The Yad Vashem encyclopedia of the ghettos during the Holocaust

Abstract

Seventy years after the outbreak of World War II, most of the European ghettos have still not been systematically researched. This pioneering two-volume encyclopaedia gathers data from historical studies, testimonies, and documents dealing with more than 1,100 ghettos throughout Eastern Europe. This encyclopaedia offers detailed entries on the various ghettos into which the Jews of Eastern Europe were confined during the Holocaust. Entries on each ghetto are written by scholars and specialists on their topic and include location, wartime name, and geographical coordinates, and, for the larger ghettos, information on life before World War II and during the Soviet occupation era, German (Nazi) occupation, ghetto setup, institutional life and leadership, terror and killing operations, underground resistance, and the number of survivors at liberation. They also describe the differences between each ghetto and examine the difficulties of daily life in the ghetto, coping strategies, and different forms of resistance. first reference book of its kind, The Yad Vashem Encyclopedia of the Ghettos during the Holocaust is a valuable resource for diverse disciplines and is supplemented by a special DVD of wartime footage of ghettos filmed in real time during the Holocaust.