The Ghettos Portrayed in “The Cage”
Very crowded average day in the ghetto
https://www.britannica.com/topic/ghetto
After reading the opening section of the novel “The Cage,” by Ruth Minsky Sender, I have come to a further understanding of how life is in Poland, during the Holocaust. The Holocaust was a mass murder of 6 million Jews during Wold War II. During the Holocaust life conditions were terrible, people lived in concentration camps, which were basically cages. In the camps there was disease, starvation, dehydration, lack of education, no medicine, unemployment, and no vitamins or nutrients. The ghetto was always overcrowded with so many people. Though there were not good conditions, some people survived. There was limited resources for food and water. People, even children, had to work all day for small rations of food and water. Concentrations camps during the Holocaust would have 180,000 men, women, and children in a small ghetto, and hundreds would die every day. Fathers were angry and frustrated, and they would spend their days looking for work to feed their families. Mothers were helpless, tearful, and worried about their starving children. Jews who became sick were taken by the Nazis, to unknown places, and they would never return to their families. The novel “The Cage,” has an excellent description of how life was in the ghettos. Many Jews wanted to give up, but they could not, because they still had their families and loved ones to take care of. Life was very tedious, people had nothing to do besides work, sleep, and to slowly die. Teenagers, had to sometimes take care of their younger siblings. Maturing was very important. In conclusion, my final thoughts are that even though Jews were not liked by the Nazis, they should have treated them differently, instead of murdering and torturing they could have worked something out.
