Dokumenty i Materialy: Do Dziejow Okupacji Niemieckiej w Polsce – Tom III- GETTO LODZKIE – Documents and Materials on the History of the German Occupation in Poland. Part III – The section dealing with the Łódź Ghetto. Edited by Artur Eisenbach. From a unique documentation series published in 1946 by the Central Jewish Historical Commission (Centralna Żydowska Komisja Historyczna) in Poland. Warsaw – Łódź – Kraków, 1946.
A detailed report on the Łódź Ghetto (the second largest in Poland after Warsaw) – covering the processes of the ghetto’s establishment, daily life, forced labor, and the role of the Judenrat in adaptation and administration under occupation. A collection of orders, reports, letters, and protocols from both the Nazi authorities and the Judenrat in the ghetto. Also included is a folded map showing the boundaries of the Łódź Ghetto and its surroundings. All materials are published here in their original language. “The documents published in this volume provide a general picture of the political and economic destruction of the Jewish population of Łódź by the German authorities, planned meticulously and executed with unprecedented treachery and cynicism” (from the introduction). The documents revealed here for the first time in history include: – Orders from the German authorities issued before the ghetto’s establishment for the Jewish population of Łódź – Nazi regulations on the marking of Jewish-owned businesses and shops, the requirement for all Jews to wear the yellow badge, and internal materials detailing the formation of the Jewish Council of Elders in Łódź.
– Further on are documents from the early days of the ghetto’s establishment: confidential circulars about the ghetto project, ghetto regulations as set by the Gestapo on February 8, 1940, presidential decrees, and a plan for the resettlement of the Jewish population within the ghetto. – Significant reports and protocols from meetings between German authorities and economic entities concerning the organized expropriation of Jewish-owned factories. – This group also includes documents defining the rights and responsibilities of the police, German civil authorities, and the military in the seizure of Jewish property, as well as regulations issued by the mayor of Łódź outlining the powers of the Jewish Elders.
An additional group of documents presented here consists of records containing draconian regulations regarding the total isolation of the ghetto from the rest of the city, as well as the establishment of special units of the criminal police within the ghetto. These documents illustrate, on the one hand, the role of these units in the looting of Jewish property, and on the other hand, the internal struggle among various German entities over the right to share in the vast spoils accumulated following the confiscation of Jewish possessions. Also included are financial reports shedding light on the scale of the plunder carried out in the Łódź Ghetto and in other cities throughout the Kraj Warty district.
Further on, the publication details the German plans for the deportation of the Jewish population from Łódź and other towns in the district, along with the stages of implementation and various “operations.” These deportations initially led to the General Government or to labor camps in the Poznań area, and from mid-January 1942, to the Chełmno extermination camp. This group of documents reveals the role of the Łódź Ghetto as a major labor reservoir and as a resettlement site for tens of thousands of Jews from liquidated provincial ghettos and various cities in Western Europe. They also shed light on the ghetto’s function as the largest labor camp in the Polish territories annexed to the Reich. A separate group of documents documents the deliberate extermination of the Jewish population within the ghetto itself—primarily through deliberate starvation. These sections are difficult to read, as they detail the horrific suffering endured by the Jews of the ghetto. In separate chapters, official German documents appear concerning the dismantling of the Łódź Ghetto, and the atrocities of the executions in Chełmno.
The volume opens with an introduction by Mendel Balberyszski, in which he traces the history of Jewish life in Łódź, beginning with the arrival of Jews in the city and the growth of the Jewish population from about 8,000 settlers at the beginning of the 19th century to approximately 202,000 in 1939, on the eve of the ghetto’s establishment.
300 [2] pages. Printed on coarse paper due to postwar shortages. Minor tears to the edges of the cover and spine. Good condition.
