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{{short description|Second-largest ghetto in German-occupied Europe during World War II}}
{{titlelacksdiacritics|title=Łódź Ghetto}}
{{pp-30-500|small=yes}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2018}}
{{Infobox
|above=Łódź Ghetto<br />''Ghetto Litzmannstadt''
|abovestyle=background:#f4e9c5; padding:8px;
|image1=]
|caption1=Jewish children inside the Łódź Ghetto, 1940
|image2=]
|caption2=Map of the Łódź Ghetto within the city. The walled-off area is shown in blue in the inset. The Jewish cemetery is at 16; ] at the top right at 17; ] for Polish children is at 15.
|header1= <!--void-->
|label2=Location |data2=], ]
|label3=Persecution |data3=Imprisonment, forced labor, starvation
|label4=Organizations |data4='']'' (''SS'')<br/>]
|label5=Death camp |data5=] <br /> ]
|label6=Victims |data6=210,000 ]
}}


The '''Łódź Ghetto''' or '''Litzmannstadt Ghetto''' (after the Nazi German name for ]) was a ] established by the German authorities for ] and ] following the ]. It was the second-largest ghetto in all of ] after the ]. Situated in the city of Łódź, and originally intended as a preliminary step upon a more extensive plan of creating the '']'' province of ],<ref>Horwitz 2009, p. 27. ''Plan hammered out by ].''</ref> the ghetto was transformed into a major industrial centre, manufacturing war supplies for ] and especially for the ].<ref name="Horwitz"/> The number of people incarcerated in it was increased further by the Jews deported from Nazi-controlled territories.
]


On 30 April 1940, when the gates closed on the ghetto, it housed 163,777 residents.<ref name="USHMM_Camps"/> Because of its remarkable productivity, the ghetto managed to survive until August 1944. In the first two years, it absorbed almost 20,000 Jews from liquidated ghettos in nearby Polish towns and villages,<ref name="biuletyn60"/> as well as 20,000 more from the rest of ].<ref name="jewishgen/timeline"/> After the wave of deportations to ] beginning in early 1942,<ref name="jewishgen/timeline"/> and in spite of a stark reversal of fortune, the Germans persisted in eradicating the ghetto: they transported the remaining population to ] and Chełmno ]s, where most were murdered upon arrival. It was the last ghetto in occupied Poland to be liquidated.<ref name="statistics">The statistical data, compiled on the basis of {{cite web|url=http://www.sztetl.org.pl/en/selectcity/|title=Glossary of 2,077 Jewish towns in Poland|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160208215116/http://www.sztetl.org.pl/en/selectcity/|archive-date=8 February 2016}} by '']'' ], as well as &nbsp;{{in lang|pl}} and &nbsp;{{in lang|en}}. Accessed 25 March 2015.</ref> A total of 210,000 Jews passed through it;<ref name="USHMM_Camps">The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum ], ], ], and Mel Hecker, Volume II, part A, pp.&nbsp;75–82.</ref> but only 877 remained hidden when the Soviets arrived. About 10,000 Jewish residents of Łódź, who used to live there before the ], survived ] elsewhere.<ref name="Peck"/>
The '''&#321;ód&#378; Ghetto''' was the second-largest ] (after the ]) established for ]s in ]-occupied ]. Situated in the in the town of ] and originally intended as a temporary gathering point for Jews, the ghetto survived until August ], when the remaining population was transported to ]. It was the last ghetto in Poland to be liquidated.


==Establishment of the Ghetto== ==Establishment==
When German forces occupied ] on 8 September 1939, the city had a population of 672,000 people. Over 230,000 of them were Jewish,<ref name="archive"/> or 31.1% according to statistics.<ref name="Kulesza">Mariusz Kulesza, {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200408064714/http://www.mapa.lodz.pl/atlas/pdf/sup2/P-62.pdf |date=8 April 2020 }} PDF file, direct download.</ref> ] annexed Łódź directly to the new '']'' region and renamed the city Litzmannstadt in honour of a German general, ], who had led German forces in the area in 1914. The Nazi German authorities intended to "purify" the city. All ] were to be expelled to the '']'' eventually, while the non-Jewish population of ] reduced significantly, and transformed into a ].<ref name="archive">{{cite web|url=http://history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/aa070897.htm |title=The Łódź Ghetto |publisher=20th Century History, About.com |work=Part 1 of 2 |date=2006 |access-date=19 March 2015 |author=Jennifer Rosenberg |format=Internet Archive |quote=''Lodz Ghetto: Inside a Community Under Siege'' by Adelson, Alan and Robert Lapides (ed.), New York, 1989; ''The Documents of the Łódź Ghetto: An Inventory of the Nachman Zonabend Collection'' by Web, Marek (ed.), New York, 1988; ''The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry'' by Yahil, Leni, New York, 1991. |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060430213432/http://history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/aa070897.htm |archive-date=30 April 2006}}</ref>
] in the far background (no longer existing).]]


The first known record of an order for the establishment of the ghetto, dated 10 December 1939,<ref>{{YouTube|wuC_DOU8ULE|Journals and footage}} of the establishment of Łódź Ghetto by Nazi occupants.</ref> came from the new Nazi governor ], who called for the cooperation of major policing bodies in the confinement and mass transfer of the local Jews.<ref name="archive"/> By 1 October 1940, the relocation of the ghetto inmates was to have been completed, and the city's downtown core declared '']'' (cleansed of its Jewish presence). The German occupiers pressed for the ghetto size to be shrunk beyond all sense in order to have their factories registered outside of it.<ref name="Horwitz">{{Cite book |last=Horwitz |first=Gordon J. |title=Ghettostadt: Łódź and the making of a Nazi city |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hRxzTw83ZVEC&q=Uebelhoer |access-date=21 March 2015 |year=2009 |publisher=]; Cambridge, Massachusetts |isbn=978-0-674-03879-0 |pages=27, 54–55, 62 }}</ref> Łódź was a multicultural mosaic before the war began, with about 8.8% ethnic German residents on top of Austrian, Czech, French, Russian and Swiss business families adding to its vibrant economy.<ref name="Kulesza"/>
When German forces occupied ] in September ], the city had a population of 672,000 people, over one-third of them (233,000) Jews. &#321;ód&#378; was annexed directly to the ] region of the ] and renamed Litzmannstadt. As such, the city was to undergo a process of ]ization: the Jewish population was to be expelled to the '']'' and the ] population was to be reduced significantly and transformed into a ] labor force.


The securing of the ghetto system was preceded by a series of anti-Jewish measures as well as anti-Polish measures meant to inflict terror. The Jews were forced to wear the ]. Their businesses were expropriated by the ].<ref name="Horwitz"/> After the ], many Jews, particularly the intellectual and political elite, had fled the advancing German army into the ] and to the area of future '']'' in the hope of the Polish counter-attack which never came.<ref name="ushmm-1939">{{cite web |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005593 |title=Jewish Refugees, 1939 |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |work=German Invasion of Poland |date=20 June 2014 |access-date=21 March 2015 |author=Holocaust Encyclopedia}}</ref> On 8 February 1940, the Germans ordered the Jewish residence to be limited to specific streets in the Old City and the adjacent Bałuty quarter, the areas that would become the ghetto. To expedite the relocation, the Orpo Police launched an assault on 5{{ndash}}7 March 1940, <ref>Horwitz 2009, page 49</ref> known as "Bloody Thursday", in which 350 Jews were fatally shot in their homes, and outside. Over the next two months, wooden and wire fences were erected around the area to cut it off from the rest of the city. Jews were formally sealed within the ghetto walls on 1 May 1940.<ref name="Horwitz"/>
First mention of the establishment of a ghetto appears in an order dated ] ], which spoke of a temporary gathering point for local Jews to ease the deportation process. By ] ], the deportation was to have been completed, and the city was to have been ''Judenrein'' (free of Jews).


As nearly 25 percent of the Jews had fled the city by the time the ghetto was set up, its prisoner population as of 1 May 1940 was 164,000.<ref>Horwitz 2009, page 62.</ref> Over the coming year, Jews from ] as far away as ] were deported to the ghetto on their way to the extermination camps.<ref name="jewishgen/timeline"/> A small ] population was also resettled there.<ref name="Horwitz"/> By 1 May 1941, the population of the ghetto was 148,547.<ref>{{harvnb|Dobroszycki|1987|loc=1984; p. 52.}}</ref>
This set in motion a long series of anti-Jewish measures (as well as anti-Polish measures), by which Jews were stripped of their businesses and possessions, and forced to wear the ]. Since the invasion, many Jews, particularly the intellectual and political leadership, fled to the area of the ''General government'' or eastward to ]-occupied Poland. On ] ], Jewish residence was limited to specific streets in the Old City of &#321;ód&#378; and the adjacent Batuny Quarter, the areas that would later become the ghetto. A ]-sponsored ] on ] in which many Jews were killed, expediated the relocation, and over the next two months, wooden and wire fences were erected around the area to cut it off from the rest of the city. Jews were formally sealed into the ghetto on ] of that year.


==Ghetto policing==
]
]


To ensure no contact between the Jewish and non-Jewish populations of the city, two German ] were assigned to patrol the perimeter of the ghetto, including the ] from Hamburg.<ref name="ushmm-ghettos">{{cite web|url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005059 |title=Ghettos |publisher=] |year=2014 |access-date=23 March 2015 |author=Holocaust Encyclopedia |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120815195917/http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005059 |archive-date=15 August 2012}}</ref> Within the ghetto, the ] force was created to ensure that no prisoners tried to escape. On 10 May 1940 orders went into effect prohibiting any commercial exchange between Jews and non-Jews in Łódź. By the new German decree, those caught outside the ghetto could be shot on sight. The contact with people who lived on the "]" side was also impaired by the fact that Łódż had a 70,000-strong ethnic German minority loyal to the Nazis (the '']''),<ref name="biuletyn60"/> making it impossible to bring food illegally. To keep outsiders out, rumours were also spread by Hitler's propaganda saying that the Jews were the carriers of infectious diseases.<ref name="biuletyn60">Biuletyn Informacyjny Obchodów 60. Rocznicy Likwidacji Litzmannstadt Getto. Nr 1-2. , Torah Code website. Retrieved 21 March 2015.</ref> For the week of 16–22 June 1941 (the week Nazi Germany launched ]), the Jews reported 206 deaths and two shootings of women near the barbed wire.<ref name="chronicle2">{{harvnb|Dobroszycki|1987|loc=1984; p. 61.}}</ref>
Because so many Jews had fled the city, the population of the ghetto upon its creation was 164,000. Over the coming years, Jews from ] and as far away as ] were deported to the ghetto, and there was also a small ] population that was resettled there (''see:'' ]).


In other ghettos throughout Poland, thriving underground economies based on ] of food and manufactured goods developed between the ghettos and the outside world.<ref name="ringelblum-86">], '''', Northwestern University Press, 1992, p.86. {{ISBN|0-8101-0963-8}}.</ref> In Łódź, however, this was practically impossible due to heavy security. The Jews were entirely dependent on the German authorities for food, medicine and other vital supplies. To exacerbate the situation, the only legal currency in the ghetto was a specially created ]. Faced with starvation, Jews traded their remaining possessions and savings for this ], thereby abetting the process by which they were dispossessed of their remaining belongings.<ref name="ringelblum-86"/>
To ensure that there was no contact between the Jewish and non-Jewish population of the city, two German ] units were designated to patrol the perimeter of the ghetto. Within the ghetto itself, a Jewish police force was created to ensure that no Jews attempted to escape. Any Jews caught outside the ghetto could, by law, be shot on sight. On ] orders went into effect prohibiting any commercial contact between Jews and non-Jews in &#321;ód&#378; under similarly severe penalties.


== Food consumption and malnutrition ==
In other ghettos throughout Poland, a thriving underground economy based on the ] of food and manufactured goods managed to emerge between the ghetto and the outside world. In &#321;ód&#378;, however, this was practically impossible, and Jews were entirely dependent on the German authorities for food, medicine, and other vital supplies. To further exacerbate the situation, the only legal currency in the ghetto was a specially created ghetto currency. Faced with starvation, Jews eagerly traded their remaining possessions and currency for this scrip, thereby abetting the process by which they were dispossessed of their few remaining belongings.
Jews within the Łódź Ghetto had an average daily intake of 1,000 to 1,200 calories which led directly to starvation and even to death. The process of purchasing food relied heavily on the quantity and quality of the goods that the ghetto citizens brought from their houses into the ghetto. Previous social class and wealth of ghetto inhabitants often determined the fate of food accessibility. While the wealthy could purchase additional food, many of the lower class Jewish inhabitants relied heavily on the ration card system. Food embezzlement by police forces within the ghetto encouraged hierarchy even amongst Jewish neighbors. Food became a means of control for the German forces and by the Jewish policing administration.


Food deprivation often caused strain on family relations but parents, siblings, and spouses would also hold out on their portion of food for the benefit of loved ones. People would trade furniture and clothing to receive food for their family members or themselves. Jewish women invented new ways of cooking in order to make food and supplies last longer. Tuberculosis and other diseases were widespread due to ]. The physical attributes of malnutrition in the Łódź Ghetto led to sunken eyes, swollen abdomens and aged appearances while also stunting the growth of ghetto children.<ref>{{Citation|last=Sinnreich|first=Helene J.|chapter=Hunger in the ghettos|date=2017-11-27|pages=110–126|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-315-09977-4|doi=10.4324/9781315099774-9|title=The Ghetto in Global History}}</ref>
==Chaim Rumkowski and the Jewish Council==


Since 1940, the ghetto used its own currency, the ], which had no value outside the ghetto. The use of other currency was prohibited.
]


==Organization==
To organize the local population and maintain order, the German authorities established a Jewish Council, or '']''. The ''Judenälteste'', or leader of the ''Judenrat'', ], is still considered one of the most controversial figures in the history of the ]. Known mockingly as "King Chaim," he was granted unprecedented powers by the Nazi government, which authorized him to "take all necessary measures" to maintain order in the ghetto.
Administratively, the Łódź ghetto was subject to the City Council. Initially, mayor ] separated from the provisioning and economy department the branch for the ghetto at Cegielniana street (today Jaracza 11), whose manager was first Johann Moldenhauer, and then a merchant from ], ]. From October 1940, the facility was raised to the rank of an independent department of the city council – Gettoverwaltung, reporting to Mayor Werner Ventzki. Initially, the main tasks of the ghetto board were supplying, supplying medicines and settling the ghetto with the city. Soon, however, the inhabitants began to be plundered and exploited to the maximum, transforming the ghetto into a forced labor camp in hunger for food rations and extreme living conditions. From 1942, Hans Biebow and his deputies Józef Haemmerle and Wilhelm Ribbe demonstrated in the selection and displacement of ghetto inhabitants, and Biebow and his commercial capabilities were quickly appreciated by the dignitaries of the central authorities of the Warta Country. Biebow became the real ruler of the ghetto, and Gettoverwaltung officials arrived at a rapid pace – from 24 people in May 1940 to 216 in mid-1942.<ref>Ilustrowana Encyklopedia Historii Łódźi, p. 18</ref>


] delivering a speech in the ghetto, 1941{{ndash}}42]]
Although he was directly responsible to Nazi official ], within the ghetto Rumkowski adopted an autocratic style of leadership to transform the ghetto into an enormous industrial complex, manufacturing goods on behalf of Germany. Convinced that Jewish productivity would ensure survival, he forced the population to work 12-hour days in abysmal conditions, producing garments, wood and metalwork, and electrical equipment for the German military. By ], some 95 percent of the adult population was employed in 117 ''ressorts'' or workshops, which Rumkowski once boasted to the mayor of &#321;ód&#378;, were a "gold mine." In fact, it was because of this productivity that the &#321;ód&#378; Ghetto managed to survive long after all the other Polish ghettos were liquidated.
To organize the local population and maintain order, the German authorities established a Jewish Council commonly called the '']'' or the ''Ältestenrat'' ("Council of Elders") in Łódź. The chairman of the ''Judenrat'' appointed by the Nazi administration was ] (age 62 in 1939). Even today, he is still considered one of the most controversial figures in the history of the ]. Known mockingly as "King Chaim", Rumkowski was granted unprecedented powers by the Nazi officials, which authorized him to take all necessary measures to maintain order in the ghetto.<ref name="Lisciotto/H.E.A.R.T">{{cite web |url=http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ghettos/rumkowski.html |title=Chaim Mordechai Rumkowski |publisher=Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team|work=The Łódź Ghetto |date=2007 |access-date=22 March 2015 |author=Carmelo Lisciotto}}</ref>


Under Rumkowski's leadership, a modicum of equality was established among all the Jews living in the ghetto. Food was distributed equally to everyone, and surprisingly, educational and cultural activities, often underground, flourished. Still, conditions were harsh and the population was entirely dependent on the German authorities. Starvation was rampant and disease widespread. This fueled dissatisfaction with Rumkowski, and even led to a series of ]s in the factories. In most instances, Rumkowski relied on the Jewish police force to quell the discontented workers, but in one instance, the German police were asked to intervene. Strikes usually erupted over the reduction of food rations. Directly responsible to the Nazi ''Amtsleiter'' ], Rumkowski adopted an autocratic style of leadership in order to transform the ghetto into an industrial base manufacturing war supplies.{{sfn|Trunk|Shapiro|2008|page=xlii}} Convinced that Jewish productivity would ensure survival, he forced the population to work 12-hour days despite abysmal conditions and the lack of calories and protein;<ref name="Lisciotto/H.E.A.R.T"/> producing uniforms, garments, wood and metalwork, and electrical equipment for the German military. By 1943, some 95 percent of the adult population was employed in 117 workshops, which – Rumkowski once boasted to the mayor of Łódź – were a "gold mine." It was possibly because of this productivity that the Łódź Ghetto managed to survive long after all the other ghettos in occupied Poland were liquidated. Rumkowski systematically singled out for expulsion his political opponents, or anyone who might have had the capacity to lead a resistance to the Nazis. Conditions were harsh and the population was entirely dependent on the Germans. Typical intake, made available, averaged between 700 and 900 calories per day, about half the calories required for survival.{{sfn|Trunk|Shapiro|2008|page=117|loc=}} People affiliated with Rumkowski received disproportionately larger deliveries of food, medicine, and other rationed necessities. Everywhere else starvation was rampant and diseases like ] widespread, fueling dissatisfaction with Rumkowski's administration, which led to a series of ] in the factories. In most instances, Rumkowski relied on the Jewish police to quell the discontented workers, although at least in one instance, the German Order Police was asked to intervene. Strikes usually erupted over the reduction of food rations.{{sfn|Trunk|Shapiro|2008|page=xlii}}


] ]


Disease was also a major feature of ghetto life with which the ''Judenrat'' had to contend. Medical supplies were severely limited, and the ghetto was severely overcrowded. The entire population of 164,000 people was forced into an area of just 4 sq. kilometers, of which just 2.4 kilometers were developed and inhabitable. Furthermore, fuel supplies were severely, and people burned whatever they could to survive the harsh Polish winter. Some 18,000 people in the ghetto are believed to have died during a famine in 1942, and altogether, about 43,500 people died in the ghetto from starvation and disease. Disease was a major feature of ghetto life with which the ''Judenrat'' had to contend. Medical supplies were critically limited, and the ghetto was severely overcrowded. The entire population of 164,000 people was forced into an area of {{convert|4|km2|abbr=off}}, of which {{convert|2.4|km2|abbr=off}} were developed and habitable. Fuel supplies were severely short, and people burned whatever they could to survive the Polish winter. Some 18,000 people in the ghetto are believed to have died during a ] in 1942, and all together, about 43,800 people died in the ghetto from starvation and infectious disease.{{sfn|Trunk|Shapiro|2008|page=223|loc=}}


==Deportations==
==The First Deportation==
]


Overcrowding in the ghetto was exacerbated by the deportation there of some forty thousand from the surrounding areas, as well as ], ], and the ], particularly from ]. On ], ], Rumkowski announced that twenty thousand Jews would be deported from the ghetto, selected by the ''Judenrat'' from among criminals, people who refused to work, and people who took advantage of the refugees arriving in the ghetto. An Evacuation Committee was set up to help in selecting the initial group of deportees. Overcrowding in the ghetto was exacerbated by the influx of some 40,000 Polish Jews forced out from the surrounding '']'' areas, as well as by the ] of foreign Jews resettled to Łódź from Vienna, Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg and other cities in ], as well as from ], and the ] including the citywide ].<ref name="jewishgen/timeline"/> ] visited the ghetto for the first time on 7 June 1941.<ref name="chronicle">{{harvnb|Dobroszycki|1987|loc=1984; p. 59.}}</ref> On 29 July 1941, following an inspection, most patients of the ghetto's psychiatric hospital were taken away never to return. "They understood, for example, why they had been injected with tranquilizers in the night. Injections of ] were used, at the request of the Nazi authorities."<ref>{{harvnb|Dobroszycki|1987|loc=1984; pp. 68–69.}}</ref> Situated {{convert|50|km}} north of Łódź in the town of ], at ], gassing operations began on 8 December 1941. Two weeks later, on 20 December 1941, Rumkowski was ordered by the Germans to announce that 20,000 Jews from the ghetto would be deported to undisclosed camps, based on selection by the ''Judenrat''. An Evacuation Committee was set up to help select the initial group of deportees from among those who were labelled 'criminals': people who refused to or who could not work, and people who took advantage of the refugees arriving in the ghetto in order to satisfy their own basic needs.<ref name="jewishgen/timeline"/>


By the end of January 1942 some 10,000 Jews were deported to Chełmno (known as ''Kulmhof'' in German). The ] set up by ''SS-Sturmbannführer'' ], served as a pilot project for the secretive ], the deadliest phase of the "]". In Chełmno, the inmates were murdered with the exhaust fumes of moving ]s. The stationary ]s had yet to be built at Operation Reinhard ]s.<ref name="jewishgen/timeline"/> By 2 April 1942, an additional 34,000 victims were sent there from the ghetto, with 11,000 more by 15 May 1942, and over 15,000 more by mid September, for an estimated total of 55,000 people. The Germans planned that children, the elderly, and anyone deemed "not fit for work" would follow them.<ref name="jewishgen/timeline">{{cite web |url=http://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/lodz/statistics.htm |title=Lodz Ghetto Deportations and Statistics |publisher=JewishGen Home Page |work=Timeline |date=2007 |access-date=26 March 2015 |author=Shirley Rotbein Flaum |quote=''Source:'' Encyclopedia of the Holocaust (1990), Baranowski, Dobroszycki, Wiesenthal, Yad Vashem Timeline of the Holocaust, others.}}</ref>
It is uncertain who first realized that the deportees were being sent to ], the first of the ] ]s, where they were killed with ] fumes in gas vans (]s had not yet been built). By ] ], an estimated 55,000 people had been deported. The harshest blow was yet to come.


In September 1942, Rumkowski and the Jews of Łódź had realized the fate of the evacuees, because all baggage, clothing, and identification papers of their fellow inmates, were being returned to the ghetto for "processing". The slave workers began to strongly suspect that deportation meant death; even though they had never deduced that the annihilation of Jews was all-encompassing, as was intended.{{sfn|Trunk|Shapiro|2008|page=52|ps=: }} They witnessed the German raid on a children's hospital where all patients were rounded up and put into trucks never to return (some thrown from windows). A new German order demanded that 24,000 Jews be handed over for deportation. A debate raged in the ghetto over who should be given up. Rumkowski sounded more convinced than ever that the only chance for Jewish survival lay in the ability to work productively for the Reich without interference.<ref name="Schweber"/> As Rumkowski believed productivity was necessary for survival, he thought they should give their 13,000 children and their 11,000 elderly. He addressed the parents of Łódź as follows.
]


], September 1942]]
By September, Rumkowski and the Jews of &#321;ód&#378; had learned that deportation meant death. They had witnessed the German raid on a children's hospital, when all the patients were rounded up and put into trucks (some actually thrown from windows), never to be seen again. A new German order demanded that 15,000 more Jews be handed over for deportation, and a debate raged in the ghetto over who should be handed over. After considering the options, Rumkowski was more convinced than ever that the only chance for survival lay in remaining productive for the Reich. He therefore addressed the parents of &#321;ód&#378;:


:''"A grievous blow has struck the ghetto. They are asking us to give up the best we possess - the children and the elderly. I was unworthy of having a child of my own, so I gave the best years of my life to children. I've lived and breathed with children, I never imagined I would be forced to deliver this sacrifice to the altar with my own hands. In my old age, I must stretch out my hands and beg: Brothers and sisters! Hand them over to me! Fathers and mothers: Give me your children!'' {{blockquote|A grievous blow has struck the ghetto. They are asking us to give up the best we possess the children and the elderly. I was unworthy of having a child of my own, so I gave the best years of my life to children. I've lived and breathed with children, I never imagined I would be forced to deliver this sacrifice to the altar with my own hands. In my old age, I must stretch out my hands and beg: Brothers and sisters! Hand them over to me! Fathers and mothers: Give me your children! <small>— Chaim Rumkowski, September 4, 1942</small><ref name="Schweber">{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mco3ldVWNL8C&q=%22They+are+asking+us+to+give+up+the+best+we+possess%22 |title=Teaching the Holocaust |publisher=Torah Aura Productions |date=2007 |access-date=24 March 2015 |author=Simone Schweber |author2=Debbie Findling |page=107 |isbn=978-1-891662-91-1}}</ref>}}


Despite their horror, parents had little choice but to turn over their children for deportation. Some families committed collective suicide to avoid the inevitable. The deportations slowed down, for a time, only after the purge of the ghetto was completed. Some 89,446 able-bodied prisoners remained. In October, the number of German troops was reduced, as no longer needed.<ref name="calendar1942">{{cite web |title=Litzmannstadt Ghetto – The Calendar 1942–1945 |author=Michal Latosinski |publisher=LodzGhetto.com home |url=http://www.lodz-ghetto.com/litzmannstadt_ghetto_-_the_calendar.html,2-42 |format=Traces of the Litzmannstadt Getto. A Guide to the Past}}</ref> The German ] left the ghetto to conduct anti-Jewish operations in Polish towns with direct lines to ], ], and ].<ref name="hamburg">{{cite web|title=Hamburg Police Battalions during the Second World War |author=Struan Robertson |url=http://www1.uni-hamburg.de/rz3a035//police101.html |access-date=24 September 2009 |format=Internet Archive |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080222023331/http://www1.uni-hamburg.de/rz3a035//police101.html |archive-date=22 February 2008}}</ref> Meanwhile, a rare camp for the Christian children between 8 and 14 years of age was set up adjacent to the ghetto in December 1942, separated only by a high fence made of planks. Some 12,000–13,000 adolescent Poles with parents already dead went through the '']'' according to ].<ref name="ITS">ITS, International Tracing Service. ''Internet Archive.'' Retrieved 29 March 2015.</ref> Subjected to a selection process for ], the 1,600 children performed work closely connected with the industrial output of the ghetto, with help and advice from Jewish instructors.<ref name="calendar/kinder">{{cite web |title=The camp for Polish children at Przemystowa Street (Gewerbestrasse) |author=Michal Latosinski |publisher=LodzGhetto.com home |url=http://www.lodz-ghetto.com/the_camp_for_polish_children.html,37 |format=Traces of the Litzmannstadt Getto. A Guide to the Past |access-date=21 March 2015}}</ref>
This decision would have damned Rumkowski in history books, but for the next year and a half, it seemed that he had succeeded in his objective of saving at least part of the ghetto's population. Deportations stopped after the surrender of the children, and in ], the &#321;ód&#378; Ghetto, with 70,000 inhabitants, had the largest concentration of Jews in Eastern Europe. Admittedly, the ghetto had been transformed into one large labor camp, where survival depended solely on the ability to work. Schools and hospitals were shut down, and new factories, including armament factories, were established. On the other hand, Soviet troops were just sixty miles away and advancing rapidly and it seemed that the survivors would have been saved. Then suddenly, the Soviets stopped their advance.


] in accordance with the top secret ]. The ] was removed.<ref name="Pohl965">{{Citation |last=Frank |first=August |author-link=August Frank |section=Translation of Document No-724: Prosecution Exhibit 472: Letter by Frank to SS Garrison Administration and Concentration Camp Auschwitz, 26 September 1942, Concerning Utilization of Property of Jews |title=United States of America v. Oswald Pohl, et al. (Case No. 4, the "Pohl Trial) |volume=V |pages=965–967 |section-url=http://www.mazal.org/archive/nmt/05/NMT05-T0695.htm |url-status=unfit |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041122203654/http://www.mazal.org/archive/nmt/05/NMT05-T0695.htm |archive-date=2004-11-22 |via=The Mazal Library}}</ref>]]
==The End of the &#321;ód&#378; Ghetto==


Since late 1942 the production of war supplies was coordinated by the autonomous German Management Board (''Gettoverwaltung'').<ref name="calendar1942"/> The ghetto was transformed into a giant labor camp where survival depended solely on the ability to work.<ref name="haaretz2006">Yechiam Weitz (2006), </ref> Two small hospitals were set up in 1943, nonetheless hundreds of tormented prisoners died each month. In April 1,000 Jews were transferred to ].<ref name="calendar1942"/> In September 1943 Himmler ordered ] to get ready for a mass relocation of labour to the Nazi ]. Max Horn from the '']'' arrived and made an assessment, which was damning.<ref name="LD-lxi"/> The ghetto was too large in his opinion, badly managed, not profitable, and it had the wrong products. From his perspective the presence of children was unacceptable. The relocation idea was abandoned, but the immediate consequence of his report was an order to reduce the size of the ghetto.<ref name="LD-lxi">{{harvnb|Dobroszycki|1987|loc=1984; p. lxi.}}</ref> By January 1944, there were around 80,000 Jewish workers still subsisting in Łódź.<ref name="haaretz2006"/> In February, Himmler brought back ] to reinstate operations at Chełmno.<ref>{{harvnb|Dobroszycki|1987|loc=1984; p. lxii.}}</ref>
The ultimate fate of the &#321;ód&#378; Ghetto was debated among the highest ranking Nazis as early as ]. ] called for the final liquidation of the ghetto, with a handful of workers relocated to a concentration camp outside Lublin, while Armaments Minister ] advocated the ghetto's continued existence as a source of cheap labour, especially necessary now that the tide of the war was turning against Germany.


== Camp for Polish children ==
In the summer of 1944, it was finally decided to commence with the gradual liquidation of the remaining population. From ] to ], about 7,000 Jews were deported to Chelmno, where they were killed. As the front approached, however, it was decided to transport the remaining Jews, including Rumkowski, to Auschwitz. By late August, the ghetto was eliminated. Some 900 people managed to hide among the ruins, where they survived until the Soviet army liberated &#321;ód&#378;. Altogether, just 10,000 of the 204,000 Jews who passed through the &#321;ód&#378; Ghetto survived the war.


On 28 November 1942, a camp for Polish children was opened.<ref>{{cite web |title=The camp for Polish children |url=http://www.lodz-ghetto.com/the_camp_for_polish_children.html,37 |website=Litzmannstadt Ghetto |access-date=16 April 2019}}</ref> The official name of the camp was "Security Police Litzmannstadt Isolation Camp for Polish Youth" ({{langx|de|Polen-Jugendverwahrlager der Sicherheitspolizei in Litzmannstadt}}); however, the camp was referred to as the Camp on Przemyslowa Street. The camp housed children aged 8–16 who were orphans or accused of criminal activity such as theft.<ref>{{cite web |title=The establishment of Litzmannstadt Ghetto |url=http://torahcode.us/torah_codes/lodz/Kopia%206_pl.htm |website=Litzmannstadt-Getto |access-date=17 April 2019}}</ref> More than 1,000 children lived there, separated from their parents, working eight hours a day. They were fed starvation rations and had no access to water, heating or bathrooms. They were subjected to torture and beaten by the guards. The camp operated until the Lodz ghetto was liquidated.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Bałulis |first1=Sabina |title=Raport 2017: Children // THE CAMP AT PRZEMYSŁOWA STREET |url=https://www.centrumdialogu.com/en/projekty-edukacyjne/klub-kuriera/klub-kuriera-2017-raport-dzieci/1678-raport-2017-children-the-camp-at-przemyslowa-street |website=Centrum Dialogu |access-date=17 April 2019 |archive-date=2 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201002212539/https://www.centrumdialogu.com/en/projekty-edukacyjne/klub-kuriera/klub-kuriera-2017-raport-dzieci/1678-raport-2017-children-the-camp-at-przemyslowa-street }}</ref>
==Resistance in the &#321;ód&#378; Ghetto==


== Liquidation==
The peculiar situation of the &#321;ód&#378; Ghetto prevented any manifestations of armed resistance, which have become synonymous with the final days of the ], ], ], and other ghettos in Nazi-occupied Poland. Rumkowski's overbearing autocracy, the failure of attempts to smuggle food--and consequently, arms--into the ghetto, and the conviction that productivity would ensure survival precluded any attempts at armed revolt.
]


In early 1944, the ultimate fate of the Łódź Ghetto was debated among the highest-ranking Nazis. The initial wave of deportations to Chełmno ended in the autumn of 1942; over 72,000 people defined as "dispensable" were murdered.<ref name="S.J./H.E.A.R.T"/> ] called for the final liquidation of the ghetto. Between 23 June and 14 July 1944, the first 10 transports of about 7,000 Jews were sent by ] from the ] to Chełmno.<ref name="S.J./H.E.A.R.T"/> Although the killing centre was partly razed in April 1943,<ref name="Golden">{{cite book |chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=LTW1Rf-NfJsC&pg=PA189 |title = Archeological Ethics |publisher = AltaMira Press |last = Golden |first = Juliet |editor1-last = Vitelli |editor1-first = Karen D. |editor2-last = Colwell-Chanthaphonh |editor2-first = Chip |edition = 2nd |year = 2006 |access-date = 25 March 2015 |chapter = Remembering Chelmno |page = 189 |isbn = 0-7591-0963-X}}</ref> it had resumed gassing operations specifically for this purpose. Meanwhile, Armaments Minister ] proposed the ghetto be continued as a source of cheap labour for the front.<ref name="S.J./H.E.A.R.T">{{cite web |url=http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ghettos/Lodz/lodzghetto.html |title=Chronicle: 1940 – 1944 |publisher=Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team|work=The Łódź Ghetto |date=2007 |access-date=22 March 2015 |author=SJ}}</ref>
Nevertheless, ] sociologist ] identified four distinct forms of resistance that civilian populations engaged in throughout Nazi-occupied ], with offensive resistance constituting the final form of resistance. The other three categories: symbolic, polemic, and defensive, can all be found in the ghetto, and there are even indications of defensive resistance in terms of ].


On 15 July 1944 the transports paused for two weeks. On 1 August 1944 the ] erupted, and the fate of the remaining inhabitants of the Łódź Ghetto was sealed. During the last phase of its existence, some 25,000 inmates were murdered at Chełmno, their bodies burned immediately after death.<ref name="Golden"/> As the front approached, German officials decided to deport the remaining Jews to ] aboard ], including Rumkowski. On 28 August 1944, Rumkowski's family were gassed along with thousands of others.
Symbolic resistance is evident in the rich cultural and religious life that was maintained in the ghetto throughout the early years. Initially, there were 47 schools in the ghetto, which continued to operate despite the harshest conditions. When the school buildings were converted to living space to house the 20,000 Jewish transported to the ghetto from Central Europe, alternatives frameworks were established, particularly for younger children whose mothers were forced to work. Many of the ''ressorts'' maintained illegal daycare centers. Political organizations continued to exist, and even engaged in strikes when rations were cut. In one instance, a strike got so out of hand that the German police were called upon to suppress it. At the same time, there was also a rich cultural life, including active theaters, concerts, and banned religious gatherings, all of which countered official attempts at dehumanization. Much information about cultural activities can be found in the ghetto archive, organized by the Judenrat to document ''day-to-day'' life in the ghetto.


On 17 August 1944, The Gestapo announced the exclusion of the following streets from the ghetto: Wolborska, Nad Łódką, Zgierska, Dolna, Łagiewnicka, Brzezińska, Smugowa and the Old Market Square, Kościelny Square and Bałucki Rynek. The presence of Jews in these areas was punishable by death.<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://lodz.wyborcza.pl/lodz/1,35136,16407965,1944__W_Warszawie_powstanie__w_Lodzi_likwidacja_getta.html|title=1944: W Warszawie powstanie, w Łodzi likwidacja getta|publisher=Wyborcza|date=1 August 2014|access-date=6 October 2019}}</ref>
]


A handful of people were left alive in the ghetto to clean it up.<ref name="S.J./H.E.A.R.T"/> Others remained in hiding with ].<ref name="righteous">{{cite web |url=http://www.sztetl.org.pl/en/article/lodz/35,polish-righteous/ |title=Polish Righteous |publisher=] |work=Łódź |date=2015 |access-date=25 March 2015 |author=Archives}}</ref> When the Soviet army entered Łódź on 19 January 1945, only 877 Jews were still alive, 12 of whom were children. Of the 223,000 Jews in Łódź before the invasion, only 10,000 survived ] in other places.<ref name="Peck">{{cite web |url=http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=gvKVLcMVIuG&b=395095 |title=The Agony of the Łódź Ghetto, 1941–1944 |publisher=The Simon Wiesenthal Center |work=The Chronicle of the Łódź Ghetto, 1941–1944 by ], and The ], Washington D.C. |date=1997 |access-date=25 March 2015 |author=Abraham J. Peck}}</ref>
The archive can also be considered a form of polemic resistance, intended to record life in the ghetto for future generations. It is because of this archive, and especially the photographers who worked in the ghetto, that we have a real sense of what life in the ghetto was like. Unlike many other images from that period, some of the photographs taken in the ghetto are in color, enhancing the already vivid portrait of ghetto life. As one diarist wrote: "We must observe and protect everything with a critical eye, draw sketches of everything that occurs ..." so that they would be remembered. The archivists also began creating a ghetto ] and even a ] of the local ] that emerged to describe their daily lives.


===Forms of resistance===
Although it was illegal, the Jewish population even maintained several radios with which they were able to keep abreast of events in the outside world. At first, the radio could only receive German news broadcasts, which is why it is codenamed "Liar" in many of the diaries from that period. Among the news bulletins spread around the ghetto was the Allied invasion of ] on the day it occurred.
] in Łódź, 1940]]
The peculiar situation of the Łódź Ghetto prevented armed resistance, which occurred within other ghettos in Nazi-occupied Poland, such as the ], the ], the revolt at the ], the ], or similar rebellions in other Polish cities.{{sfn|Trunk|Shapiro|2008|page=53|loc=}} Rumkowski's overbearing autocracy including his periodic crackdowns, and the resulting failure of Jewish attempts to smuggle food – and consequently, arms – into the ghetto, as well as misleading confidence that productivity would ensure survival, precluded attempts at an armed revolt.{{sfn|Trunk|Shapiro|2008|page=53}}


The distinct forms of defiance included instead the symbolic, polemic and defensive resistance.{{efn|1=Swiss sociologist, Werner Rings, identifies four distinct forms of ghetto resistance: symbolic, polemic, and defensive; with offensive resistance (including ]) constituting its final form.{{citation needed|date=March 2015}} }} Throughout the early period, the symbolic resistance was evident in the rich cultural and religious life that the people maintained in the ghetto. Initially, they created 47 schools and daycare facilities which continued to operate despite harsh conditions. Later, when the school buildings were converted to new living quarters for some 20,000 inmates brought in from outside occupied Poland, alternatives were established, particularly for younger children whose mothers were forced to work. Schools tried to provide children with adequate nourishment despite meager rations. After the schools were shut down in 1941, many of the factories continued to maintain illegal daycare centres for children whose mothers were working.<ref name="Heberer">Heberer, Patricia. ''Children During the Holocaust''. Plymouth: AltaMira Press, 2011. The Łódź Ghetto had "some forty-three elementary schools, two high schools, and one vocational training facility, serving some 63 percent of the ghettos school aged youngsters."&nbsp;{{page needed|date=March 2015}}</ref>
Defensive resistance in the ghetto includes avoiding the final transports and helping others to do the same. Some 900 Jews managed to survive in the ghetto from the final liquidation until the Soviets finally liberated the city. Yet even before the final deportation, members of youth movements shared meager rations with friends who refused to report for deportation, allowing them to survive even after they were no longer entitled to food rations.


Political organizations also continued to exist, and engaged in strikes when rations were cut. In one such instance, a strike got so violent that the German ] police were called upon to suppress it. At the same time, the rich cultural life included active theatres, concerts, and banned religious gatherings, all of which countered official attempts at dehumanization. Much information about the Jewish day-to-day life in that period can be found in the ghetto archive of ] from ].<ref name="L.D.">{{harvnb|Dobroszycki|1987}}.</ref>
Since work was essential to the ghetto's survival, it seems inevitable that sabotage was common. In the latter years, leftist workers adopted the slogan ''P.P.'' (''pracuj powoli'', or "go slow") to hinder their work on behalf of the '']''. When a bunker with Jews hiding in it was discovered, one of the people assaulted ], Rumkowski's direct superior in the Nazi administration.


]
There is evidence in diaries that some form of armed resistance was discussed in the final days of the ghetto, but it never materialized as it did in other ghettos, because of the aforementioned considerations.


The photographers of the statistical department of the Judenrat, besides their official work, illegally took photos of everyday scenes and atrocities. One of them, ], managed to bury the negatives and dig them up after liberation, at 12 Jagielonska Street. Because of this archive, the reality of the ghetto was recorded and preserved. The archivists also began creating a ghetto encyclopedia and a ] of the local slang that emerged in their daily lives. The Jewish population maintained several illegal radios with which they kept abreast of events in the outside world. At first, the radio could only receive German broadcast, which is why it was codenamed the "Liar" in the diaries. Among the news that quickly spread around the ghetto was the Allied ] on the day it occurred.{{sfn|Trunk|Shapiro|2008|page=53}}
== External links ==

{{Commons|1=Lodz Ghetto}}
Since production was essential to the German war effort, the slowing down of work was also a form of resistance. In the later years, leftist workers adopted the slogan ''P.P.'' (''pracuj powoli'', or "work slowly") to hinder their own output on behalf of the '']''.{{sfn|Trunk|Shapiro|2008|pages=53–56|loc=}}
*

==Escape and rescue efforts==
] plant Trees of Memory during the ceremony at the Park of the Rescued {{ill|Park Ocalałych w Łodzi|pl|vertical-align=sup}} inaugurated in Łódź in August 2009. ]]

A number of Poles from Łódź were awarded titles of ] by ] in Jerusalem.<ref name="righteous"/> On their and their families initiative, a ] adorned with monuments was built in Łódź, measuring {{convert|3660|m2}}. It was inaugurated in August 2009 by the ] ] in the presence of prominent dignitaries.<ref name="sprawiedliwi-2009">{{Cite web|url=http://www.sprawiedliwi.org.pl/pl/cms/archiwum-aktualnosci/125,uroczystosci-w-lodzi/|title=Uroczystości w Łodzi, 28 sierpnia 2009. Polin.|access-date=27 March 2015|archive-date=21 April 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160421212111/http://www.sprawiedliwi.org.pl/pl/cms/archiwum-aktualnosci/125,uroczystosci-w-lodzi/}}</ref> A year later, the Park was awarded a medal for top urban design by the ''Towarzystwo Urbanistów Polskich''.<ref name="dim.com"> Dom i Miasto. {{in lang|pl}}</ref>

One of the Poles who helped the Jews in Łódź was a Catholic midwife ]. She and her family provided food, clothing and fake documents to many Jewish fugitives. Eventually, however, she and her family were arrested by the Germans. She and her daughter were deported to Auschwitz. Later on she became known for her effort to save many Jewish children; her sons were sent to stone quarries of ]. <ref name="seattlecatholic">{{cite web |url=http://www.seattlecatholic.com/article_20050104.html |author=Matthew M. Anger |title=Midwife at Auschwitz: The Story of Stanislawa Leszczynska |publisher=Seattle Catholic |date=4 January 2005 |access-date=21 June 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Almanach Polonii|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YvRKAAAAIAAJ|year=1984|publisher=Wydawn. Interpress.|page=60|quote="W czasach okupacji dom Leszczyńskich był baz dla ściganych, przede wszystkim dla Żydów. Tu otrzymywali żywność, ubranie, dokumenty, które potajemnie wyrabiał mąż Stanisławy" (During the occupation, the house of Leszczyńscy was a base for the fugitives, particularly Jews. There, they received food, clothes, and documents, secretly forged by Stanisława's husband.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.mp.pl/social/article/206159|title=Stanisława Leszczyńska|website=www.mp.pl}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://sydneyjewishmuseum.com.au/news/did-you-know-midwife-auschwitz/|title=Did You Know: The Polish Catholic midwife of Auschwitz|date=7 May 2018|website=Sydney Jewish Museum}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www3.archidiecezja.lodz.pl/czytelni/oblicza/leszcz.html|title=Stanisława Leszczyńska|website=www3.archidiecezja.lodz.pl}}</ref><ref name="Gabryel1989">{{cite book|author=Kazimierz Gabryel|title=Stanisława Leszczyńska: 1896–1974|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WlRGAQAAIAAJ|year=1989|publisher=Diecezjalne Wydawn. Łodzkie|isbn=978-83-85022-04-6|page=30|quote="Dom przy ul. Wspólnej 3, gdzie obecnie zamieszkali Leszczyńscy, stał się miejscem skąd bez przerwy płynęła pomoc dla Żydów" (The House at Wspólna 3 street, where currently Leszczyńscy lived, became a place from which aid constantly reached out to the Jews"}}</ref>

==Notable inmates==
{{more citations needed|section|date=January 2020}}

* ] (1919–1995), scientist and historian<ref>{{cite web | last=Hoffman | first=Allison | title=How an NYU Scholar Became the Keeper of Poland's Jewish Heritage | website=Tablet Magazine | date=10 April 2013 | url=https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/128885/poland-new-jewish-museum | access-date=18 January 2019}}</ref>
* ] (1911—1944), poet and painter
* ] (1913–1945), photographer, died during the Death Marches
* ] (1879–1941), actor from films such as '']'' and '']'', died November 1941
* ] (1919–2010), author of an autobiography '']''<ref>{{cite web | last=Grimes | first=William | title=Heda Kovaly, Czech Who Wrote of Totalitarianism, Dies at 91 | website=The New York Times | date=9 December 2010 | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/09/books/09kovaly.html | access-date=18 January 2019}}</ref>
* ] (1903–2017), the ] in 2016–2017 and among the ten oldest verified men ever. Was deported from the Lodz Ghetto to Auschwitz in August 1944 but barely managed to survive—with him being severely ] and near-death at the time of his liberation by ] troops in January 1945. He subsequently recovered and died over 70 years later in August 2017, just a month before what would have been his 114th birthday.
* ] (1929–1945?), diarist, deported to Auschwitz in 1944 then to ] in 1945, presumed to have died September 1945
* ] (1913–1952), victim of the ]
* ] (1923–2011), writer
* ] (1884–1944), writer, ghetto chronicler, killed at Auschwitz
* ] (1910–1991), photographer who documented conditions in the camp
* ] (1877–1944), ''Judenälteste'' ("Elder of the Jews"), head of the Judenrat, killed at Auschwitz
* ] (born 1926), author ('']'', set partly in the ghetto)
* Jakob ] (1872–1942), medicinal chemist, co-inventor of ] (Eukodal), died on 5 May 1942<ref>{{cite book |title=The Holocaust: a history of the Jews of Europe during the Second World War |year=1986 |url=https://archive.org/details/holocausthistory0000gilb |url-access=registration |publisher=Holt, Rinehart, and Winston |isbn=0-03-062416-9 |page= |edition=1st American |access-date=3 June 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The chronicle of the Łódź ghetto, 1941-1944 |year=1984 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=0-300-03924-7 |page=176 |edition=English}}</ref>
* ] (aka ''Dr. Szeffer'', 1882–1941), medical doctor and chess master, died in the ghetto 18 November 1941
* ] (1928–2012), founder of ], owner of ]
* ] (1861–1941), painter, died of hunger in the ghetto on 29 January 1941

==See also==
{{Commons category|Łódź Ghetto}}
*]
* '']'', German concentration camp for Polish children inside the Łódź Ghetto.
* '']'', a 1982 documentary; runtime: 55 min.

==Notes==
{{notelist}}

== References==
{{Reflist}}

== Sources ==
* {{cite book |title=The Chronicle of the Łódź Ghetto, 1941–1944 |publisher=]. Abridged edition, Hardcover |orig-date=1984 |year=1987 |isbn=978-0-300-03924-5|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=d1-U17adWKIC&pg=PR61 |editor-link=Lucjan Dobroszycki |editor-first=Lucjan |editor-last=Dobroszycki |via=Google Books |translator=] |translator2=Joachim Neugroschel |display-translators=et al}} {{ISBN|0-300-03208-0}}; Paperback, 1987.
* {{Cite book |title=Ghettostadt: Łódź and the making of a Nazi city |last=Horwitz |first=Gordon J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hRxzTw83ZVEC |via=Google Books, preview |access-date=21 March 2015 |year=2009 |publisher=] |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |isbn=978-0-674-03879-0 |pages=27, 54–55, 62 }}
* {{cite book |title=Łódź Ghetto: A History |last1=Trunk |first1=Isaiah |author-link1=Isaiah Trunk |last2=Shapiro |first2=Robert Moses |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ugVsNrbMSx4C |via=Google Books, preview |publisher=] |location=Bloomington, Ind. |year=2008 |orig-date=2006 |access-date=29 September 2015 |isbn=978-0-253-34755-8 }}
* Online Exhibit: (Internet Archive), ].
* , United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
* {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140625125749/http://szukajwarchiwach.pl/39#tabZasoby |date=25 June 2014 }}
* , ''Never Again!'' online Holocaust memorial.
* David Graham (17 March 2002), with index and commentary by David Graham. Retrieved 28 July 2015.
* Dr. B. Lee Hobbs, {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110930194953/http://www.english-blog.com/archives/2007/03/the_diary_of_dawid_sierakowiak_college_students_discuss_its_implications.php |date=30 September 2011 }} From Diary of Łódź Ghetto inmate Dawid Sierakowiak. {{ISBN|0-19-512285-2}}.
* Aerial photos of the ghetto from May 1942 (rotated so that north is to the right): {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110905220129/http://www.wwii-photos-maps.com/aerialphotoslodz/slides/Lodz--02.html |date=5 September 2011 }}, {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110920115212/http://www.wwii-photos-maps.com/aerialphotoslodz/slides/Lodz--03.html |date=20 September 2011 }} For orientation, note the Jewish Cemetery bottom right on second photo, which formed the easternmost portion of the ghetto.
* , {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121001055614/http://www1.yadvashem.org/exhibitions/lodz/1_home.html |date=1 October 2012 }} online exhibition by Yad Vashem.
* ] (2015), , Yad Vashem website. Overview. Selected photographs. Retrieved 28 July 2015.
* '''', a memoir of Holocaust survivor Simon Lewenberg 2012, homepage.
* in the ]
* ''''. LodzGhetto.ago.net collection of Holocaust photographs, interactive.


==Further reading== ==Further reading==
* Alan Adelson and Robert Lapides, ''Lodz Ghetto : A Community History Told in Diaries, Journals, and Documents'', Viking, 1989. * Alan Adelson and Robert Lapides, ''Łódź Ghetto : A Community History Told in Diaries, Journals, and Documents'', Viking, 1989. {{ISBN|0-670-82983-8}}
* , ''Web Journal of Modern Language Linguistics,'' 3/98, (June 1998)
* Trunk, Isaiah: ''Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe under Nazi Occupation''. The University of Nebraska Press, 1986. ]
*{{cite book |last1=Bethke |first1=Svenja |editor1-last=Kaplan |editor1-first=Thomas Pegelow |editor2-last=Gruner |editor2-first=Wolf |title=Resisting Persecution: Jews and Their Petitions during the Holocaust |date=2020 |publisher=Berghahn Books |isbn=978-1-78920-720-0 |language=en |chapter=Attempts to Take Action In a Coerced Community? Petitions to the Jewish Council in the Lodz Ghetto during World War II }}
* Michal Ungar, ''The Last Ghetto: Life in the Lodz Ghetto 1940-1944'', ], 1995.
* Peter Klein, ''Die "Gettoverwaltung Litzmannstadt", 1940–1944. Eine Dienststelle im Spannungsfeld von Kommunalbürokratie und staatlicher Verfolgungspolitik'', Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2009, {{ISBN|978-3-86854-203-5}}.
* Andrea Löw, ''Juden im Getto Litzmannstadt: Lebensbedingungen, Selbstwahrnehmung, Verhalten'', Wallstein: Göttingen, 2006
* Xenia Modrzejewska-Mrozowska, Andrzej Różycki, Marek Szukalak (eds.), ''Terra Incognita: the Struggling Art of Arie Ben Menachem and Mendel Grosman'', ]: Oficyna Bibliofilow, 2009. {{ISBN|978-83-61743-16-3}}
* Michal Unger (ed.), ''The Last Ghetto: Life in the Łódź Ghetto 1940–1944'', ], 1995. {{ISBN|965-308-045-8}}
* Horwitz, Gordon J., ''Ghettostadt: Łódź and the Making of a Nazi City''. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008. Terrace Books. {{ISBN|0-299-22124-5}}.

== External links ==
* {{JewishGen-LocalityPage|513922|Łódź, Poland}}

{{Holocaust Poland}}

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Latest revision as of 21:31, 22 November 2024

Second-largest ghetto in German-occupied Europe during World War II

Łódź Ghetto
Ghetto Litzmannstadt
Jewish children, the GhettoJewish children inside the Łódź Ghetto, 1940
The mapMap of the Łódź Ghetto within the city. The walled-off area is shown in blue in the inset. The Jewish cemetery is at 16; Radegast train station at the top right at 17; Kinder KZ for Polish children is at 15.
LocationŁódź, German-occupied Poland
PersecutionImprisonment, forced labor, starvation
OrganizationsSchutzstaffel (SS)
Ordnungspolizei
Death campChełmno extermination camp
Auschwitz-Birkenau
Victims210,000 Polish Jews

The Łódź Ghetto or Litzmannstadt Ghetto (after the Nazi German name for Łódź) was a Nazi ghetto established by the German authorities for Polish Jews and Roma following the Invasion of Poland. It was the second-largest ghetto in all of German-occupied Europe after the Warsaw Ghetto. Situated in the city of Łódź, and originally intended as a preliminary step upon a more extensive plan of creating the Judenfrei province of Warthegau, the ghetto was transformed into a major industrial centre, manufacturing war supplies for Nazi Germany and especially for the Wehrmacht. The number of people incarcerated in it was increased further by the Jews deported from Nazi-controlled territories.

On 30 April 1940, when the gates closed on the ghetto, it housed 163,777 residents. Because of its remarkable productivity, the ghetto managed to survive until August 1944. In the first two years, it absorbed almost 20,000 Jews from liquidated ghettos in nearby Polish towns and villages, as well as 20,000 more from the rest of German-occupied Europe. After the wave of deportations to Chełmno extermination camp beginning in early 1942, and in spite of a stark reversal of fortune, the Germans persisted in eradicating the ghetto: they transported the remaining population to Auschwitz and Chełmno extermination camps, where most were murdered upon arrival. It was the last ghetto in occupied Poland to be liquidated. A total of 210,000 Jews passed through it; but only 877 remained hidden when the Soviets arrived. About 10,000 Jewish residents of Łódź, who used to live there before the invasion of Poland, survived the Holocaust elsewhere.

Establishment

When German forces occupied Łódź on 8 September 1939, the city had a population of 672,000 people. Over 230,000 of them were Jewish, or 31.1% according to statistics. Nazi Germany annexed Łódź directly to the new Warthegau region and renamed the city Litzmannstadt in honour of a German general, Karl Litzmann, who had led German forces in the area in 1914. The Nazi German authorities intended to "purify" the city. All Polish Jews were to be expelled to the Generalgouvernement eventually, while the non-Jewish population of Polish people reduced significantly, and transformed into a slave labour force for Germany.

Resettlement of Jews to the ghetto area c. March 1940. Old Synagogue in the far background (no longer existing).

The first known record of an order for the establishment of the ghetto, dated 10 December 1939, came from the new Nazi governor Friedrich Übelhör, who called for the cooperation of major policing bodies in the confinement and mass transfer of the local Jews. By 1 October 1940, the relocation of the ghetto inmates was to have been completed, and the city's downtown core declared Judenrein (cleansed of its Jewish presence). The German occupiers pressed for the ghetto size to be shrunk beyond all sense in order to have their factories registered outside of it. Łódź was a multicultural mosaic before the war began, with about 8.8% ethnic German residents on top of Austrian, Czech, French, Russian and Swiss business families adding to its vibrant economy.

The securing of the ghetto system was preceded by a series of anti-Jewish measures as well as anti-Polish measures meant to inflict terror. The Jews were forced to wear the yellow badge. Their businesses were expropriated by the Gestapo. After the invasion of Poland, many Jews, particularly the intellectual and political elite, had fled the advancing German army into the Soviet-occupied eastern Poland and to the area of future General Government in the hope of the Polish counter-attack which never came. On 8 February 1940, the Germans ordered the Jewish residence to be limited to specific streets in the Old City and the adjacent Bałuty quarter, the areas that would become the ghetto. To expedite the relocation, the Orpo Police launched an assault on 5–7 March 1940, known as "Bloody Thursday", in which 350 Jews were fatally shot in their homes, and outside. Over the next two months, wooden and wire fences were erected around the area to cut it off from the rest of the city. Jews were formally sealed within the ghetto walls on 1 May 1940.

As nearly 25 percent of the Jews had fled the city by the time the ghetto was set up, its prisoner population as of 1 May 1940 was 164,000. Over the coming year, Jews from German-occupied Europe as far away as Luxembourg were deported to the ghetto on their way to the extermination camps. A small Romany population was also resettled there. By 1 May 1941, the population of the ghetto was 148,547.

Ghetto policing

German and Jewish police guard at the entrance to the ghetto

To ensure no contact between the Jewish and non-Jewish populations of the city, two German Order Police battalions were assigned to patrol the perimeter of the ghetto, including the Reserve Police Battalion 101 from Hamburg. Within the ghetto, the Jewish Police force was created to ensure that no prisoners tried to escape. On 10 May 1940 orders went into effect prohibiting any commercial exchange between Jews and non-Jews in Łódź. By the new German decree, those caught outside the ghetto could be shot on sight. The contact with people who lived on the "Aryan" side was also impaired by the fact that Łódż had a 70,000-strong ethnic German minority loyal to the Nazis (the Volksdeutsche), making it impossible to bring food illegally. To keep outsiders out, rumours were also spread by Hitler's propaganda saying that the Jews were the carriers of infectious diseases. For the week of 16–22 June 1941 (the week Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa), the Jews reported 206 deaths and two shootings of women near the barbed wire.

In other ghettos throughout Poland, thriving underground economies based on smuggling of food and manufactured goods developed between the ghettos and the outside world. In Łódź, however, this was practically impossible due to heavy security. The Jews were entirely dependent on the German authorities for food, medicine and other vital supplies. To exacerbate the situation, the only legal currency in the ghetto was a specially created ghetto currency. Faced with starvation, Jews traded their remaining possessions and savings for this scrip, thereby abetting the process by which they were dispossessed of their remaining belongings.

Food consumption and malnutrition

Jews within the Łódź Ghetto had an average daily intake of 1,000 to 1,200 calories which led directly to starvation and even to death. The process of purchasing food relied heavily on the quantity and quality of the goods that the ghetto citizens brought from their houses into the ghetto. Previous social class and wealth of ghetto inhabitants often determined the fate of food accessibility. While the wealthy could purchase additional food, many of the lower class Jewish inhabitants relied heavily on the ration card system. Food embezzlement by police forces within the ghetto encouraged hierarchy even amongst Jewish neighbors. Food became a means of control for the German forces and by the Jewish policing administration.

Food deprivation often caused strain on family relations but parents, siblings, and spouses would also hold out on their portion of food for the benefit of loved ones. People would trade furniture and clothing to receive food for their family members or themselves. Jewish women invented new ways of cooking in order to make food and supplies last longer. Tuberculosis and other diseases were widespread due to malnutrition. The physical attributes of malnutrition in the Łódź Ghetto led to sunken eyes, swollen abdomens and aged appearances while also stunting the growth of ghetto children.

Since 1940, the ghetto used its own currency, the Lodz Ghetto mark, which had no value outside the ghetto. The use of other currency was prohibited.

Organization

Administratively, the Łódź ghetto was subject to the City Council. Initially, mayor Karol Marder separated from the provisioning and economy department the branch for the ghetto at Cegielniana street (today Jaracza 11), whose manager was first Johann Moldenhauer, and then a merchant from Bremen, Hans Biebow. From October 1940, the facility was raised to the rank of an independent department of the city council – Gettoverwaltung, reporting to Mayor Werner Ventzki. Initially, the main tasks of the ghetto board were supplying, supplying medicines and settling the ghetto with the city. Soon, however, the inhabitants began to be plundered and exploited to the maximum, transforming the ghetto into a forced labor camp in hunger for food rations and extreme living conditions. From 1942, Hans Biebow and his deputies Józef Haemmerle and Wilhelm Ribbe demonstrated in the selection and displacement of ghetto inhabitants, and Biebow and his commercial capabilities were quickly appreciated by the dignitaries of the central authorities of the Warta Country. Biebow became the real ruler of the ghetto, and Gettoverwaltung officials arrived at a rapid pace – from 24 people in May 1940 to 216 in mid-1942.

Chaim Rumkowski delivering a speech in the ghetto, 1941–42

To organize the local population and maintain order, the German authorities established a Jewish Council commonly called the Judenrat or the Ältestenrat ("Council of Elders") in Łódź. The chairman of the Judenrat appointed by the Nazi administration was Chaim Rumkowski (age 62 in 1939). Even today, he is still considered one of the most controversial figures in the history of the Holocaust. Known mockingly as "King Chaim", Rumkowski was granted unprecedented powers by the Nazi officials, which authorized him to take all necessary measures to maintain order in the ghetto.

Directly responsible to the Nazi Amtsleiter Hans Biebow, Rumkowski adopted an autocratic style of leadership in order to transform the ghetto into an industrial base manufacturing war supplies. Convinced that Jewish productivity would ensure survival, he forced the population to work 12-hour days despite abysmal conditions and the lack of calories and protein; producing uniforms, garments, wood and metalwork, and electrical equipment for the German military. By 1943, some 95 percent of the adult population was employed in 117 workshops, which – Rumkowski once boasted to the mayor of Łódź – were a "gold mine." It was possibly because of this productivity that the Łódź Ghetto managed to survive long after all the other ghettos in occupied Poland were liquidated. Rumkowski systematically singled out for expulsion his political opponents, or anyone who might have had the capacity to lead a resistance to the Nazis. Conditions were harsh and the population was entirely dependent on the Germans. Typical intake, made available, averaged between 700 and 900 calories per day, about half the calories required for survival. People affiliated with Rumkowski received disproportionately larger deliveries of food, medicine, and other rationed necessities. Everywhere else starvation was rampant and diseases like tuberculosis widespread, fueling dissatisfaction with Rumkowski's administration, which led to a series of strikes in the factories. In most instances, Rumkowski relied on the Jewish police to quell the discontented workers, although at least in one instance, the German Order Police was asked to intervene. Strikes usually erupted over the reduction of food rations.

Young girl working in the paper factory

Disease was a major feature of ghetto life with which the Judenrat had to contend. Medical supplies were critically limited, and the ghetto was severely overcrowded. The entire population of 164,000 people was forced into an area of 4 square kilometres (1.5 square miles), of which 2.4 square kilometres (0.93 square miles) were developed and habitable. Fuel supplies were severely short, and people burned whatever they could to survive the Polish winter. Some 18,000 people in the ghetto are believed to have died during a famine in 1942, and all together, about 43,800 people died in the ghetto from starvation and infectious disease.

Deportations

Identity card Lodz Ghetto 19-4-1942

Overcrowding in the ghetto was exacerbated by the influx of some 40,000 Polish Jews forced out from the surrounding Warthegau areas, as well as by the Holocaust transports of foreign Jews resettled to Łódź from Vienna, Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg and other cities in Nazi Germany, as well as from Luxembourg, and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia including the citywide Theresienstadt concentration camp. Heinrich Himmler visited the ghetto for the first time on 7 June 1941. On 29 July 1941, following an inspection, most patients of the ghetto's psychiatric hospital were taken away never to return. "They understood, for example, why they had been injected with tranquilizers in the night. Injections of scopolamine were used, at the request of the Nazi authorities." Situated 50 kilometres (31 mi) north of Łódź in the town of Chełmno, at Kulmhof, gassing operations began on 8 December 1941. Two weeks later, on 20 December 1941, Rumkowski was ordered by the Germans to announce that 20,000 Jews from the ghetto would be deported to undisclosed camps, based on selection by the Judenrat. An Evacuation Committee was set up to help select the initial group of deportees from among those who were labelled 'criminals': people who refused to or who could not work, and people who took advantage of the refugees arriving in the ghetto in order to satisfy their own basic needs.

By the end of January 1942 some 10,000 Jews were deported to Chełmno (known as Kulmhof in German). The Chełmno camp set up by SS-Sturmbannführer Herbert Lange, served as a pilot project for the secretive Operation Reinhard, the deadliest phase of the "Final Solution". In Chełmno, the inmates were murdered with the exhaust fumes of moving gas vans. The stationary gas chambers had yet to be built at Operation Reinhard death camps. By 2 April 1942, an additional 34,000 victims were sent there from the ghetto, with 11,000 more by 15 May 1942, and over 15,000 more by mid September, for an estimated total of 55,000 people. The Germans planned that children, the elderly, and anyone deemed "not fit for work" would follow them.

In September 1942, Rumkowski and the Jews of Łódź had realized the fate of the evacuees, because all baggage, clothing, and identification papers of their fellow inmates, were being returned to the ghetto for "processing". The slave workers began to strongly suspect that deportation meant death; even though they had never deduced that the annihilation of Jews was all-encompassing, as was intended. They witnessed the German raid on a children's hospital where all patients were rounded up and put into trucks never to return (some thrown from windows). A new German order demanded that 24,000 Jews be handed over for deportation. A debate raged in the ghetto over who should be given up. Rumkowski sounded more convinced than ever that the only chance for Jewish survival lay in the ability to work productively for the Reich without interference. As Rumkowski believed productivity was necessary for survival, he thought they should give their 13,000 children and their 11,000 elderly. He addressed the parents of Łódź as follows.

Children rounded up for deportation to Chełmno, September 1942

A grievous blow has struck the ghetto. They are asking us to give up the best we possess – the children and the elderly. I was unworthy of having a child of my own, so I gave the best years of my life to children. I've lived and breathed with children, I never imagined I would be forced to deliver this sacrifice to the altar with my own hands. In my old age, I must stretch out my hands and beg: Brothers and sisters! Hand them over to me! Fathers and mothers: Give me your children! — Chaim Rumkowski, September 4, 1942

Despite their horror, parents had little choice but to turn over their children for deportation. Some families committed collective suicide to avoid the inevitable. The deportations slowed down, for a time, only after the purge of the ghetto was completed. Some 89,446 able-bodied prisoners remained. In October, the number of German troops was reduced, as no longer needed. The German Reserve Police Battalion 101 left the ghetto to conduct anti-Jewish operations in Polish towns with direct lines to Treblinka, Bełżec, and Sobibór. Meanwhile, a rare camp for the Christian children between 8 and 14 years of age was set up adjacent to the ghetto in December 1942, separated only by a high fence made of planks. Some 12,000–13,000 adolescent Poles with parents already dead went through the Kinder-KZ Litzmannstadt according to International Tracing Service. Subjected to a selection process for Germanisation, the 1,600 children performed work closely connected with the industrial output of the ghetto, with help and advice from Jewish instructors.

Jews clean and repair coats salvaged at Chełmno for redistribution among Volksdeutsche in accordance with the top secret August Frank memorandum. The yellow badge was removed.

Since late 1942 the production of war supplies was coordinated by the autonomous German Management Board (Gettoverwaltung). The ghetto was transformed into a giant labor camp where survival depended solely on the ability to work. Two small hospitals were set up in 1943, nonetheless hundreds of tormented prisoners died each month. In April 1,000 Jews were transferred to labour camps in Germany. In September 1943 Himmler ordered Greiser to get ready for a mass relocation of labour to the Nazi District of Lublin. Max Horn from the Ostindustrie arrived and made an assessment, which was damning. The ghetto was too large in his opinion, badly managed, not profitable, and it had the wrong products. From his perspective the presence of children was unacceptable. The relocation idea was abandoned, but the immediate consequence of his report was an order to reduce the size of the ghetto. By January 1944, there were around 80,000 Jewish workers still subsisting in Łódź. In February, Himmler brought back Bothmann to reinstate operations at Chełmno.

Camp for Polish children

On 28 November 1942, a camp for Polish children was opened. The official name of the camp was "Security Police Litzmannstadt Isolation Camp for Polish Youth" (German: Polen-Jugendverwahrlager der Sicherheitspolizei in Litzmannstadt); however, the camp was referred to as the Camp on Przemyslowa Street. The camp housed children aged 8–16 who were orphans or accused of criminal activity such as theft. More than 1,000 children lived there, separated from their parents, working eight hours a day. They were fed starvation rations and had no access to water, heating or bathrooms. They were subjected to torture and beaten by the guards. The camp operated until the Lodz ghetto was liquidated.

Liquidation

The Gypsy quarter in the ghetto after its inhabitants had been transported to the Chełmno extermination camp

In early 1944, the ultimate fate of the Łódź Ghetto was debated among the highest-ranking Nazis. The initial wave of deportations to Chełmno ended in the autumn of 1942; over 72,000 people defined as "dispensable" were murdered. Heinrich Himmler called for the final liquidation of the ghetto. Between 23 June and 14 July 1944, the first 10 transports of about 7,000 Jews were sent by Arthur Greiser from the Radegast train station to Chełmno. Although the killing centre was partly razed in April 1943, it had resumed gassing operations specifically for this purpose. Meanwhile, Armaments Minister Albert Speer proposed the ghetto be continued as a source of cheap labour for the front.

On 15 July 1944 the transports paused for two weeks. On 1 August 1944 the Warsaw Uprising erupted, and the fate of the remaining inhabitants of the Łódź Ghetto was sealed. During the last phase of its existence, some 25,000 inmates were murdered at Chełmno, their bodies burned immediately after death. As the front approached, German officials decided to deport the remaining Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau aboard Holocaust trains, including Rumkowski. On 28 August 1944, Rumkowski's family were gassed along with thousands of others.

On 17 August 1944, The Gestapo announced the exclusion of the following streets from the ghetto: Wolborska, Nad Łódką, Zgierska, Dolna, Łagiewnicka, Brzezińska, Smugowa and the Old Market Square, Kościelny Square and Bałucki Rynek. The presence of Jews in these areas was punishable by death.

A handful of people were left alive in the ghetto to clean it up. Others remained in hiding with the Polish rescuers. When the Soviet army entered Łódź on 19 January 1945, only 877 Jews were still alive, 12 of whom were children. Of the 223,000 Jews in Łódź before the invasion, only 10,000 survived the Holocaust in other places.

Forms of resistance

Jewish prisoners of the Gestapo KZ Radogoszcz in Łódź, 1940

The peculiar situation of the Łódź Ghetto prevented armed resistance, which occurred within other ghettos in Nazi-occupied Poland, such as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the Białystok Ghetto Uprising, the revolt at the Wilno Ghetto, the Częstochowa Ghetto Uprising, or similar rebellions in other Polish cities. Rumkowski's overbearing autocracy including his periodic crackdowns, and the resulting failure of Jewish attempts to smuggle food – and consequently, arms – into the ghetto, as well as misleading confidence that productivity would ensure survival, precluded attempts at an armed revolt.

The distinct forms of defiance included instead the symbolic, polemic and defensive resistance. Throughout the early period, the symbolic resistance was evident in the rich cultural and religious life that the people maintained in the ghetto. Initially, they created 47 schools and daycare facilities which continued to operate despite harsh conditions. Later, when the school buildings were converted to new living quarters for some 20,000 inmates brought in from outside occupied Poland, alternatives were established, particularly for younger children whose mothers were forced to work. Schools tried to provide children with adequate nourishment despite meager rations. After the schools were shut down in 1941, many of the factories continued to maintain illegal daycare centres for children whose mothers were working.

Political organizations also continued to exist, and engaged in strikes when rations were cut. In one such instance, a strike got so violent that the German Orpo police were called upon to suppress it. At the same time, the rich cultural life included active theatres, concerts, and banned religious gatherings, all of which countered official attempts at dehumanization. Much information about the Jewish day-to-day life in that period can be found in the ghetto archive of Lucjan Dobroszycki from YIVO.

Photographs such as this served to record the horrors of ghetto life for posterity.

The photographers of the statistical department of the Judenrat, besides their official work, illegally took photos of everyday scenes and atrocities. One of them, Henryk Ross, managed to bury the negatives and dig them up after liberation, at 12 Jagielonska Street. Because of this archive, the reality of the ghetto was recorded and preserved. The archivists also began creating a ghetto encyclopedia and a lexicon of the local slang that emerged in their daily lives. The Jewish population maintained several illegal radios with which they kept abreast of events in the outside world. At first, the radio could only receive German broadcast, which is why it was codenamed the "Liar" in the diaries. Among the news that quickly spread around the ghetto was the Allied invasion of Normandy on the day it occurred.

Since production was essential to the German war effort, the slowing down of work was also a form of resistance. In the later years, leftist workers adopted the slogan P.P. (pracuj powoli, or "work slowly") to hinder their own output on behalf of the Wehrmacht.

Escape and rescue efforts

The Polish rescuers and the Jewish survivors plant Trees of Memory during the ceremony at the Park of the Rescued Park Ocalałych w Łodzi inaugurated in Łódź in August 2009.

A number of Poles from Łódź were awarded titles of Righteous among the Nations by Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. On their and their families initiative, a Survivors' Park adorned with monuments was built in Łódź, measuring 3,660 square metres (39,400 sq ft). It was inaugurated in August 2009 by the President of Poland Lech Kaczyński in the presence of prominent dignitaries. A year later, the Park was awarded a medal for top urban design by the Towarzystwo Urbanistów Polskich.

One of the Poles who helped the Jews in Łódź was a Catholic midwife Stanisława Leszczyńska. She and her family provided food, clothing and fake documents to many Jewish fugitives. Eventually, however, she and her family were arrested by the Germans. She and her daughter were deported to Auschwitz. Later on she became known for her effort to save many Jewish children; her sons were sent to stone quarries of Mauthausen.

Notable inmates

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See also

Notes

  1. Swiss sociologist, Werner Rings, identifies four distinct forms of ghetto resistance: symbolic, polemic, and defensive; with offensive resistance (including sabotage) constituting its final form.

References

  1. Horwitz 2009, p. 27. Plan hammered out by Friedrich Uebelhoer.
  2. ^ Horwitz, Gordon J. (2009). Ghettostadt: Łódź and the making of a Nazi city. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Massachusetts. pp. 27, 54–55, 62. ISBN 978-0-674-03879-0. Retrieved 21 March 2015.
  3. ^ The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945, Geoffrey P. Megargee, Martin C. Dean, and Mel Hecker, Volume II, part A, pp. 75–82.
  4. ^ Biuletyn Informacyjny Obchodów 60. Rocznicy Likwidacji Litzmannstadt Getto. Nr 1-2. "The establishment of Litzmannstadt Ghetto", Torah Code website. Retrieved 21 March 2015.
  5. ^ Shirley Rotbein Flaum (2007). "Lodz Ghetto Deportations and Statistics". Timeline. JewishGen Home Page. Retrieved 26 March 2015. Source: Encyclopedia of the Holocaust (1990), Baranowski, Dobroszycki, Wiesenthal, Yad Vashem Timeline of the Holocaust, others.
  6. The statistical data, compiled on the basis of "Glossary of 2,077 Jewish towns in Poland". Archived from the original on 8 February 2016. by Virtual Shtetl Museum of the History of the Polish Jews, as well as "Getta Żydowskie" by Gedeon  (in Polish) and "Ghetto List" by Michael Peters  (in English). Accessed 25 March 2015.
  7. ^ Abraham J. Peck (1997). "The Agony of the Łódź Ghetto, 1941–1944". The Chronicle of the Łódź Ghetto, 1941–1944 by Lucjan Dobroszycki, and The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington D.C. The Simon Wiesenthal Center. Retrieved 25 March 2015.
  8. ^ Jennifer Rosenberg (2006). "The Łódź Ghetto". Part 1 of 2. 20th Century History, About.com. Archived from the original on 30 April 2006. Retrieved 19 March 2015. Lodz Ghetto: Inside a Community Under Siege by Adelson, Alan and Robert Lapides (ed.), New York, 1989; The Documents of the Łódź Ghetto: An Inventory of the Nachman Zonabend Collection by Web, Marek (ed.), New York, 1988; The Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry by Yahil, Leni, New York, 1991.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  9. ^ Mariusz Kulesza, Struktura narodowościowa i wyznaniowa ludności Łodzi Archived 8 April 2020 at the Wayback Machine PDF file, direct download.
  10. Journals and footage on YouTube of the establishment of Łódź Ghetto by Nazi occupants.
  11. Holocaust Encyclopedia (20 June 2014). "Jewish Refugees, 1939". German Invasion of Poland. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 21 March 2015.
  12. Horwitz 2009, page 49
  13. Horwitz 2009, page 62.
  14. Dobroszycki 1987, 1984; p. 52.
  15. Holocaust Encyclopedia (2014). "Ghettos". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Archived from the original on 15 August 2012. Retrieved 23 March 2015.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  16. Dobroszycki 1987, 1984; p. 61.
  17. ^ Emmanuel Ringelblum, Polish-Jewish Relations During the Second World War, Northwestern University Press, 1992, p.86. ISBN 0-8101-0963-8.
  18. Sinnreich, Helene J. (27 November 2017), "Hunger in the ghettos", The Ghetto in Global History, Routledge, pp. 110–126, doi:10.4324/9781315099774-9, ISBN 978-1-315-09977-4
  19. Ilustrowana Encyklopedia Historii Łódźi, p. 18
  20. ^ Carmelo Lisciotto (2007). "Chaim Mordechai Rumkowski". The Łódź Ghetto. Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team. Retrieved 22 March 2015.
  21. ^ Trunk & Shapiro 2008, p. xlii.
  22. Trunk & Shapiro 2008, p. 117, Minimal need.
  23. Trunk & Shapiro 2008, p. 223, "Natural" death.
  24. Dobroszycki 1987, 1984; p. 59.
  25. Dobroszycki 1987, 1984; pp. 68–69.
  26. Trunk & Shapiro 2008, p. 52: Łódź Ghetto: A History
  27. ^ Simone Schweber; Debbie Findling (2007). Teaching the Holocaust. Torah Aura Productions. p. 107. ISBN 978-1-891662-91-1. Retrieved 24 March 2015.
  28. ^ Michal Latosinski. "Litzmannstadt Ghetto – The Calendar 1942–1945" (Traces of the Litzmannstadt Getto. A Guide to the Past). LodzGhetto.com home.
  29. Struan Robertson. "Hamburg Police Battalions during the Second World War". Archived from the original on 22 February 2008. Retrieved 24 September 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  30. ITS, Erecting the Łódź Ghetto February 1940 International Tracing Service. Internet Archive. Retrieved 29 March 2015.
  31. Michal Latosinski. "The camp for Polish children at Przemystowa Street (Gewerbestrasse)" (Traces of the Litzmannstadt Getto. A Guide to the Past). LodzGhetto.com home. Retrieved 21 March 2015.
  32. Frank, August, "Translation of Document No-724: Prosecution Exhibit 472: Letter by Frank to SS Garrison Administration and Concentration Camp Auschwitz, 26 September 1942, Concerning Utilization of Property of Jews", United States of America v. Oswald Pohl, et al. (Case No. 4, the "Pohl Trial), vol. V, pp. 965–967, archived from the original on 22 November 2004 – via The Mazal Library{{citation}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  33. ^ Yechiam Weitz (2006), "Working against time," book review. Haaretz.com.
  34. ^ Dobroszycki 1987, 1984; p. lxi.
  35. Dobroszycki 1987, 1984; p. lxii.
  36. "The camp for Polish children". Litzmannstadt Ghetto. Retrieved 16 April 2019.
  37. "The establishment of Litzmannstadt Ghetto". Litzmannstadt-Getto. Retrieved 17 April 2019.
  38. Bałulis, Sabina. "Raport 2017: Children // THE CAMP AT PRZEMYSŁOWA STREET". Centrum Dialogu. Archived from the original on 2 October 2020. Retrieved 17 April 2019.
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  44. ^ Trunk & Shapiro 2008, p. 53.
  45. Heberer, Patricia. Children During the Holocaust. Plymouth: AltaMira Press, 2011. The Łódź Ghetto had "some forty-three elementary schools, two high schools, and one vocational training facility, serving some 63 percent of the ghettos school aged youngsters." 
  46. Dobroszycki 1987.
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  52. "Stanisława Leszczyńska". www.mp.pl.
  53. "Did You Know: The Polish Catholic midwife of Auschwitz". Sydney Jewish Museum. 7 May 2018.
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  55. Kazimierz Gabryel (1989). Stanisława Leszczyńska: 1896–1974. Diecezjalne Wydawn. Łodzkie. p. 30. ISBN 978-83-85022-04-6. Dom przy ul. Wspólnej 3, gdzie obecnie zamieszkali Leszczyńscy, stał się miejscem skąd bez przerwy płynęła pomoc dla Żydów" (The House at Wspólna 3 street, where currently Leszczyńscy lived, became a place from which aid constantly reached out to the Jews
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Sources

Further reading

  • Alan Adelson and Robert Lapides, Łódź Ghetto : A Community History Told in Diaries, Journals, and Documents, Viking, 1989. ISBN 0-670-82983-8
  • Bostock, William, "Language policy and use in the Łódź ghetto", Web Journal of Modern Language Linguistics, 3/98, (June 1998)
  • Bethke, Svenja (2020). "Attempts to Take Action In a Coerced Community? Petitions to the Jewish Council in the Lodz Ghetto during World War II". In Kaplan, Thomas Pegelow; Gruner, Wolf (eds.). Resisting Persecution: Jews and Their Petitions during the Holocaust. Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-1-78920-720-0.
  • Peter Klein, Die "Gettoverwaltung Litzmannstadt", 1940–1944. Eine Dienststelle im Spannungsfeld von Kommunalbürokratie und staatlicher Verfolgungspolitik, Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2009, ISBN 978-3-86854-203-5.
  • Andrea Löw, Juden im Getto Litzmannstadt: Lebensbedingungen, Selbstwahrnehmung, Verhalten, Wallstein: Göttingen, 2006
  • Xenia Modrzejewska-Mrozowska, Andrzej Różycki, Marek Szukalak (eds.), Terra Incognita: the Struggling Art of Arie Ben Menachem and Mendel Grosman, Łódź: Oficyna Bibliofilow, 2009. ISBN 978-83-61743-16-3
  • Michal Unger (ed.), The Last Ghetto: Life in the Łódź Ghetto 1940–1944, Yad Vashem, 1995. ISBN 965-308-045-8
  • Horwitz, Gordon J., Ghettostadt: Łódź and the Making of a Nazi City. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008. Terrace Books. ISBN 0-299-22124-5.

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