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THE LODZ GHETTO

No. 179

£5

NUMBER 179

After the Battle

2018

Editor: Karel Margry

Editor-in-Chief: Winston G. Ramsey

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POZNAN

CHELMNO/KULMHOF

LODZ

After the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939, the German-occupied part of the country

was split up into four different Reichsgaue, which were annexed by Germany, and

the Generalgouvernement area further east. Reichsgau Wartheland (as it was known

from January 29, 1940) was governed by Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter (Reich Gov-

ernor) SS-Obergruppenführer Arthur Greiser, who had his seat in the city of Posen

(the German name for Poznan). It was in his fief that the Nazi authorities in early 1940

set up a Jewish ghetto in the city of Lodz, one of the very first to be created in all of

German-occupied Europe. (In total, the Nazis set up an estimated 1,100 to 1,200 ghet-

tos, nearly all of them in Eastern Europe. There was in fact only one ghetto in the

West, at Amsterdam in the Netherlands.) The killing centre set up by the Nazis in the

Wartheland to liquidate Jews, gypsies and other ‘undesirables’ in their territory was

at Kulmhof (Chelmno), 60 kilometres north-west of Lodz.

The city of Lodz (Łódź in Polish) lies in

western Poland, 140 kilometres south-west of

Warsaw. A centre of textile manufacture, in

the 19th century it developed into the coun-

try’s second-largest city after Warsaw and

the principal centre of textile industry in

Eastern Europe, with Jews preponderant as

workers and manufacturers. By 1939 it had a

population of nearly 700,000, of whom

233,000 (33.5 per cent) were Jewish.

Nazi Germany invaded Poland on Septem-

ber 1, 1939, and in a Blitzkrieg campaign of

five weeks the whole country was subju-

gated. Co-ordinated with the German attack

and following a secret clause of the recently

concluded German-Soviet Non-Aggression

Pact, the Soviet Union invaded Poland on

September 17, the Red Army quickly occu-

pying the eastern half of the country. War-

saw fell to the Germans on September 28

and the last Polish bastions capitulated on

October 6 (see

After the Battle

No. 158).

Following the German-Russian occupa-

tion, Poland was carved up into three parts:

the eastern half was annexed by the Soviet

Union; the western provinces were annexed

by Germany and became part of the German

Reich, forming four new Reichsgaue (admin-

istrative and party districts): Danzig-West

Prussia, Wartheland and Upper and Lower

Silesia, each governed by a Reichsstatthalter/

Gauleiter; and the remaining middle part

became the so-called Generalgouvernement,

ruthlessly ruled by its Governor-General,

Hans Frank.

Wehrmacht troops had entered and occu-

pied Lodz on September 8. Tens of thou-

sands of inhabitants, including over 70,000

Jews, had fled but 162,000 Jews still

remained in the city. When Poland was torn

up, the city ended up in the Wartheland, the

middle one of the four new Gaue, ruled by its

Reichsstatthalter and Gauleiter, SS-Ober-

gruppenführer Arthur Greiser. No German

city within the Reich (Germany and Aus-

tria), not even Berlin or Vienna, had such a

large Jewish community so, at a stroke, Lodz

became the largest centre of Jewish popula-

tion within Greater Germany.

Immediately following the occupation,

like everywhere in Poland, the local Jews

became victims of anti-Semitic violence, not

just from German soldiers and civilians but

also from Poles. The first official anti-Jew-

ish measures followed soon. They began on

September 18 with the banning of religious

services for Rosh Hoshanah (Jewish New

Year) and Yom Kippur (Day of Atone-

ment), followed by the blocking of all Jew-

ish bank accounts; the prohibition of all

Jewish organisations and institutions; the

introduction of a curfew from 7 p.m. to 8

a.m.; the prohibition to trade in leather or

textile products (which to many Lodz Jews

meant a professional ban); the ‘Arianisa-

tion’ (expropriation) of all Jewish busi-

nesses; the prohibition to own radios; and

the prohibition to use horse-carriages or

lorries or make use of public transport — all

within the space of a few weeks.

In early October, the Nazis ordained that the

Jewish community was to each day make avail-

able a workforce of 600 men for compulsory

labour. Hoping to avoid random round-ups

from streets and homes, the Jewish community

proposed to themselves select and make avail-

able such a force. In connection with that, the

German Stadtkommissar (temporary city gov-

ernor), Albert Leister, on October 13

appointed Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski as

‘Judenälteste’ (Eldest of the Jews), ordering

him to form a Judenrat (Council of Jews),

charged with organising and supervising the

mobilisation of the Jewish workforce.

CONTENTS

THE LODZ GHETTO

ITALY

The Race for Messina

AUSTRALIA

Port Stephens Amphibious Training

Centre

Front Cover:

The Jewish ghetto in the

city of Lodz (renamed Litzmannstadt by

the Germans in 1940) in Poland was

the first large ghetto set up by the

Nazis and also the longest to survive.

The signs at the entrances read

‘Residential quarter of the Jews. Entry

prohibited’. This is the one at Stary

Rynek (Old Market) — then and now.

(Karel Margry)

Back Cover:

The memorial to HMAS

Assault,

the joint US and Royal

Australian Navy amphibious training

centre that existed in Port Stephens,

New South Wales, from November

1942 to October 1943. The memorial

strands in Fly Point Park in Nelson Bay.

(David Mitchelhill-Green)

Photo Credit Abbreviations:

AWM —

Australian War Memorial; BA — Bundes-

archiv; IWM — Imperial War Museum;

USHMM — United States Holocaust

Memorial Museum; USNA — US National

Archives; ZIH — Zydovski Instytut

Historyczny, Warsaw.

The Jewish ghetto in Lodz (named Litzmannstadt by the

Germans) existed from May 1940 to August 1944. The very

first to be set up in Poland, and the second-largest after

Warsaw, it was also the longest surviving of all the ghettos

created by the Nazi regime. Hermetically sealed from the

outside world, the ghetto was left to govern itself, under

strict Nazi supervision. Led by its Judenälteste (Eldest of the

Jews) Chaim Rumkowski, the ghetto tried to survive by

Rumkowski, a 62-year-old insurance agent

without much formal education, was not a

prominent member of the established local

Jewish leadership. A religious Zionist,

before the war he was principally known for

his work in organising a large orphanage for

Jewish children. He first came to the fore on

September 12, when the Kehillah, the Jewish

communal council (many leaders of which

had fled before the German invasion), voted

for a new chairman. Abram Lajzor Plywacki,

of the Agudath Israel religious party, was

elected as new chairman with Rumkowski

his deputy. However, the latter soon proved

the chief driving force and before long

assumed paramount position within the

council.

For the first two weeks after his appoint-

ment, Rumkowski lived under the illusion

that he would be able to deal with the Ger-

man rulers on equal terms. However, he was

soon confronted with the reality of the situa-

tion. On November 1, Jewish intellectuals

were arrested; on the 11th, the newly-created

Judenrat was arrested and most of its mem-

bers tortured and shot or dragged away to

concentration camps. The following day,

Rumkowski, confirmed as leader of the Jews

by the Nazis, formed a new Judenrat. How-

ever, many of the nominee members chose to

flee the city, forcing him to look for new can-

didates.

On the nights of November 14/15 and

15/16 — a few days after the first anniversary

of the ‘Reichskristallnacht’ (Reich Crystal

Night, night of pogroms) in Germany — the

two largest synagogues in Lodz were set

alight and destroyed by fire. New anti-Jewish

measures followed in quick succession. On

November 14, on order from the Regierungs-

präsident (regional governor) Friedrich

Uebelhoer, Jews in Lodz were obliged to

opening up a large number of workshops and factories and

making itself indispensable for the German war economy.

However, with a population of over 163,000 (at its highest

point) cramped in a tiny area of just four square kilometres,

it became a place of unbelievable overcrowding, hunger,

misery and suffering. Over 43,000 people perished there and

another 150,000 were sent away to be murdered by gas in

the Nazi death camps.

THE LODZ GHETTO

wear yellow armbands, and Jewish shops

were to be marked as such. From December

2 Jews were forbidden to steer or use any

form of vehicle, and on December 11,

Gauleiter Greiser ordained that all Jews

By Karel Margry

were to wear a yellow star on the right-hand

front and rear of their clothing.

Chaim Rumkowski consistently stuck to his motto ‘Our only way is work’. However,

his dictatorial leadership and disputable decisions made him the most-controversial

figure in the ghetto’s history.

BA R49-BILD-1305

The Lodz Ghetto

Through the ghetto ran two main thoroughfares — the Hohensteiner Strasse (Zgier-

ska) and the Alexanderhof-Strasse (Limanowskiego), which were considered indis-

pensable for German traffic. They were therefore declared ‘Arian’ streets, which

meant they were off-limit for Jews. This in effect cut the ghetto into three separate

sections and considerably hampered traffic from one part to another. Initially, Jews

could only cross these streets at specific points — two on Hohensteiner and one on

Alexanderhof-Strasse — at specific times, so crowds would build up at these points

waiting for the German guards to open the gates. This is the southern one on Hohen-

steiner. The sign reads ‘Residential quarter of the Jews. Entry prohibited’.

FORMATION OF THE GHETTO

The population of the Wartheland in 1939

comprised about 4.6 million people, of whom

3.96 million (85 per cent) were Poles, 327,000

(seven per cent) Germans and 366,000 (eight

per cent) Jews, the latter living in some 150

different communities. From the very begin-

ning it was the Nazis’ intention to remove all

non-Germans from the new Gau and replace

them with German settlers from elsewhere,

either colonists from the Reich or ethnic

Germans from Eastern Europe (Galicia and

Volhynia in eastern Poland, the Baltic coun-

tries, Bessarabia and Bukovina in the

Ukraine). At the same time all non-Germans

— be they Poles or Jews — were to be

moved out into the Generalgouvernement.

On November 12, 1939, the Höhere SS-

und Polizeiführer (Higher SS and Police

Leader) in the Wartheland, SS-Obergrup-

penführer Wilhelm Koppe, acting on a direc-

tive from Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himm-

ler, ordered the start of deportation of Poles

and Jews from the Wartheland. By February

1940 some 200,000 Poles and 100,000 Jews —

including 30,000 Poles and 30,000 Jews from

Lodz — were to be deported to areas south

of Warsaw and Lublin in the General-

gouvernement. Later directives stipulated

that over 680,000 persons, including all of

Lodz’s 233,000 Jews, were to be sent away.

By mid-December, over 87,000 persons

had already been deported in 80 train trans-

ports. However, these initial deportations

did not really affect Lodz. There were two

reasons for this: firstly, the German authori-

ties were not yet decided that Lodz would

remain part of the Wartheland; secondly,

and more importantly, the city’s industry was

of vital importance to the German war econ-

omy and the Germans simply needed the

Polish and Jewish labourers to keep it going.

In particular it was Hermann Göring, in his

capacity as chief of the economic Four-Year

Plan, who recognised that the Lodz workers

could not be missed.

All streets in Lodz/Litzmannstadt, includ-

ing those in the ghetto, were given German

names during the Nazi occupation. The

ghetto inhabitants used both names inter-

changeably. [1] Alt-Markt (Stary Rynek) [2]

Kirch-Platz (Plac Koscielny). [3] Baluter Ring

(Balucki Rynek). [4] Gestapo/Schupo. [5]

Hospital No. 1. [6] Gemüse-Markt (Rynek

Jojne Pilcera). [7] Ordnungsdienst (Jewish

Police). [8] Firemen’s Square. [9] Bazar-

Platz (Plac Bazarowy), today Plac Pias-

towski. [10] Kulturhaus (House of Culture).

[11] Zigeuner-Lager (Gypsies Camp). [12]

Faeces dumping ground. [13] Jewish

Cemetery. [14] Central Prison. [15] Rade-

gast (Radogoszcz) Railway Station.

A more general obstacle to the deporta-

tions from the Wartheland formed itself when

Hans Frank, the ruler of the Generalgou-

vernement, showed himself decidedly unwill-

ing to accept more Poles and Jews into his fief.

Despite vehement protests from Gauleiter

Greiser, Frank consistently refused to allow in

more deportation transports, arguing it was

impossible to absorb so many newcomers.

ATB

It was located at the south-western corner of Alt-Markt (Stary Rynek) — marked [1]

on the ghetto plan. The view is westward, looking into Am Bach (Podrzeczna). The

corner building has changed since the war.

Ghetto Fence

Foot-bridge

Jewish Cemetery

Former Church

UNSER EINZIGER WEG IST ARBEIT

Orthodox Main Synagogue

(destroyed on November 15/16, 1939)

BA BILD-183-R24285

Left:

Stary Rynek, the Old Market, had always been a centre

of Jewish life in Lodz and a busy hub of commerce, as illus-

trated by this picture from 1915.

Right:

A colourful art installa-

tion covered the square when Karel Margry visited Lodz,

obstructing much of the view. The square today has houses

on three sides but all have changed their appearance since

the time of the ghetto, having been given arcaded façades in

a post-war redevelopment.

ATB (D)

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