poland.
SRO, Nux. “The Łódź Ghetto | Holocaust.” 2013-2024, www.holocaust.cz/en/history/concentration-camps-and-ghettos/the-lodz-ghetto.
Artifact Statement
World War ll Ghetto
This is our model of a German World War ll Ghetto. To begin, we decided to use wood as our base because it is sturdy and can withstand a good amount of weight. We also added barbed wire, which was used in the actual Ghettos, but also used it to symbolize how the Jews were trapped. We then used cut popsicle sticks and wood to create the stage or auditorium in the corner, which symbolizes the Jewish music and music groups that played in some of the Ghettos. Also there is a small stand between the houses which is where the people living in the Ghetto would get their food from. Next, we used cardboard to build the houses and cut out windows and doors. Following this, we purchased trucks that looked like the gas trucks that were used to harm the young Jewish children.
As you may know, many of the pictures from World War II are black and white photos, which is why it was hard for us to decide what colors we would use. We chose to add brownish-black to represent the brick buildings and black to represent the walls. The Ghettos were also very dark and dingy which was represented in our color choice. We used a string of tiny lights to illuminate our design a bit, but we also kept it relatively dark to symbolize the dark times. Additionally we used a larger spotlight to symbolize the setting sun.
Over the course of building this model of a German World War ll Ghetto, we faced a few hard decisions. One of them was whether or not we would build a model of a Ghetto or just create a poster with quotes to symbolize our topic. As you can see, we decided to create a model, which, as a group, we thought was the best idea. We also faced the hard decision of creating a large model or a small one. While it was much more difficult to create this one, we believe that it looks much better than the small one would have. The way that we made these decisions was by collaborating and then talking to teachers to find out what their opinions were.
We hope you like our artifact on the Ghettos of WWII.
Explore our Gallery of Images
Personal Reflections
The Ghettoes of My Eye
~Cass Myler, Class of 2025
“After Auschwitz, the human condition is not the same, nothing will be the same. Here heaven and earth are on fire.”
~Elie Wisel
Subtitle
I was the group leader of the project. At the beginning of our Holocaust project on the ghettos, I was in charge. I ended up burning out at the end, and I let the rest of my group finish up the documentary and the artifact. I really tried to keep the group on task, and I did a pretty good job of it. Our research was very good, and we had a ton of facts, which made the documentary easy. The major theme of my experience was resilience, because this project was very hard for me. I tried to take too much charge and ended up being very stressed by the end because our project was finished at the last minute. I had to be resilient and know that the project was going to end well, and I put a lot of faith in my group.
At the beginning of the project, I took charge like I normally do and made sure that people were doing their part in researching the ghettos. I worked efficiently and got my research done in a day or two, which was great because I had some big ski races that weekend. I also spent a lot of time making sure that my group members did well as well. We ended up having more facts than we needed to write the script, given that our documentary was 11 minutes long. I didn’t get to see much of what Will and Colter did, but they finished a great artifact, so they must have worked productively. At the end of the project, we were scrambling to finish. Ilan made our documentary look very nice, with a lot of moving pictures to draw the audience’s attention. These proved to take him a lot of time to finish, and he wasn’t even done on Thursday morning before we presented. However, he got it done, and it turned out amazing. One area for improvement is time management. We were a little behind and didn’t finish our script until other groups finished recording. If I did this project again, I would be more on top of writing the script so we had more time to record, mess up, and eventually finish a documentary with time to spare.
This project has done a lot for me, including teaching me more about the horrible things that happened during the Holocaust. It also made me learn how to work in a group with a different person, not just myself. A third thing that I’ve learned is time management and how to manage time effectively because our documentary was finished at the last minute, and I wish we had more time to spare. Grow as a person by letting me learn a new thing that I didn’t know a lot about before. It was really hard for me in the sense that there was a lot to do in a pretty short amount of time. As I said, we were scrambling until the last minute, and that just shows that we needed to manage our time more effectively. Maybe start the documentary script earlier. Something that was interesting was the scheme of people smuggling food into the ghetto. It was very cool the way that they did it, climbing through sewer pipes and running over interconnecting buildings to give people food from outside of the ghetto.
These people were true heroes of the ghetto because they didn’t have to smuggle people for the ghetto, but they did it anyway. Help me grow as a researcher, writer, and creator was how to actually finish this project without all the guidelines and guidance from the teachers. I would not have been able to do this; however, I wish that we had more areas to record because I needed more time to record my parts, and I think Ilan needed the same. In conclusion, this was a really cool project, and I learned a lot more about a topic that I didn’t know so much about.
This was exciting, nerve-racking, and filled with sorrow, but I am happy that the project was so fun.
Preserving Memory
~Colter Martin, Class of 2025
Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere.
~Elie Wiesel, Night
Forever Remembered
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Title
~Colter Martin, Class of 2025
Cool quote here
Authors Name
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Name John Doe, Class of 2025 H4
Cool quote here
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