JWST 240 Chapter Notes - Chapter reading: Warsaw Ghetto, Polish Red Cross
Document Summary
The building of the warsaw ghetto took the better part of 1940. The jewish quarter was marked off as a quarantine area by barbed wire and fences. By september, a 8 foot high wall began to take shape around the jewish quarter. The ghetto originally contained 1,500 buildings in an area of about 100 square city blocks or 1,000 acres. On october 1940, 80,000 christians living in the quarantine area were given two weeks to move out and their homes were taken by 140,000 jews living outside the area. People feared to be cut off from the sources of their old occupations, about half of the warsaw jewry were handicraftsmen, a fourth engaged in commerce and another fourth were professionals and five percent were industrial workers. Their hope was that the ghetto would be open and that the residents would be able to freely come and go to other sections of the city.
