Grodno Ghetto
The Grodno Ghetto (Polish: getto w Grodnie, Belarusian: Гродзенскае гета, Hebrew: גטו גרודנו) was a Nazi ghetto established in November 1941 by Nazi Germany in the city of Grodno for the purpose of persecution and exploitation of Jews in Western Belarus.
The Grodno Ghetto | |
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Jews flooding the gates of Ghetto One during relocation action, November 1941 | |
Grodno
Grodno location in the Holocaust | |
Grodno Ghetto Location of Grodno in modern-day Belarus | |
Location | Grodno, Belarus 53.6790°N 23.8249°E |
Incident type | Imprisonment, slave labor, transit to extermination camp |
Organizations | SS, Order Police battalions, |
Camp | Treblinka, Auschwitz |
Victims | 25,000 Jews |
The ghetto, run by the SS, consisted of two interconnected areas about 2 km apart. Ghetto One was established in the Old Town district, around the synagogue (Shulhoif), with some 15,000 Jews crammed into an area less than half a square kilometre. Ghetto Two was created in the Slobodka suburb, with around 10,000 Jews incarcerated in it. Ghetto Two was larger than the main ghetto but far more ruined. The reason for the split was determined by the concentration of Jews within the city and less need to transfer them from place to place. Their situation had considerably worsened with the ghettos' locations highly inadequate in terms of sanitation, water and electricity. The separation of the ghettos would later enable the Germans to murder the prisoners with greater ease. The larger ghetto was liquidated in 1943, a year-and-a-half after its establishment, and the smaller one, a few months earlier.