Łęczyca and Uniejów in February and June 1941, respectively. As a result,
approximately 260,000 Jews were confined in ghettos, including 2,500 in
Regierungsbezirk Posen, 25,000 in Regierungsbezirk Hohensalza, and 223,000
in Regierungsbezirk Lodsch/Litzmannstadt, where over 160,000 Jews were isolated from other residents in Łódź itself.
In the ghettos, the German authorities appointed the Judenräte (Jewish
councils), sometimes called the Altestenräte (councils of the elders). In order to
accelerate the annihilation of the Jews, the ghettos were intentionally located
in the worst neighbourhoods, lacking sanitation facilities and with shabby
buildings. Too limited in space to begin with, those town sections were systematically reduced, which led to their overcrowding. The increased mortality
rate resulted from the catastrophic sanitary conditions and poor health care.
In Zduńska Wola there was only one hospital for 12,000 residents. Located in
an old sugar factory, the Kutno ghetto had only three physicians.
Forced labour, imposed on ghetto inmates aged 14–60, was another
method of destroying the Jewish population. The first labour camps for Jews
in Wartheland were established in November 1939 (Radziwiłł Fort in Poznań)
and in the spring of 1940 (Szczeglin, Mogilno, Oborniki). Between 1940 and
1945 their number reached 173. Most of them existed until the summer of 1942
when the intensified Aktionen led to murder of both the forced labour camp
workers and the ghetto inmates.
A particular phenomenon of German policy in Wartheland was village
ghettos. They were established in several rural communes. Set up in the village
of Kowale Pańskie in the autumn of 1941, the largest one was named
Czachulec after its central village. Approximately 4,000 people from Turek
County were resettled there. Jews from Konin County who had not been resettled
(approx. 2,000 people) were located in the village ghettos in the Grodziec,
Zagórów and Rzgów rural communes. The smallest village ghetto was established
in Nowiny Brdowskie and Bugaj in the autumn of 1940 (150 families
from Koło plus 50 families from the village of Babiak). Those ghettos were
neither fenced off nor constantly guarded. Once every two or three weeks
they were inspected by gendarmerie patrols stationed in the nearby small
towns. Less isolation meant relatively better living conditions in comparison
with other ghettos.
In the autumn of 1940, the central German authorities began to consider
resumption of the resettlements to the General Government. On 8 January
