The term “ghettos” was first used in relation to Jews in the year 1516 when the Venetian government designated a specific living area for its Jewish population. During World War II, they were established by the Nazis to isolate and control the Jews as a first step towards their eventual annihilation ("Ghettos"). During the war, the Nazis established over 400 ghettos in Eastern Europe and Russia for this purpose. Nazi ghetto overseers appointed Jewish councils, called Judenrat, to maintain order in the ghettos, distribute food rations, and assist the Nazis in deportations to concentration and extermination camps (Glazer). Daily life in the ghettos was very demanding for Jews, who endured extreme physical hardship due to a lack of basic necessities and the sadism of Nazi overseers. The ghettos were enclosed with high brick walls or wooden planks topped with spiral barbed wire, making it difficult for Jews to escape (Dawidowicz 206). Jews who attempted to leave the ghetto without permission were immediately shot by Nazi guards. However, despite all their suffering, the Jews still tried to maintain a certain level of normality in their lives in the ghetto. The physical suffering the Jews experienced was unimaginable. Unsanitary and crowded living conditions, extreme climate, rampant disease, and chronic starvation were some of the major hardships they encountered, and thousands of Jews died due to these conditions. When Hitler invaded Poland, his army bombed large areas of Warsaw and approximately forty percent of Jewish homes were destroyed. When Poland officially came under German rule, the Germans forced the Jews to move to this badly damaged area, thus founding the...... middle of paper......orial Museum. Np, nd Web."Ghetti." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 10 June 2013. Web."Life in the ghettos." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Np, nd Web."Living conditions in the Cluj ghetto, Romania." Wisconsin Historical Society. Web."The Lodz Ghetto." Holocaust research project Ed. Lucjan Dobroszycki. Yale University, 1984. Web."The Warsaw Ghetto." The Warsaw Ghetto 1940-1943. Np, nd Web.Benisch, Pearl. To defeat the dragon. Jerusalem: Feldheim, 1991. Print.Dawidowicz, Lucy S. The War Against the Jews: 1933-1945. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977. Print.Glazer, Susan D. “Ghettos under the Nazis.” My Jewish culture. Web.Oral History." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Np, nd Web.Roland, Charles G. Courage under Siege: Starvation, Disease, and Death in the Warsaw Ghetto. New York: Oxford UP, 1992. Print.