The numer of Jews in Radom in 1940-42 didn't hestitate much and it was about 33 00 people.
From the first days of the occupation German approached to the realization of genocidal plan towards Jewish people. They were depreiving property, limiting, freedom, isolating from Polish society with the aim of slaughetring Jews, which was called in their secret plans the "Final Solution".
When the German army entered Radom, persecutions immediately sterted. In the beginning they were more individual impediments. There were some cases of beating, robbing, etc. However, they were slowly becoming more organised. First of all collected as the administrative - ordinal rules but clearly annoying, they became more and more strict, and finally they took a nature of a crime. During this time the most burdensome thing for the Jews was the ordinance about the compulsory work in the camps, created specially for this aim.
In the arsenal of methods used by the occupation German authorities, tending to the mass liquidation of the Jewish people, the most important were the Ghettos. Radom Ghetto in the German nomenclature was called the "complex Ghetto" i.e. consisting of 2 Jewish districts situated in different parts of the city. About 25 000 Jews were placed in Śródmieście - big Ghetto, and in Glinice 0 small Ghetto - about 8 000 Jews settled down. In total, 33 000 people were closed in the walls of both Ghettos.
From the beginning Ghetto was conceived and treated as an instrument of the physical extermination of the people who lived there. They had horrible housing and sanitary conditions. German authorities intentionally created conditions, in which explosions of infections disease were unavoidable. The first propitious element was a huge population density and connected with it sanitary conditions. The second reason of mortality was femine, which caused a lot of deaths. The food rations, which Jews were getting couldn't keep anyone alive. The punishment for leaving Ghetto and helping. Jewish people was death. In spite of all thousands of Poles risked their lives to hide and help tthe Jews.