In the early modern era, many European Jews were confined to ghettos and placed under strict regulations as well as restrictions in many European cities.GHETTO Kim Pearson The character of ghettos fluctuated over the centuries. In some cases, they comprised a Jewish quarter, the area of a city traditionally inhabited by Jews. In many instances, ghettos were places of terrible poverty and—especially during periods of rapid population growth—ghettos had small, crowded houses cramped along narrow streets. Residents had their own justice system.

In the 19th century, with the coming of Jewish emancipation, Jewish ghettos were progressively abolished, and their walls taken down. However, in the course of World War II, Nazi Germany created a totally new Jewish ghetto system for the purpose of identification, exploitation, persecution, deportation (often to concentration camps) and terrorization of Jews, mostly in Eastern Europe. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum archives, the Nazis "established at least 1,000 ghettos in German-occupied and annexed Poland and the Soviet Union alone."Types of Ghettos. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C.

Origin The ghetto system began in Renaissance Italy in July 1555 with Pope Paul IV's issuing of the bull Cum nimis absurdum. This change in papal policy implemented a series of restrictions on Jewish life that dramatically reshaped their place in society. Among these restrictions were the requirement that Jews identify themselves by wearing a yellow badge, limitations on the ownership of property, restrictions in commerce, and tighter regulation of banking. However, the most visible of these restrictions was the requirement that Jews reside in sectioned off, sanctioned neighborhoods known as ghettos. The formation of the ghetto system also brought about changes to Jewish economic activity.

As a result of the Cum nimis absurdum regulations and the increasing complexity of the early modern economy, the role of Jews as money lenders became more difficult and less profitable. This, as well as the fact that ghettos were often located near town commercial centers, drove Jews away from money lending and towards the role of second-hand merchants. In this role, Jews were forbidden from selling anything considered vital to life such as food or other high value commodities, so they gravitated toward predatory practices, such as reselling secondhand goods through pawn shops.

Some scholars, however, have argued that this shift in papal policy inadvertently ended up improving some aspects of the Jewish experience relative to the prior medieval period. Jewish historian Robert Bonfil has argued that the formation of ghettos acted as a sort of middle ground between acceptance and expulsion by the Christian authorities. Following the formation of the ghetto system, there was a sharp decline in anti-Semitic incidents (such as pogroms, forced expulsions, and accusations of ritual murder); these had been more common during the medieval period.

World War II and the Holocaust

During World War II, the new category of Nazi ghettos was formed by the Third Reich in order to confine Jews into tightly packed areas of the cities of Eastern and Central Europe. They served as staging points to begin dividing "able workers" from those who would later be deemed unworthy of life. In many cases, the Nazi-era ghettos did not correspond to historic Jewish quarters. For example, the Kraków Ghetto was formally established in the Podgórze district, not in the Jewish district of Kazimierz. As a result, the displaced ethnic Polish families were forced to take up residences outside.An article about the Kraków Ghetto in English with photosAbout Kraków Ghetto in Polish with valuable historical photosSchindler's Krakow - modern-day photographsJewishKrakow.net - A page on the Krakow Ghetto complete with contemporary picture gallery

In 1942, the Nazis began Operation Reinhard, the systematic deportation to extermination camps during the Holocaust. The authorities deported Jews from everywhere in Europe to the ghettos of the East, or directly to the extermination camps designed and operated in Poland by Nazi Germans. There were no Polish guards at any of the camps,Robert D. Cherry, Annamaria Orla-Bukowska, Rethinking Poles and Jews: Troubled Past, Brighter Future, Rowman & Littlefield 2007, Accessed April 3, 2012. despite the sometimes used misnomer Polish death camps.Richard C. Lukas, Out of the Inferno: Poles Remember the Holocaust University Press of Kentucky 1989 - 201 pages. Page 13; also in Richard C. Lukas, The Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles Under German Occupation, 1939-1944, University Press of Kentucky 1986 - 300 pages.

By country Austria During World War II, an open type ghetto holding over 65,000 Jews was set up in the district of Leopoldstadt, Vienna. Most were deported to concentration camps and death factories, only 2,000 survived.

Soviet Belarus

Following the Nazi German Operation Barbarossa of 1941, the ghettos were set up first in the prewar Polish cities within the territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union during the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939 (in accordance with Nazi-Soviet Pact). They included: Brześć Ghetto, occupied Poland, holding 18,000 Jews, modern Brest, Belarus Łachwa Ghetto, occupied Poland, holding 2,350 Jews, modern Lakhva, Belarus Pińsk Ghetto, occupied Poland, holding 26,000 Jews, modern Pinsk, Belarus Słonim Ghetto, occupied Poland, holding 22,000–25,000 Jews, modern Slonim, Belarus Zdzięcioł Ghetto, occupied Poland, holding over 4,500 Jews, the site of the Dzyatlava massacre, modern Dzyatlava, Belarus

The Nazi ghettos set up in Soviet Belarus within the borders of the Soviet Union from before the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland existed in almost all larger cities; which comprise the territories of East Belarus since the Revolutions of 1989. They included: Minsk Ghetto in Minsk, today's capital of the Republic of Belarus, holding 100,000 Jews Bobruisk Ghetto Babruysk holding 25,000 Jews Vitebsk Ghetto Vitebsk holding 20,000 Jews Mogilev Ghetto Mogilev holding 12,000 Jews Gomel Ghetto in Gomel holding over 10,000 Jews; in Gomel Region alone, twenty ghettos were established in which no less than 21,000 people were imprisoned. Slutsk Ghetto Slutsk holding 10,000 Jews Borisov Ghetto Barysaw holding 8,000 Jews Polotsk Ghetto Polotsk holding 8,000 Jews.

Croatia Dubrovnik Established in 1546 by the former Republic of Ragusa.

Split Established in 1738 by the former Republic of Venice.

Czech Republic Josefov, Prague; formerly the Jewish ghetto Jewish Quarter of Trebic

The Holocaust Theresienstadt Ghetto

France Avignon

Germany

Frankfurt

From its creation to its dissolution at the end of the 18th century, the city councils limited expansion in the Judengasse, resulting in a steady increase in population to the point of overcrowding. The original area of about a dozen houses with around 100 inhabitants, grew to almost 200 houses and some 3,000 inhabitants. The plots, originally quite generous, were successively divided while the total size of the ghetto remained the same. This increased the number of plots but subsequently reduced the size of each plot. In the process, many houses were replaced by two or more houses which were often divided in turn. Many of the houses were designed to be narrow and long, in order to maximize the limited space – the smallest house, the Rote Hase, was only about one and a half meters wide.

Friedberg Jewish settlement during the Middle Ages all across the town, but since 1360 following a number of pogroms concentrating on the Judengasse (Jew's Row), running parallel to the main street.

The Third Reich and World War II At the beginning of World War II, nearly a quarter of the pre-war Polish areas were annexed by Nazi Germany and placed directly under German civil administration,Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, German Occupation of Poland. (Washington, D.C.: Dale Street Books, 2014), pp. 12-16. See also: Mass Extermination of Jews in German Occupied Poland from the same source in public domain. in violation of international law (in particular, the Hague Convention IV 1907).Hague IV SECTION III MILITARY AUTHORITY OVER THE TERRITORY OF THE HOSTILE STATE (Art. 42. and later)Andreas Toppe, Militär und Kriegsvölkerrecht: Rechtsnorm, Fachdiskurs und Kriegspraxis in Deutschland 1899–1940, Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2008, p.409, Nazi Germany organized ghettos in many occupied countries, but the ghettos in the new Reichsgaue including Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia and Reichsgau Wartheland were particularly notorious.Czesław Łuczak, "Położenie ludności polskiej w Kraju Warty 1939–1945. Dokumenty niemieckie", Poznań 1987, pages V-XIII The Łódź/Litzmannstadt Ghetto holding 204,000 prisoners existed in a Polish city annexed to Germany; numerous others included Będzin Ghetto, Sosnowiec Ghetto, and the ghetto in Koło.

Hungary Ghetto Erzsébetváros, Budapest At the turn of the 18th and 19th century the Jewish community gathered in the 7th district along the road leading to the bridge, with Király Street as its center. The city had not tolerated Jewish people for a long time. Joseph II’s regulation put an end to the prohibition in 1783. At that time there lived fourteen Jewish families in the immediate vicinity of Budapest, in the great mansion of Barons Orczy. Their numbers increased rapidly. Most of the largest Jewish community of the era moved from Óbuda, but many of them came from other areas of the Habsburg empire.

In 1944 the Pest Ghetto was built here in the neighborhood bordered by Király Street, Csányi Street, Klauzál Square, Kisdiófa Street, Dohány Street and Károly Boulevard, crowding 70,000 people together. One of the borders of the ghetto was the Row of Archways on the Wesselényi Street side. In 2002 this area was named the old Jewish neighborhood of Pest and was entered into the Budapest world heritage conservation zone. This area features most of the Jewish heritage sites of the Pest side, including the famous "Synagogue Triangle."

Italy

Mantua

In 1590, Vincenzo Gonzaga expelled all foreign-born Jews from Mantua; in 1602, he forbade Jewish physicians from treating Christian patients without special permission; in 1610 he established a ghetto, and in 1612 compelled all Jews to live in it.Gotthard Deutsch, Ismar Elbogen, and Joseph Jacobs, "Mantua," from The Jewish Encyclopedia, 1906, URL=http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10381-mantua In 1610 Jews constituted about 7.5 percent of the population of Mantua.Paul F. Grendler The University of Mantua, the Gonzaga & the Jesuits, 1584-1630 2009 "The ghetto was adjacent to the Jesuit island, the block of buildings that included the Jesuit church, residence, and school (see chapter 2 and map 3). In 1610 Jews constituted about 7.5 percent of the population of Mantua: In 1630 the Mantua ghetto was sacked by imperial troops and destroyed.Shlomo Simonsohn History of the Jews in the Duchy of Mantua Kiryath Sepher, 1977 "The order was published in the ghetto late that night. On Tuesday, 21st of Ab (30.7.1630), a German officer robbed Monte di Pieta, with the aid of one of the clerks of the institution and a twenty-two-year-old Jew named Aaron Cohen. Massarano attempts to justify the Jew's act by saying that the others forced him to take part in the robbery. The Germans arrested the Jew and he was hanged. Prior to the departure of the Jews from Mantua, the Germans seized hostages from among the leaders of the community ... On Wednesday, the 22nd of Ab, the Jews gathered for a final prayer in the nine synagogues of the ghetto, after which they left Mantua.... ." Among the Jewish dead or missing were the composer Salamone Rossi and his sister the opera singer Madama Europa.Don Harrán Salamone Rossi, Jewish musician in late Renaissance Mantua

Padua