Starting this off with some philosophy....

[Kiwiwriter]

No subjects in this topic, so I'll open the door.

The most interesting thing to me about the Nazi Ghettos in Eastern Europe, was how the Nazis used Jews to administer the ghettos for them. They created "Judenraten," Jewish Councils, in the ghettos, to put into practice the policies they created.

The Nazis also had Jews and Jews who converted to Christianity as ghetto cops, which enabled bullies and criminals to dispense bonhomie and bullying at will and ad lib.

What interests me is the raw cynicism of the Nazis, in using Jews to destroy other Jews, and the turning of brother against brother in this manner. They "divided and ruled," and did so with scary efficiency.

The Nazis were no fools, they had two options, use their own or use the Jews, they knew thay using the Jews to police the Ghetto's was much more effective than them doing it as order was more likley to be maintained by their own, however the power that brought also caused a lot of pain for the Jews brought on by their own people, Rumkowski in the Lodz Ghetto was very brutal in the way he ran his affairs, raping children, and punishing anyone who stood in his way.

As you say it was scarily efficient.

[Belville]

"The Ghettos were formed by the Germans as an area to house Jews prior to moving to the camps"

As a premise, this is misleading. The first ghetto was set up in Venice in 1516, and the practice of restricting Jews to certain parts of a city was widespread throughout Europe. The ghetto in Rome, for example, was not abolished until 1870 (see http://kpearson.faculty.tcnj.edu/Dictionary/ghetto.htm). The Germans weren't the only ones.

Belville

[Ron Goldstein]

Having visited both Ghetto areas in recent years I can only reiterate what Belville has written.