The camps were made to separate the Jews from the others.In Warsaw, the capital of Poland, the Nazis established the largest ghetto in all of Europe. 375,000 Jews lived in Warsaw before the war about 30% of the city’s total population. Immediately after Poland’s surrender in September 1939, the Jews of Warsaw were brutally preyed upon and taken for forced labor. In 1939 the first anti-Jewish decrees were issued. The Jews were forced to wear a white star of David and economic measures against them were taken that led to the unemployment of most of the city’s Jews. A Judenrat (Jewish council) was established under the leadership of Adam Czerniownik and in October 1940 the establishment of a ghetto was announced. On November 16 the Jews were forced inside the area of the ghetto. Although a third of the city’s population was Jewish, the ghetto stood on just 2.4% of the city’s surface area. Masses of refugees who had been transported to Warsaw brought the ghetto population up to 450,000.

The NAZIS thought that the Jews were not of pure blood.