History

 

The Łódź ghetto was created by Germans in February 1940. At first, 160 thousand Jews of Łódź were closed there. In April 1940 the German occupiers renamed the city of Łódź Litzmannstadt. One of the most important moments in the history of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto was the arrival of nearly 20 thousand Jews from Western Europe, coming mainly from intellectual and artistic circles of Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Emden, Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt and Luxembourg. Transports from these cities reached Litzmannstadt between 17 October and 4 November, 1941. Among those deported to the ghetto were: Paul Kornfeld, one of the most promising writers of modern Europe, world-class chemists James Speyer and Hugo Dietz, mathematician Louis Berwald, Franz Kafka’s sisters, musician Berthard Silberstein, prominent oncologist Wilhelm Caspari, as well as many others. The vast majority of the deported Jews were elderly and ailing. The aim of the resettlement was to concentrate the population before the planned extermination.

Bringing twenty thousand people into the overcrowded Łódź ghetto worsened the already severe housing conditions. The ghetto authorities transformed buildings previously operating as schools or nurseries into the so-called “residential collectives". New residents found it very difficult to adapt to the conditions in the ghetto. Another problem was the assimilation with the local population - a large number of the newcomers from the West had abandoned Judaism, many of them were Christians. Age, health status, language and occupational structure of the group made it extremely difficult for them to find employment, and work was the only chance of survival in the ghetto.

Living conditions: filth, famine, lack of space and cold resulted in a sharp increase in the incidence of dysentery, typhoid and typhus, which in turn caused the mortality rate to surge. In May 1942, the Jews from Western Europe were included in the forced displacement action - that is extermination. Between 4 and 15 May 1942, Germans deported more than 10 thousand people in 12 transports to the Kulmhof camp (Chelmno on the Ner) and then murdered them there. Children, the elderly and the sick who managed to survive the first wave of deportations died in September 1942 during the so-called "Allgemeine Gesperre" (General Curfew). Those who survived (7196 people) were deported by the Nazis to the death camps in Auschwitz-Birkenau and Kulmhof in 1944. Only few of those whom the Nazis deported in 1941 to the ghetto in the occupied Łódź survived World War II.

LIST OF TRANSPORTS of EUROPEAN JEWS TO THE ŁÓDŹ GHETTO

 

LIST OF TRANSPORTS of EUROPEAN JEWS TO THE ŁÓDŹ GHETTO

Transport

Number

Numberr of transport

Date of arrival in the Litzmannstadt Ghetto

Numer of persons on the transport

Address of housing collective

Vienna

I

1

17 Oct 1941

1000

Marysin, ul. Przemysłowa

Vienna

II

5

20 Oct

1000

Jakuba 10

Vienna

III

9

24 Oct

1000

Private lodgings

Vienna

IV

14

29 Oct

1000

Limanowskiego 25 i 45

Vienna

V

19

3 Nov

1000

Brzezińska 41,

„Bajka“ cinema

ul. Franciszkańska 31

Berlin

I

4

19 Oct

1082

Private lodgings

Berlin, Emden

II

10a and 10b

25 Oct

912 + 122

Marysin, ul. Staszica

Berlin

III

15

30 Oct

1030

Urzędnicza 11,

Zgierska 70

Berlin

IV

18

2 Oct

1000

Widok 7,

Franciszkańska 27

Prague

I

12

18 Oct

1000

Franciszkańska 21

Prague

II

7

22 Oct

1000

Łagiewnicka 37

Prague

III

12

27 Oct

1000

Franciszkańska 21, Łagiewnicka 37,

Franciszkańska 37, Marysińska 38

Prague

IV

17

1 Nov

1000

Franciszkańska 29

Prague

V

20

4 Nov

1000

Jakuba 10

Düsseldorf

 

13

28 Oct

1004

Rybna 25

Cologne

I

8

23 Oct

1006

Private lodgings

Cologne

II

16

31 Oct

1006

Marysin, ul. Otylii

Frankfurt n/M

 

6

21 Oct

1186

Franciszkańska 13,

Jakuba 10

Hamburg

 

11

26 Oct

1063

Młynarska 25

Luxembourg

 

3

18 Oct

512

Franciszkańska 29

 

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