Jewish ghettos in Europe

Jewish ghettos in Europe were parts of a number of cities in Europe in which Jews were permitted to live. In addition to being confined to ghettos, Jews were placed under strict regulations and disabilities in many European cities. The character of ghettos varied over times. 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 during periods of population growth, ghettos had narrow streets and small, crowded houses. Residents had their own justice system. Around the ghetto stood walls that, during pogroms, were closed from inside to protect the community, but from the outside during Christmas, Pesach, and Easter Week to prevent the Jews from leaving during those times.

In the 19th century, Jewish ghettos were progressively abolished, and their walls taken down. However, in the course of World War II the Third Reich created a totally new Jewish ghetto-system for the purpose of persecution, terror, and exploitation of Jews, mostly in Eastern Europe. According to USHMM archives, "The Germans established at least 1,000 ghettos in German-occupied and annexed Poland and the Soviet Union alone."

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:

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:

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