Ghetto is a name for the special districts, made in different cities by the Nazis during the World War II. They were created so as to separate the Jews from all other citizens. At the beginning, they appeared in Germany, but as the war was developing, they were made in the cities in all occupied countries. The Germans called those districts 'Juedischer Wohnbezirk' (Jewish Housing Districts). The first Jewish districts appeared in 1939. The Nazis built the walls to surround the ghettos. It often happened that there was the barbed wire spread over these walls. On the area of Poland, the largest districts were created in Warsaw (500 thousand Jews) and in Lodz (100 thousand Jews). Separating the Jews in ghettos was only part of the German plan. The whole plan was to exterminate those people in special camps.
The nazis came to capture Bialystok in June 1941. Taking over the city took only one day. Soon after, the Germans started to organize ghetto. All Jews from the city and towns and villages nearby, were taken to live there. More than 42.000 people lived in this Jewish district. The district was boarded by the streets: Lipowa, Poleska, Wrmatnia, Sienkiewicza, Fabryczna, at the very center of the city.
Those, who were made to live in ghetto, had to follow strict rules. They could not go out of the district without special permission of the authorities. Judenrat- the Jewish Council- had the real power over ghetto and its inhabitants. There were hundreds of soldiers to execute the orders given by Germans.
All ghettos had to deal with several problems. There were too many people gathered on relatively small areas. People couldn't get money and they had nothing to eat. They were weak and they severely suffered from different diseases. They had no access to medicines and hospitals. Thousands of people died because of epidemics. The ghetto in Bialystok was relatively small and the conditions of life there were better than in bigger cities. Nevertheless, this could not help save these Jews. Apart from a few of them, rescued by other citizens of the city, all of them were killed in extermination camps or some other places, where the Jews were executed. Many people also got killed in the fights during the uprising.
The liquidation of the ghetto in Bialystok started in 1943. Over 800 Jews were killed in ghetto and more than 10.000 were taken to concentration camps. There were Jewish organizations, who kept in touch with the Antifascist Bloc and prepared the uprisings in ghettos. In Bialystok, the uprising of the group of Jews against 1.000 of Nazi policemen started on 16th August 1943. The Jews were not able to fight effectively. The Germans burnt most of the houses in the district and those Jews, who were fighting against them were taken to the military square or to the forests on the suburbs of the city. They were all killed there. Those, who were left, were transported to Treblinka and died there. The most important person, organizing the uprising and the leader of the Antifascist Organization was Daniel Moszkowicz. He was preparing the fights and managed to get weapon from Armia Krajowa. However, the defeat of the uprising was easily predictable. The Jews were not well armed and not strong enough to become real opponents for the Nazis. The liquidation of ghetto was over by the end of October 1943. After that, all housings on the area of the district were pull down. The historians claim that only a few Jews from Bialystok survived.
The mass executions of Jews were organized in forest Wilczy Grunt, near Bacieczki, near Nowosiolki and on Pietrasze. In these execotions more than 29.000 Jews were killed.
