What were the conditions of Jewish ghettos in World War 2?

Answer 1

The ghettos were small districts within a city in which Hitler packed all the Jews so that he knew where they were and could easily cart them off to the death-camps. They were given very little food and many people died. The biggest one was in Warsaw, Poland, which the Nazis burned completely, killing at least 100,000 Jews, after having deported tens of thousands to the death-camps.

The following explains concentration camps, rather than ghettos.

Discrimination against Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, the disabled, and other minority groups began in 1933 when the Nazis under Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany and it was in 1933 that the first concentration camps in Germany were opened. However, the deportations and roundups did not really begin in large scale until after Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass), a night of riots in 1938 when many Jews were murdered, their businesses destroyed, and synagogues burned. After that time mostly Jews, but also Gypsies and other groups who were not Aryan, as well as political prisoners and people who spoke out against the government, were rounded up and moved into ghettos or taken directly to concentration camps. There were many mass executions, and as the Nazis took over more and more of Europe, their ideology and violence spread with them. Soon there were tens of concentration camps and ghettos in Poland, Austria, Chechoslovakia, and many other places. In 1942 the mass killings at the death camps and concentration camps began. Prisoners were gassed, shot, starved, and worked to death. Those still living were forced to bury the dead in mass graves, or help to work the huge ovens which turned the dead bodies into ash. Many also died of diseases and malnutrition. Prisoners were also forced on death marches towards the end of the war as the Allies approached. By 1945 when World War II ended, 6 million Jews (two out of every three living in what had become Nazi-controlled territory during the war) had been systematically murdered.

Answer 2

Obviously there were variations over the different seasons, and variations over location and size, the amount of work available and the percentage of houses with running water and sewerage. Also variations over time, the later it was, the more malnourished the people were and the more likely they were to suffer from illness or infection.