Mechanism dossier

Ghettoisation, deportation and liquidation

The administrative and police chain that created ghettos, isolated their residents, organised deportations and connected occupied cities with killing centres.

A ghetto was not created by a wall alone. It began with orders that defined a district, people subject to removal, deadlines, property rules and police enforcement. Civil administration, municipal offices and the Security Police then maintained isolation through permits, labour regulations, rationing, confiscation and punishment.

Deportation required another chain: lists and selections, assembly points, guards, rolling stock, timetables, destination coordination and the seizure of property left behind. The language of transport concealed the intended result. In Łódź, deportations connected the ghetto with the Chełmno killing centre. In Warsaw, Lublin and Białystok, staff officers and specialist police units linked local operations with the wider machinery of Operation Reinhard.

These pages do not present one office as the author of every stage. Friedrich Uebelhoer’s founding order, Werner Ventzki’s municipal administration, Heinz Auerswald’s day-to-day ghetto regulation, Otto Bradfisch’s police leadership and Georg Michalsen’s mobile deportation work belong to different parts of the same process. Reading them together makes the chain visible.