SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR 339
Some of the Jews from Belgium were sent to a neighbouring part
of Western Europe for forced labour, but generally speaking the
tendency has been to remove the Jews to the east. Many Western European
Jews were reported to have been sent to the mines of Silesia.
The great majority were sent to the General Government and, in ever
growing numbers, to the eastern area, that is, to the territories
which had been under Soviet rule since September 1939 and to the
other occupied areas of the Soviet Union.
During the early period, deportation meant removal to the General
Gouvernment, but since 1940 the deported Jews have tended
more and more to be sent exclusively to ghettos and labour camps.
Ghettos.
The first ghettos were set up in �od� in the winter of 1939-1940.
Since spring of 1940 they have been introduced in a number of cities
and towns in the Warthegau and the General Gouvernment. In the
summer of 1940 the Germans segregated the district of Warsaw inhabited
mainly by Jews under the pretext that it was a breedingplace
of contagious diseases, and in the autumn of the same year a
ghetto was formally established. All Jews living outside its confines
were ordered to move into the ghetto and all Poles living inside to
leave the ghetto area. Many Jews were also brought there from
abroad. In the first half of 1942 about 500,000 persons were
crowded into the Warsaw ghetto.
The growth of the ghettos is illustrated by the following estimates.
In November 1941 the Institute of Jewish Affairs estimated
the number of Jews confined in the ghettos ‘at no less than
1,000,000.’ In December 1941 figures released by Polish Jewish
circles in London showed that about 1,300,000 Jews had been
herded into eleven ghettos in various parts of the country. For the
early summer of 1942 the Institute of Jewish Affairs gave the number
as 1,500,000. On 28 October and 10 November 1942 the Secretary
of State for Security in the General Gouvernment issued regulations
about Jewish ghettos in the five districts of the General Gouvernment
(Warsaw, Lublin, Cracow, Radom and Galicia), providing that
from 30 November 1942 all General Gouvernment Jews must live in
confined areas. Jews employed in armament and other war industries
and living in closed camps are exempted. The confined areas
are of two kinds: ghettos inside the larger towns, and purely Jewish