Litzmannstadt (Lodz) Ghetto and "Polen-Jugendverwahrlager" /Detention Camp for Polish Juveniles

Scope and content

The collection contains primarily:

Correspondence concerning Ghetto Litzmannstadt, announcements, appeals, reports, decrees, correspondence concerning Dzierzazna works, lists of names (monthly) of deceased Jews in the ghetto, admittance of prisoners by the State Criminal Police, announcements and reports about apartment searches within the ghetto with listings of the secured objects to be handed over, correspondence about prison sentences of Jews, prisoner lists, Red Cross correspondence, excerpts from newspapers and from literature about Nazi crimes committed towards Polish children and youth, evaluations from polish archives

History of the Ghetto Litzmannstadt (Lodz) 1940-1944:

In Lódz (as of 1940 Litzmannstadt), the second largest city in Poland and which during the German occupation was located in the Reichsgau Wartheland area, the first larger ghetto under National Socialist rule was established in early 1940. It comprised an area, surrounded by barbed wire, of 4.14 km² in an urban residential district, where, at times, more than 160,000 people were living. The buildings were in need of repair, the district had neither a sewage system nor running water. Initially the ghetto was planned as a temporary facility for a period of half a year, as the intention was to deport Jews to the general government. When it became clear that these plans would not be put into practice, the process of organizing the ghetto into a large labor camp was begun. The ghetto dwellers were forcibly put to work not only in the work sites and factories of the weapons industry, but also for German privately owned companies, where they primarily had to manufacture uniforms and other textiles for the Wehrmacht. The German ghetto administration headed by Hans Biebow was responsible for managing production. The internal administration of the ghetto was conducted by the Jews Council, which developed a considerable Jewish bureaucracy. A special role in this was played by the “Chief Jew” Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, who, in an authoritarian manner, saw to the enforcement of the orders of the German authorities. At first only Jews from Lódz and Warthegau lived in the Ghetto. In October/November 1941 20,000 Jews from western parts of Europe were added. Furthermore, 5,000 Roma from Burgenland were held captive in a separate area of the ghetto. At this time the first considerations were being made of establishing an extermination camp in Chelmno, 55 km away. In December 1941 the first murders committed using mobile gas chambers began there, with Jews from the surrounding area as the first victims. From January until September 1942 approx. 70,000 people were deported from the Litzmannstadt ghetto in four major waves to the extermination camp. In March 1943 production work in Chelmno was suspended, for those Jews remaining in the ghetto, their labor power provided temporary protection. However, as early as June 1944 deportation to the reactivated Chelmno camp began again. In 1944, the proximity to the front lines caused the extermination camp to be closed, the Soviet troops were barely 150 km away from Lódz. The final order to liquidate the ghettos was given in August 1944. In that same month 60,000 people were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Around 800 persons stayed behind for the work of clearing up the camp, another hundred were able to survive by hiding.

Source: Rudorff, Andrea: Lodz (Ghetto), in: Lexikon des Holocaust, ed.by Wolfgang Benz, München 2002, p. 142-143 and http://www.memorialmuseums.org/denkmaeler/view/1436/Bahnhof-Radegast-%E2%80%93-Holocaustdenkmal-Ghetto-Lodz [Latest access: 2012-08-08]

Existence and location of originals

In part: Federal Archives, Koblenz, Germany; in part: Yad Vashem Archives, Jerusalem, Israel