“The Jews were convinced that things couldn't get any worse. The truth is that, until the end, each stage was more difficult and more terrible. The dynamics of this development are the essence of horror” (Vashem, 2010). A ghetto is a part of a city where Jews were forced to live in horrible conditions. Even though the ghetto was a transitional phase, it was still an atrocious place to live. The least important thing is what the ghetto is and where it originated from. The term “ghetto” originates from the name of the Jewish neighborhood of Venice, founded in 1516, where the Venetian authorities forced the city's Jews to live (United States United Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2013). The creation of ghettos for Jews in Frankfurt, Rome, Prague, and other cities was ordered by various officials, from local municipal authorities to Austrian Emperor Charles V. (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2013). The German occupation authorities established the first ghetto in Poland in Piotrkow Trybunalski in October 1939 (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2013). Ghettos were city neighborhoods, often closed, in which the Germans concentrated the municipal and sometimes regional Jewish population and forced them to live in miserable conditions during World War II (United States United Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2013). Ghettos isolated Jews by separating Jewish communities from non-Jewish populations and other Jewish communities (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2013). The Germans established at least 1,000 ghettos in occupied and annexed Poland and the Soviet Union alone (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2013). The first large ghetto was established in Lodz in......middle of paper...still a terrible place to live. Life in a ghetto is not easy, people are forced to live in unbearable conditions. It shows how grateful we should be and how lucky we are to live in a free country like America. Works Cited Landau, Ronnie, S. The Nazi Holocaust. Chicago: Library of Congress Catalog in Publication, 1994. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum “Ghettos.” Holocaust Encyclopedia. 2013. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005059 Merrick, Leon. Online interview. July 1st. 2008. Survivors reflect on life in the ghettos. The Holocaust Explained website, video, 2011. http://www.theholocaustexplained.org/ks3/life-in-nazi-occupied-europe/ghettos-an-overview/survivors-reflect-on-life-in-ghettos/ # .U1NIJ1zHNHgYad Vashem “History of the Holocaust.” Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum. http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/holocaust/about/03/daily_life.asp