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7 - The Invasion of Poland and the Emergence of the “Classic” Ghettos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2011

Dan Michman
Affiliation:
Bar-Ilan University, Israel
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Summary

The time has come to drive this rabble into ghettos, and then epidemics will erupt and they'll all croak.

Heinrich Himmler, November 1939

A horrid Jewish hole.

From a report by a German military unit that participated in the invasion of Poland, October 8, 1939

The Jew, who crawled out of the dark corners of the ghetto into the surrounding German neighborhoods and gnawed at the body of the nation, like maggots in meat, has been tamed. He has been sent back to the place he came from, before his usury brought him such enormous profits that he could move into a nicer house and even be the landlord of German tenants. The Jewish game is over.…Now the Jews have been tamed in Łódź and the time has come when the yellow Star of David will no longer shine in German neighborhoods.

Lodscher Zeitung, February 11, 1940

There is no doubt that after the meeting in Göring's office, and in advance of the invasion of Poland, which would constitute a new stage in Germany's territorial expansion (and, in retrospect, the start of World War II), there was a conscious change in the mindset of the Nazi leaders and their minions. The earlier territorial acquisitions had been defined as steps toward the unification of all German speakers; now the time had come to seize a German Lebensraum in the East – a stage in the colonization of Europe, to be followed by expansion into Asia.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

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