The Pinsk Ghetto was a crowded, squalid slum confined by barbed-wire fences, consisting of 240 small, wooden houses on 23 streets in the poorest section of town.
The ghetto area was a large rectangle surrounded by a 2,345-meter (1.5 mile) long barbed-wire fence with three guarded gates. Polish police were often tasked with guarding the perimeter day and night.
The inhabitants were forced into small, one-story wooden houses. The living space was drastically inadequate, with as many as ten people sharing a single room and an average of only 1.2 square meters (about 13 square feet) of space per person.
Sanitation and Health: The area was initially equipped with only two functioning water pumps for over 18,000 people, leading to "inadequate sanitation". Health conditions deteriorated rapidly, with rampant outbreaks of dysentery and typhus. The assigned area was deliberately chosen as the "poorest and most crowded part of town".
The primary characteristic of the Pinsk Ghetto was extreme deprivation and overcrowding, enforced by brutal German occupation policies. Residents were forced to wear yellow Stars of David, forbidden from using sidewalks, and subjected to forced labor, beatings, and random killings. Food was severely rationed.
The ghetto existed for only about six months, from its establishment in May 1942 until its liquidation in late October and early November 1942, when almost all of its inhabitants were murdered in mass shooting operations.
