No. 179 £5 NUMBER 179 © Copyright After the Battle 2018 Editor: Karel Margry Editor-In-Chief: Winston G
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THE LODZ GHETTO No. 179 £5 NUMBER 179 © Copyright After the Battle 2018 Editor: Karel Margry Editor-in-Chief: Winston G. Ramsey Published by Battle of Britain International Ltd., The Mews, Hobbs Cross House, Hobbs Cross, Old Harlow, Essex CM17 0NN, England Telephone: 01279 41 8833 Fax: 01279 41 9386 E-mail: [email protected] POZNAN Website: www.afterthebattle.com Printed in Great Britain by CHELMNO/KULMHOF Warners Group Publications PLC, Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH. After the Battle is published on the 15th of February , May, August and November. LONDON STOCKIST for the After the Battle range: LODZ Foyles Limited, 107 Charing Cross Road, London WC2H 0DT. Telephone: 020 7437 5660. Fax: 020 7434 1574. E-mail: [email protected]. Website: www.foyles.co.uk United Kingdom Newsagent Distribution: Warners Group Publications PLC, Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH Australian Subscriptions and Back Issues: Renniks Publications Pty Limited Unit 3, 37-39 Green Street, Banksmeadow NSW 2019 Telephone: 61 2 9695 7055. Fax: 61 2 9695 7355 E-mail: [email protected]. Website: www.renniks.com Canadian Distribution and Subscriptions: Army Outfitters/Military Antiques Toronto 1884 Danforth Ave, Toronto, Ontario, M4C 1J4 Telephone: 647-436-0876 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.servicepub.com After the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939, the German-occupied part of the country New Zealand Distribution: was split up into four different Reichsgaue, which were annexed by Germany, and Battle Books NZ Limited, P.O. Box 5549 Lambton, the Generalgouvernement area further east. Reichsgau Wartheland (as it was known Wellington 6145, New Zealand from January 29, 1940) was governed by Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter (Reich Gov - Telephone: 021 434 303. Fax: 04 298 9958 E-mail: [email protected] - Web: battlebooks.co.nz ernor) SS-Obergruppenführer Arthur Greiser, who had his seat in the city of Posen United States Distribution and Subscriptions: (the German name for Poznan). It was in his fief that the Nazi authorities in early 1940 RZM Imports Inc, 184 North Ave., Stamford, CT 06901 set up a Jewish ghetto in the city of Lodz, one of the very first to be created in all of Telephone: 1-203-324-5100. Fax: 1-203-324-5106 German-occupied Europe. (In total, the Nazis set up an estimated 1,100 to 1,200 ghet - E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.rzm.com Italian Distribution: tos, nearly all of them in Eastern Europe. There was in fact only one ghetto in the Milistoria s.r.l. Via Sofia, 12-Interporto, West, at Amsterdam in the Netherlands.) The killing centre set up by the Nazis in the 1-43010 Fontevivo (PR), Italy Wartheland to liquidate Jews, gypsies and other ‘undesirables’ in their territory was Telephone: ++390521 651910. Fax: ++390521 619204 at Kulmhof (Chelmno), 60 kilometres north-west of Lodz. E-mail: [email protected] — Web: http://milistoria.it/ Dutch Language Edition: SI Publicaties/Quo Vadis, Postbus 188, The city of Lodz ( ód in Polish) lies in Reichsstatthalter and Gauleiter, SS-Ober - 6860 AD Oosterbeek western Poland, 140 kilometres south-west of gruppenführer Arthur Greiser. No German Telephone: 026-4462834. E-mail: [email protected] Warsaw. A centre of textile manufacture, in city within the Reich (Germany and Aus - the 19th century it developed into the coun - tria), not even Berlin or Vienna, had such a try’s second-largest city after Warsaw and large Jewish community so, at a stroke, Lodz the principal centre Łof tźextile industry in became the largest centre of Jewish popula - Eastern Europe, with Jews preponderant as tion within Greater Germany. CONTENTS workers and manufacturers. By 1939 it had a Immediately following the occupation, population of nearly 700,000, of whom like everywhere in Poland, the local Jews THE LODZ GHETTO 2 233,000 (33.5 per cent) were Jewish. became victims of anti-Semitic violence, not ITALY Nazi Germany invaded Poland on Septem - just from German soldiers and civilians but The Race for Messina 24 ber 1, 1939, and in a Blitzkrieg campaign of also from Poles. The first official anti-Jew - five weeks the whole country was subju - ish measures followed soon. They began on AUSTRALIA gated. Co-ordinated with the German attack September 18 with the banning of religious Port Stephens Amphibious Training and following a secret clause of the recently services for Rosh Hoshanah (Jewish New Centre 44 concluded German-Soviet Non-Aggression Year) and Yom Kippur (Day of Atone - Front Cover: The Jewish ghetto in the Pact, the Soviet Union invaded Poland on ment), followed by the blocking of all Jew - city of Lodz (renamed Litzmannstadt by September 17, the Red Army quickly occu - ish bank accounts; the prohibition of all the Germans in 1940) in Poland was pying the eastern half of the country. War - Jewish organisations and institutions; the the first large ghetto set up by the saw fell to the Germans on September 28 introduction of a curfew from 7 p.m. to 8 Nazis and also the longest to survive. and the last Polish bastions capitulated on a.m.; the prohibition to trade in leather or The signs at the entrances read October 6 (see After the Battle No. 158). textile products (which to many Lodz Jews ‘Residential quarter of the Jews. Entry Following the German-Russian occupa - meant a professional ban); the ‘Arianisa - prohibited’. This is the one at Stary tion, Poland was carved up into three parts: tion’ (expropriation) of all Jewish busi - Rynek (Old Market) — then and now. the eastern half was annexed by the Soviet nesses; the prohibition to own radios; and (Karel Margry) Union; the western provinces were annexed the prohibition to use horse-carriages or by Germany and became part of the German lorries or make use of public transport — all Back Cover: The memorial to HMAS Reich, forming four new Reichsgaue (admin - within the space of a few weeks. Assault , the joint US and Royal istrative and party districts): Danzig-West In early October, the Nazis ordained that the Australian Navy amphibious training Prussia, Wartheland and Upper and Lower Jewish community was to each day make avail - centre that existed in Port Stephens, Silesia, each governed by a Reichsstat thalter/ able a workforce of 600 men for compulsory New South Wales, from November Gauleiter; and the remaining middle part labour. Hoping to avoid random round-ups 1942 to October 1943. The memorial became the so-called Generalgouvernement, from streets and homes, the Jewish community strands in Fly Point Park in Nelson Bay. ruthlessly ruled by its Governor-General, proposed to themselves select and make avail - (David Mitchelhill-Green) Hans Frank. able such a force. In connection with that, the Photo Credit Abbreviations: AWM — Wehrmacht troops had entered and occu - German Stadtkommissar (temporary city gov - Australian War Memorial; BA — Bundes - pied Lodz on September 8. Tens of thou - ernor), Albert Leister, on October 13 archiv; IWM — Imperial War Museum; sands of inhabitants, including over 70,000 appointed Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski as USHMM — United States Holocaust Jews, had fled but 162,000 Jews still ‘Judenälteste’ (Eldest of the Jews), ordering Memorial Museum; USNA — US National remained in the city. When Poland was torn him to form a Judenrat (Council of Jews), Archives; ZIH — Zydovski Instytut up, the city ended up in the Wartheland, the charged with organising and supervising the Historyczny, Warsaw. middle one of the four new Gaue, ruled by its mobilisation of the Jewish workforce. 2 5 0 3 1 - D L I B - 9 4 R A B The Jewish ghetto in Lodz (named Litzmannstadt by the opening up a large number of workshops and factories and Germans) existed from May 1940 to August 1944. The very making itself indispensable for the German war economy. first to be set up in Poland, and the second-largest after However, with a population of over 163,000 (at its highest Warsaw, it was also the longest surviving of all the ghettos point) cramped in a tiny area of just four square kilometres, created by the Nazi regime. Hermetically sealed from the it became a place of unbelievable overcrowding, hunger, outside world, the ghetto was left to govern itself, under misery and suffering. Over 43,000 people perished there and strict Nazi supervision. Led by its Judenälteste (Eldest of the another 150,000 were sent away to be murdered by gas in Jews) Chaim Rumkowski, the ghetto tried to survive by the Nazi death camps. 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 THE LODZ GHETTO September 12, when the Kehillah, the Jewish communal council (many leaders of which wear yellow armbands, and Jewish shops had fled before the German invasion), voted were to be marked as such. From December By Karel Margry for a new chairman. Abram Lajzor Plywacki, 2 Jews were forbidden to steer or use any of the Agudath Israel religious party, was form of vehicle, and on December 11, were to wear a yellow star on the right-hand elected as new chairman with Rumkowski Gauleiter Greiser ordained that all Jews front and rear of their clothing. 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.