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.

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.

Their situation had considerably worsened with the ghettos' locations highly inadequate in terms of sanitation, water and electricity.

[2] Grodno was annexed by Germany in 1941 to the Bezirk Bialystok district of East Prussia, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa.

[3] Twelve days into the German occupation of the city, a number of restrictions and prohibitions were enforced by the new administration.

[1] Ghetto Two was created behind the railway tracks in the Słobódka (Slobodka) suburb, next to the old army barracks near the market square.

There were public kitchens in both ghettos serving up to 3,000 meals a day without meat or fat but with a piece of bread (50-100 grams).

Approximately 4,000 Jewish tradesmen were relocated to Ghetto One, while the remaining prisoners were forced to march to the Sammellager in Kiełbasin for deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

[1] The next deportation action from Ghetto One to transit camp in Kiełbasin (5 kilometres (3.1 mi) distance) began at the end of November 1942.

[6] Until November 1943 the inmates from Kiełbasin were either massacred or sent for extermination at Majdanek and Treblinka, soon after the Białystok Ghetto uprising was extinguished in the district.

[9] During the ghetto liquidation, there were a number of Jewish escapes, as well as rescue attempts by local Polish gentiles.

Forced relocation of Jews into Ghetto One, Grodno , November 1941