LODZ

LODZ (Yid. Lodskh ; Ger. Litzmanstadt ), city in central Poland, center of the textile industry. In 1793 there were 11 Jews in Lodz; by 1809 (when the city was under Prussian rule) the number had risen to 98. A community was organized at that time and a wooden synagogue erected which was renovated in subsequent years. After 1820 (under Russian rule) Lodz became an important industrial center and consequently the Jewish population increased rapidly, until the community became the second largest in independent Poland. (See Table: Jewish Population in Lodz.)

Wishing to develop the textile industry in Lodz, the Russian government invited German weavers to settle on very favorable terms. To avert the possibility of Jewish competition, the Germans insisted that the same limitations on Jewish settlement as applied in *Zgierz should prevail in Lodz. According to these restrictions, Jews were not allowed to settle and acquire real property, nor were they allowed to sell liquor; only those who had previously kept inns were allowed to continue to do so without a special permit. However, the Jews were largely successful in preventing the Zgierz limitations from being applied. When the local authorities planned the town, they set aside the two streets near the market, Walburska and Nadrzeczna, for the Jews. In 1825 they declared that as from July 1, 1827, Jews would be permitted to acquire building sites, to build, and to live on the southern side of the Podrzeczna and Walburska streets and the market only. The only Jews allowed to settle outside this quarter were those

who established factories employing Jewish workers, wholesale merchants, members of the liberal professions who built houses, and two families who each possessed 20,000 zlotys. All Jews granted exceptional residence rights had to know Polish, French, or German, and their children over the age of seven had to attend general schools along with non-Jewish children. They were also forbidden to wear the traditional Jewish dress. For a time the authorities continued to harass even those Jews who fulfilled all these conditions. Anxious to eliminate competition from the growing number of Jewish weavers, the German textile workers pressed for the expulsion of the Jews. From 1832 Samuel Ezekiel Salzmann led the battle to extend the rights of Jewish settlement. As the number of Jews continued to grow he built many houses to alleviate the overcrowding and rising rents in the Jewish quarter.

In 1848 the czar abolished the limitations on Jewish settlement in Polish cities. By decrees of 1861 and 1862 the concept of a specific Jewish quarter in Lodz was finally abolished. Jews settled throughout the city, although many of them continued to be concentrated in the former Jewish quarter, the "Altstadt." A synagogue was erected on Wilki Street, outside the old quarter. Large numbers of Jewish craftsmen, peddlers, and factory workers were concentrated in the suburb of Balut (Baluty). This settlement began early in the 19^th century, when Balut was still a separate village and Isaac Blauwatt and Isaac Birnzweig leased lands from its owner to sublet to Jews. Although no industrial enterprises were established in Balut itself, many Jewish weavers who worked for the large enterprises on a contractual basis lived there. Until 1916 Balut was officially a village outside the Lodz municipality, and hygienic conditions were consequently poor. Conditions remained the same when it was incorporated into the municipality. With rising unemployment and worsening conditions for handloom weavers, life in Balut steadily deteriorated in the interwar period.

Throughout the 19^th century and up to 1939 Jews were active in much of the trade in Lodz, especially in supplying raw materials for the textile industry. Wholesale and retail traders, agents, and brokers formed over one third of the Jewish earners in Lodz. In the 20^th century Jews entered industry on a considerable scale; by 1914, 175 factories (33.3% of the total) were owned by Jews; 150 of these were textile mills. Jews also owned 18,954 small workshops (27.7%); 18,476 of them textile enterprises. Of the 27,385 Jewish workers (32.9% of the labor force), 26,845 were employed in textile industries. Thus the majority of Jewish enterprise and workers was employed in the small workshops of the Jewish textile industry. Jewish mills produced mainly cotton although there were some woolen and linen mills. The most prominent industrialists were Poznański, Hayyim Jacob Wiślicki, Asher Cohen (Oskar Kohn), the brothers Ettingon, Jacob Kastenberg, and Tuvia Bialer.

Lodz was badly destroyed during World War i when the German residents collaborated with the German invaders. With the break-up of czarist Russia and the creation of independent Poland, the large Russian market was lost and consequently new markets were needed. The Polish government did not grant Jewish industry financial aid for reconstruction. In the early 1920s the anti-Jewish fiscal policies of Polish Finance Minister W. Grabski further hindered the recovery of Jewish industry. Those firms which managed to recover were again hit by the world crisis of 1929. During the 1930s, anti-Jewish economic policies were intensified throughout Poland. Jewish workers were squeezed out of industry, even the enterprises owned by Jews. Every growth in the scale of a plant or increasing mechanization meant that Jewish workers were likely to lose their jobs, both because Polish workers were opposed to their employment and because anti-Jewish government policy encouraged this opposition. Between the wars, ready-made tailoring in Lodz was almost entirely in Jewish hands. Jews were also engaged in building and related trades such as paving, making steps, and carpentry, working on a contractual basis. Polish anti-Jewish policy attempted to replace Jewish weavers by Polish craftsmen. In 1910 the First Union of Jewish Craftsmen was organized, also including large-scale Jewish industrialists, on the initiative of the Jewish Bank for Mutual Assistance. In 1912 it was renamed the Union of Industrialists. Craftsmen and middle-range industrialists joined its ranks. After World War i a union of craftsmen and industrialists was organized as was a union of Jewish merchants in 1925. Small tradesmen and retailers had their own unions. In 1926 a union of both Jewish and non-Jewish traders and retailers was formed; however, the non-Jews soon left it. The Jews formed their unions in collaboration with *Ort. The *Bund, the *Po'alei Zion, and the Polish Socialist Party (the *pps) competed in organizing trade unions among the Jewish laborers in Lodz. In 1901, at a funeral of one of its members, the Bund held a demonstration in which 2,000 persons participated. During the revolution of 1905, the Bund was very active in Lodz. At the end of 1903, a Jewish section of the pps was organized in the city on the initiative of the famous Polish leader Józef *Pilsudski. Jewish craftsmen in Lodz, as elsewhere in Poland, were faced in 1927 with a law which demanded examinations for craftsmen and a diploma awarded by a union of artisans.

Social Life and Culture

The official enactments against and intrusions into Jewish communal institutions from the 1820s (see *Russia, *Poland, *Community, *kazyonny ravvin) had little effect in Lodz. The community maintained its *autonomy in difficult circumstances. With the official recognition of Jewish communal autonomy in independent Poland the first democratic elections for the community council of Lodz were held in 1924; seven of the members were Ḥasidim of *Aleksandrow, six Zionists and *Mizrachi, three Bund, 11 *Agudat Israel, one *Po'alei Agudat Israel, two representing the craftsmen, two left Po'alei Zion, one *Folkspartei, and one each from two Communist lists. The first chairman was the Zionist Dr. Uri Rosenblatt. In 1931 the authorities dissolved the community council and announced new elections. The results were: one Po'alei Agudat Israel, four Zionists, 12 Agudat Israel, two Ḥasidim of Aleksandrow, one Folkspartei, one representing the small tradesmen, and one each of the four leftist lists. Leib Minzberg of Agudat Israel was elected chairman, a position he occupied until the Holocaust. The community maintained a kosher slaughterhouse, a *mikveh, and a *talmud torah for the poor, and collaborated with *toz and other charitable organizations. The most prominent was Gemilut Ḥasadim (Pol. Dobroczynnść), founded in 1899 by Jewish philanthropists such as Israel Poznański as a roof organization for many charitable societies. Rabbis of Lodz included Mendel Wolf ha-Kohen Jerozolimski (1825–32) and Ezekiel Nomberg (1832–56), a *Kotsk Hasid who was opposed by many in the community. (His great-grandson was the Yiddish writer Hirsch David *Nomberg.) With the growth of Jewish Lodz, the rabbinical seat gained in importance. After a heated election campaign, Moses Lipshitz, also a Kotsk Hasid, was chosen in 1857. He was followed by the famous Lithuanian rabbi, Elijah Ḥayyim Meisel (1873–1912), who enhanced the stature of the office by becoming the recognized leader of the Jews of Lodz. His successor was Eliezer Leib Treistman, a Gur Ḥasid, and former rabbi of Radom. After Treistman's death in 1920, because of disagreement between the parties, no other community rabbi was elected. Last of the Reform synagogue preachers and rabbis was Markus (Mordecai) *Braude, the founder of the Hebrew schools network (see below).

*B'nai B'rith established a lodge in Lodz in 1926 which supported the Ort vocational school, the orphanage, and various cultural institutions. A bikkur ḥolim organization was founded in 1881; in 1908 it was incorporated into the Dobroczynność. Between the two world wars, the convalescent home for sufferers from pulmonary diseases was particularly well known. There was also a Linat ha-Ẓedek society which visited Jewish patients in Lodz hospitals. In the course of time its activities were extended; between the two world wars it established a hospital for children and a Linatha-Ẓedek pharmacy which was subsidized by the municipality of Lodz and the Jewish community. The synagogues organized societies for the relief of the sick and other charitable organizations, such as the Malbish Arumim which provided clothing for poor children. It subsequently undertook a variety of services: legal aid, the organization of cooperatives, and medical assistance. In the interwar period, there were soup kitchens for the needy which also distributed free meals to school children.

Jewish education in Lodz shared in the development and crises of the traditional Orthodox Jewish education system in modern times (and see *Ḥeder, *Yeshivah). There were many yeshivot; some, e.g., Beth Israel of the Aleksandrow Hasidim and the Lithuanian-style Torat Ḥesed, were influential. The talmud torah founded by R. Elijah Ḥayyim Meisel in 1873 provided education for children of elementary school age. Some subjects were taught in Polish and some in Hebrew. A diversified network of educational institutions, from kindergarten to secondary school, existed in Lodz. A "reformed" ḥeder (known as the Jaroczyński School after the philanthropist of this name) was founded in 1890 and included secular subjects in its curriculum. The first Jewish gymnasium in Russia was established in Lodz by Markus (Mordecai) Braude in 1912. In accordance with the requirements of Russian law, it was named after a private person, Dr. D.B. Rabinovich. In it too some subjects were taught in Polish and some in Hebrew. Another secondary school was headed by Itzhak *Katzenelson, the noted Hebrew poet who perished in the Holocaust. In 1918 the first Yiddish school was established, named after B. Borochov. The Jaroczyński talmud torah was converted into a vocational school in 1921 and in 1927 it became a secondary vocational school for the study of mechanics, electricity, and weaving. A *Beth Jacob school for girls was founded in 1924.

Although Lodz was not a leading Jewish cultural center, there was considerable creativity in the city. The Hebrew authors and poets, Itzhak Katzenelson, David *Frischman, and Jacob *Cohen lived and worked in Lodz, as did the scholars J.N. *Simchoni, Philip *Friedman, Aryeh *Tartakower, and Ḥayyim Isaac *Bunin. Yiddish authors and poets included Isaiah Uger, the editor of the newspaper Lodzher Togblat, J.I. *Trunk, H.L. *Fox, and Ḥayyim Krol. Most famous of the many Jewish musicians were Chemjo *Vinaver, the conductor, and the composer I. Goldstein. Jewish drama companies were formed at the close of the 19^th century, and from among these emerged the theater known as the "Great Theater," where the famous Yiddish actors, Julius Adler and Zaslavski, appeared. There were also well-known satirical theaters, directed by the Yiddish poet Moshe *Broderzon and actor Shimon *Dzigan.

Many Zionist societies were organized in Lodz soon after the First Zionist Congress of 1897, such as the Ohel Ya'akov, Ateret Zion, and Tikvat Zion, structured around synagogues. During World War i, Agudat Israel, whose main supporters were the Ḥasidim of Gur, engaged in numerous activities. The Zionist organizations were active in the propagation of the Hebrew language and Hebrew culture, initiated and organized by the historian J.N. Simchoni. The Hebrew cultural activities operated within the framework of the literary-musical society, Ha-Zamir, founded in 1899. It maintained a choir, a dramatic circle, and a library, and in 1915 formed a philharmonic orchestra. The D.B. Borochov Library was established by Po'alei Zion in 1914 and the Bund established the Grosser Library, named after the Bundist leader by the same name. Jewish newspapers included the Zionist Lodzher Togblat (1908), Lodzher Morgnblat (1912), Lodzher Folksblat (1915), Nayer Folksblat (1923), and other periodicals in Yiddish and Hebrew.

Until the Nazis began to disseminate antisemitic propaganda among the German minority in Lodz (from the mid-1930s) the antisemitic movement in the city followed the customary Polish pattern (see *Endecja, *Rozwój); from April 1933 there were many cases of murderous attacks on Jews. In May 1934 and in September 1935 Jews were wounded or killed in organized attacks. The antisemitic parties gained an overwhelming majority in the municipal elections of 1934 after conducting an election campaign on the platform of purging the town of Jews. Their rule was short-lived, for in the elections of 1936 the Polish and Jewish Socialist parties won a majority. Under different pretexts controllers and officials were introduced by the Polish authorities into the factories of Cohen, Ettingon, Poznański, and others. Rich Jews were arrested in 1938 and imprisoned in the camp of *Bereza-Kartuska. Guards were placed outside Jewish shops in order to prevent non-Jewish customers from entering them. In vain, the town's Socialist administration tried to prevent the growth of antisemitism and the accompanying agitation.

[Shimshon Leib Kirshenboim]

Holocaust Period

At the outbreak of World War ii, Lodz had 233,000 Jews, about one-third of the city's population. As soon as the war broke out many Jewish inhabitants, including the social and cultural elite, the youth, and wealthier circles, left Lodz out of fear of persecution. Their exodus continued up to May 1940. They sought refuge in Warsaw and other towns in the General Government (see *Poland, Holocaust) and many escaped to the territories occupied by the U.S.S.R. The German army entered Lodz on Sept. 8, 1939. In October–November 1939 Lodz was annexed to the Reich as part of Warthegau (Wartheland), and given a German name, Litzmannstadt. The Jewish community council, now understaffed, reinstated its activities a few days after the capitulation (Sept. 12, 1939). The council mainly extended assistance, as it did formerly, to the ever-increasing number of impoverished Jews, to refugees from the vicinity, to the sick, and to victims of Nazi terror. In October 1939 the Germans disbanded the council and appointed its former vice chairman, Chaim Mordecai *Rumkowsky, as Judenaeltester. He formed an advisory but short-lived body, "Beirat," of 31 Jewish personalities. On Nov. 11, 1939, the Nazis deported the Beirat members to the nearby Radogoszcz camp (Radegast). After some time another purely formal body was set up, completely subordinate to *Gestapo orders and to the Judenaeltester. The brutal liquidation of the first Beirat was an indication of further acts of terror to come that November, when the Nazis burned down the great synagogue and publicly hanged two Poles and a Jew.

In December 1939 the Germans evicted many Jews living along the central streets of the town to settle Volksdeutsche in their place. On December 12–14 the authorities deported a few thousand Lodz Jews to the General Government, after which a mass "spontaneous" exodus of Jews occurred as a result of the fear of deportation. In January 1940 the Jews were segregated into the Old City and Baluty quarter, the area of the future ghetto, officially founded by a police order on Feb. 8, 1940. The ghetto (less than 2 sq. mi.; 4 sq. km.) generally lacked sewage disposal and its houses were fit for demolishing. To speed up confinement of the Jews into the ghetto, the Nazis organized a pogrom on March 1, 1940, known as "bloody Thursday," during which many Jews were murdered. Thousands of Jews were then driven into the ghetto without being permitted to take their property with them. On April 30, 1940, the ghetto was closed off. Its small area contained the 164,000 Jews still living in Lodz, for between Sept. 1, 1939, and May 1, 1940, 70,000 Jews had left the city. The ghetto was separated from the rest of the city by barbed wire, wooden fences, and a chain of "Schupo" (Schutzpolizei) outposts. The Jewish administrative body and the German ghetto council (Ghettoverwaltung) headed by Hans Biebow communicated with each other at the so-called Bałuty market, where some German and the central Jewish offices were located. The ghetto was crossed by two thoroughfares which did not, however, belong to the ghetto area. These streets divided the ghetto into three parts connected to one another by several gates (for traffic) and three bridges (for pedestrians). The isolation of the ghetto was strengthened by the fact that it was deliberately surrounded by a German population according to the "Germanization policy."

Up to October 1940 the local German authorities counted on the deportation of the ghetto inmates to "reserves" in the Lublin District or to Madagascar (see *Madagascar Plan). But German plans changed and the Lodz ghetto remained. The ghetto inhabitants were subjected to starvation, alleviated in part by the smuggling of foodstuffs (1940–41), but smuggling activities were vigorously combated by the ghetto branch office of the German Kriminalpolizei. The little food supplied by the authorities was rationed out on even lower standards than those applied in Nazi prisons. Apart from this a large quantity of the foodstuffs arrived in spoiled condition. In 1940 the majority of the ghetto population was left with no means of subsistence. Hunger demonstrations and riots resulted in the early fall. The economic situation of the inmates improved a little after some time, when a ghetto factory network was organized to produce goods, mainly for the Wehrmacht. In August 1942 there were 91 factories with 77,982 employees. Many of the workers earned too little to be able to buy even the inadequate food rations allotted to them, and working conditions were unbearable. Apart from starvation and exhaustion, the population underwent roundups for the forced labor camp at Warthegau. In 1940–44 the Germans sent 15,000 Jews from the ghetto to labor camps, but only very few ever returned, and they arrived back in a state of exhaustion. The branch office of the ghetto Kriminalpolizei carried out extensive robbery of the remaining Jewish possessions. It terrorized the ghetto inmates with house searches, requisition, and torture to uncover any hidden property. The extremely crowded living quarters, combined with bad hygienic conditions, starvation, and overwork, caused epidemics of dysentery, typhus, and typhoid fever, but mortality was due mostly to tuberculosis, the death rate for which was 26 times higher than it had been among Lodz Jews in 1936. The overall average death rate per month reached 7.23 per 1,000, whereas in 1938 it had been 0.91 per 1,000, i.e., the rate increased eightfold since prewar time.

In these appalling conditions, Rumkowsky tried to organize the life of the Jewish community. He created a widespread network of Jewish self-administration, which included departments that provided for the needs of the population as far as possible (the former Jewish social institutions having been liquidated by the Nazis), and other departments that fulfilled German orders, some sections performing both tasks. From 1940 to September 1942, the health department of the ghetto ran five to seven hospitals, five pharmacies, and several special infirmaries. The education department ran 45 primary religious and secular schools, two high schools, and one vocational school. The food supply department organized public kitchens in factories, offices, and schools. Apart from the general food control system (ration cards), an additional ration system was introduced for various categories of people (for those engaged in hard labor, excrement carriers, police and firemen, physicians, pharmacists, persons in leading positions, the sick, and confined women). The department for social welfare handed out regular small pittances for the unemployed and for those with meager income. There were two old age homes, a home for invalids, and a home for the chronically ill; however, conditions in these homes were extremely bad and the death rate very high. An orphanage and a children's camp were organized for 1,500 children as well as a morning camp for the summer period.

The agricultural department allotted small garden plots to the population. The factories, called Arbeitsressorte, exploited Jewish labor, but on the other hand gave the employees certain wages and additional food rations. The statistics department gathered – for the needs of the ghetto and the Germans – data on all branches of life in the ghetto. The archives department collected valuable documents and kept daily chronicles of ghetto life. (The majority of these documents found their way to the *Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw.) The rabbinate oversaw the semi-legal religious life of the ghetto up to September 1942. On the other hand a department known as the Arbeitsamt (Arbeitseinsatz) supplied the Germans with Jewish manpower for the forced labor camps, and a special "purchasing department" bought Jewish property at the lowest prices and handed it over to the Ghettoverwaltung. These sales enabled the Jewish authorities to obtain the means for the purchase of foodstuffs for the ghetto (the Germans supplied food only in exchange for real goods, i.e., Jewish labor or Jewish property), and therefore the Jews found such sales were preferable to the outright requisitions made by the Kriminalpolizei. The Jewish police (Ordnungsdienst) administered order in the ghetto, but also took part in deportations and roundups of Jews for forced labor camps. A special police group (Sonderabteilung) under the orders of the Kriminalpolizei confiscated Jewish property. Its commander, David Gertler, and later M. Kligier, took orders from the Gestapo. A court and prison functioned. The latter was the collection point for those sent on forced labor or to extermination camps. Persons who returned from labor camps or who were held by the Gestapo were kept in the ghetto prison.

Several political and social groups (e.g., some Zionist organizations, wizo, Bund, the communist "Trade Union Left," the organization of ex-combatants and invalids) held secret meetings, taught and provided self-education, organized demonstrations against the Judenaeltester Rumkowsky (1940) and strikes in factories, engaged in production sabotage, and listened in to the radio. Certain parties (Bund, Po'alei Zion), with Rumkowsky's approval, ran their own "kitchens" (1940–41) where they fed their members and held cultural gatherings. During the mass deportations these organizations engaged in saving their active members. The He-Ḥalutz ("pioneer") youth groups, in the spring of 1940, organized a hakhsharah (Zionist pioneer training program) on the outskirts of the ghetto (Marysin). The hakhsharah served different organizations and had 1,040 members, including non-Zionists such as members of the Bund and Agudah. Apart from farm work, the youth held cultural activities and provided self-education. In September 1940 several Zionist groups formed the Ḥazit Dor Benei Midbar, which continued its activities in the ghetto even after the liquidation of the hakhsharah in mid-1941.

The German authorities gave orders which imposed the sequence of events to come in Lodz ghetto. They allowed a period of relative autonomy (May 1940–September 1942) but ended it with a wave of mass deportations to the extermination camp at *Chelmno on the Ner. During January–April 1942 the Germans deported more than 44,000 Jews. In May 1942, 11,000 Jews originally from Prague, Vienna, Luxembourg, and various cities from the "Old Reich" were rounded up and deported for extermination. These Jews (20,000), mostly elderly and sick, had been taken in the fall of 1941 to Lodz ghetto, where they lingered on in terrible conditions, were crowded into unheated, mass quarters, and endured more severe hunger than the local population. By 1942, 5,000 among them died of typhus and starvation. After their deportation, the notorious "Gehsperre" Aktion was carried out to exterminate 16,000 Lodz Jews, including children up to ten years old, persons above 60, and the sick and emaciated. With this mass murder action, the population decreased from 162,681 in January 1942 to 89,446 on October 1, 1942, i.e., by nearly half. This decrease was in fact greater because 15,500 refugees from the liquidated provisional ghettos had been brought to Lodz ghetto in spring/summer 1942.

After the mass liquidation campaign the Germans transformed the ghetto de facto into a labor camp. There followed the reduction and liquidation of the Jewish administrative bodies which had served the needs of the population, e.g., health, food supply, welfare, education, and records departments, and the rabbinate. The orphanages, old-age homes, the majority of the hospitals, schools, and children's homes no longer existed. The number of factories increased to 119 (August 1943) and employed 90% of the population. Children from the age of eight worked in these factories. The Germans held control over all internal matters in the ghetto, such as food supply (additional rations), and they limited Rumkowsky's power to allow Kligier, chief of the Sonderabteilung, and Jakubowicz, chief of the Arbeitsressorte (factories), more sway.

Under these conditions the ghetto lingered on until its final liquidation in June–August 1944. By Sept. 1, 1944, the whole population, 76,701 (June 1, 1944 registration), was deported to *Auschwitz. By January 1945, only an Aufraeumungskommando (800 Jews) remained in the ghetto joined by some Jews who were hiding in the area of the former ghetto. They were liberated when the Soviet army arrived on Jan. 19, 1945.

[Danuta Dombrowska]

Contemporary Period

When the Soviet army entered Lodz only 870 Jewish survivors were left in the city. Nevertheless, within the next two years Lodz became the largest reconstructed Jewish community in Poland. More than 50,000 Jews settled there by the end of 1946, of whom the overwhelming majority had survived the Holocaust period in the Soviet Union. A number of Jewish institutions began to function, including the Central Jewish Historical Commission, a Jewish theater, editorial staffs of a number of Jewish (Yiddish, Hebrew, and Polish-language) papers. Zionist organizations conducted intensive activity, with the support of the majority of Jews. A number of "kibbutzim" (homes for Jewish youth who prepared themselves for aliyah) were established. All these activities were stopped in 1950, when the Sovietization of Poland was completed. More than one-half of the city's Jewish population left Poland during 1946–50. After the second wave of aliyah to Israel during 1956–57, only a few thousand Jews remained. A club of the government-sponsored Jewish Cultural Society and a Jewish public school continued to function until 1968–69, when almost all remaining Jews left Poland. By the turn of the century only a few hundred Jews lived in Lodz.

[Stefan Krakowski]

bibliography:

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