Editing Warsaw Ghetto (section)

== Conditions ==
{{multiple image|direction=vertical|width=220
|image3=Homeless children Warsaw Ghetto.jpg
|caption3=Homeless children in Warsaw Ghetto
|image4=Childwarsawghetto.jpg
|caption4=A child dying on the sidewalk of the Warsaw Ghetto, September 19, 1941
}}

{{See also|Hunger Plan}}

Nazi officials, intent on eradicating the ghetto by hunger and disease, limited food and medical supplies.<ref name="USHMM encyclopedia">{{Cite book|publisher= Indiana University Press; In association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum|isbn= 978-0-253-35328-3|editor-first1=Geoffrey P. |editor-last1=Megargee | editor-link1 = Geoffrey P. Megargee|title= The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum encyclopedia of camps and ghettos, 1933–1945|location= Bloomington, Washington, D.C.|date= 2009|volume=2-B |chapter=Warsaw |pages=456–460}}</ref> An average daily food ration in 1941 for Jews in Warsaw was limited to 184 calories, compared to 699 calories allowed for [[gentile]] Poles and 2,613 calories for the Germans.<ref name="Roland"/> In August, the rations fell to 177 calories per person. This meager food supply by the German authorities usually consisted of dry bread, flour and potatoes of the lowest quality, groats, turnips, and a small monthly supplement of margarine, sugar, and meat.<ref name=Laqueur/> As a result, [[black market]] economy thrived, supplying as much as 80% of the ghetto's food.<ref name="USHMM encyclopedia" /><ref name=Laqueur/> In addition, the [[American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee|Joint]] had opened over 250 [[soup kitchen]]s,<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://archives.jdc.org/exhibits/in-memoriam/david-guzik/ |title=In Memoriam: David Guzik |website=JDC Archives |language=en-US |access-date=2019-10-10}}</ref> which served at one time as many as 100,000 meals per day.<ref name="USHMM encyclopedia" />

Men, women and children all took part in smuggling and illegal trade, and private workshops were created to manufacture goods to be sold secretly on the "Aryan" side of the city. Foodstuffs were often smuggled by children alone, who crossed the ghetto wall by the hundreds in any way possible, sometimes several times a day, returning with goods that could weigh as much as they did. Unemployment leading to extreme poverty was a major problem in the ghetto, and smuggling was often the only source of subsistence for the ghetto inhabitants, who would have otherwise died of starvation.<ref name=Laqueur/> "Professional" smugglers, in contrast, often became relatively wealthy.<ref name="USHMM encyclopedia" />

During the first year and a half, thousands of Polish Jews as well as some [[Romani people]] from smaller towns and the countryside were brought into the ghetto, but as many died from [[typhus]] and starvation the overall number of inhabitants stayed about the same.<ref name="Wdowiński"/> Facing an out-of-control famine and meager medical supplies, a group of Jewish doctors imprisoned in the ghetto decided to use the opportunity to study the physiological and psychological effects of hunger.<ref name="Engelking 2002">{{Cite book |title=Holocaust and memory : the experience of the Holocaust and its consequences : an investigation based on personal narratives |last=Engelking |first=Barbara |publisher=Leicester University Press, in association with the European Jewish Publication Society |year=2002 |isbn=9780567342775 |location=London |pages=110–111 |oclc=741690863}}</ref><ref name="Winick 2014">{{Cite book| publisher = Berghahn Books| isbn = 978-1-78238-417-5| editor = Michael A. Grodin | last = Winick| first = Myron| title = Jewish medical resistance in the Holocaust| chapter = Jewish medical resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto| location = New York; Oxford| date = 2014}}</ref> The [[Warsaw Ghetto Hunger Study]],<ref name="Winick 1979">{{Cite book |title=Hunger disease: studies by the Jewish physicians in the Warsaw Ghetto |last1=Winick |first1=Myron |last2=Osnos |first2=Martha |publisher=Wiley |year=1979}}</ref> as it is now known, remains one of the most thorough investigations of semi-starvation done to date.<ref name="Winick 2014" />