Siedlce Ghetto

Siedlce Ghetto
Siedlce Synagogue burned down by the SS in 1939 in the lead up to the Holocaust in occupied Poland
Siedlce Siedlce location south of Treblinka in World War II
Also known as	Siedlce Ghetto
Location	Siedlce, German-occupied Poland
Date	June 1941 – November 1942
Incident type	Imprisonment, starvation, mass shootings, mass deportations
Organizations	Nazi SS
Victims	12,000–17,000 Polish Jews; an unknown number of Roma people
Memorials	The Jewish cemetery in Siedlce

The Siedlce Ghetto (Polish: Getto w Siedlcach), was a World War II Jewish ghetto set up by Nazi Germany in the city of Siedlce in occupied Poland, 92 kilometres (57 mi) east of Warsaw.^[a] The ghetto was closed from the outside in early October 1941. Some 12,000 Polish Jews were imprisoned there for the purpose of persecution and exploitation.^[1] Conditions were appalling; epidemics of typhus and scarlet fever raged. Beginning 22 August 1942 during the most deadly phase of the Holocaust in occupied Poland, around 10,000 Jews were rounded up – men, women and children – gathered at the Umschlagplatz,^[2][b] and deported to Treblinka extermination camp aboard Holocaust trains.^[3] Thousands of Jews were brought in from the ghettos in other cities and towns. In total, at least 17,000 Jews were annihilated in the process of ghetto liquidation.^[2] Hundreds of Jews were shot on the spot during the house-to-house searches, along with staff and patients of the Jewish hospital.^[1]

Over 1,500 persons were temporarily spared death in order to continue supplying slave labour for the five camps set up locally. They were deported to Treblinka from the so-called "little ghetto" before the end of 1942.^[2] Only a few hundred Jews survived in hiding until the German withdrawal from Siedlce.^[2]

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