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The Grodno Ghetto (, , ) was a Nazi ghetto established in November 1941 by Nazi Germany in the German-occupied Poland city of Grodno for the purpose of persecution and exploitation of Jews in Western Belarus.
The ghetto, run by the Schutzstaffel, 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.
Ghetto One was established in the city's centre, close to the New Hrodna Castle and around the synagogue. Jews had already concentrated in that area before the founding of the ghetto, but the space was greatly reduced nonetheless. All 15,000 Jews living nearby were forced into an area less than half a square kilometre, between Wilenska Street on one side, and Zamkowa Street (renamed Burg Strasse) on the other. The ghetto was surrounded by a 2-metre fence. The entrance to the ghetto was on Zamkowa Street between the sidewalk and the road. Some of the houses on that street were demolished. The total area of the ghetto would shrink in time; as the transports of the Jews went on to the transit camp in Kiełbasin,Krzysztof Bielawski (2012), Kiełbasin, ul. O. Solomowoj - były nazistowski obóz tranzytowy. POLIN Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich. and then on to the death camp in Treblinka.Yad Vashem Photo Archives 1366/193, Holocaust History: Ghetto in Grodno, Poland. End of November 1942 – January 1943. Just before its closure, Ghetto One included only a few buildings on Zamkowa Street.
In both ghettos, ration cards were introduced in the bakeries. The Jews were allowed to purchase about 200 of bread a day for a token payment. The Judenrat was permitted to run a butcher shop with horse meat available from time to time. Potatoes were distributed from the cellar of the Great Synagogue. 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). A separate pot was used for those who wanted kosher food.
| + One week of daily transports from Grodno Ghetto to Auschwitz, January 1943 ! Date of arrival ! Jews ! Selected for work ! Exterminated | |||
| 1,744 | |||
| 1,003 | |||
| 3,056 | |||
| 1,574 | |||
| 1,774 | |||
| 9,851 | |||
| Source: Danuta Czech, Kalendarium der Ereignisse im Konzentrationslager Auschwitz-Birkenau, Rowohlt, 1989, pp. 336–337, 348, 354. | |||
The next deportation action from Ghetto One to transit camp in Kiełbasin ( distance) began at the end of November 1942. There were 22,000–28,000 Jews from 22 cities, towns and villages imprisoned there by that time.
In Kiełbasin (now Kolbasino), the Jews were loaded onto the same Holocaust train and sent to Auschwitz and Treblinka. In early March 1943 the remaining Jews from the ghetto were sent to the Białystok Ghetto (82 km distance). On 13 March 1943 Grodno was declared Judenrein by announcements posted in public. 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.The statistical data compiled on the basis of "Glossary of 2,077 Jewish towns in Poland" by Virtual Shtetl Museum of the History of the Polish Jews , as well as "Getta Żydowskie," by Gedeon, and "Ghetto List" by Michael Peters at www.deathcamps.org/occupation/ghettolist.htm . Accessed 12 July 2011. On 14 July 1944 the Red Army liberated Grodno. During the ghetto liquidation, there were a number of Jewish escapes, as well as rescue attempts by local Polish gentiles. Righteous Among the Nations who helped Grodno Ghetto's Jews included the Krzywicki family the Cywińscy family, and the Docha family.
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