Following are some photos of the Lodz (Łódź, Litzmannstadt) Ghetto. Initaially part of the General Government in occupied Poland, Łódź was annexed to Germany in November 1939 and renamed Litzmannstadt. The ghetto was established in February 1940, initially housing local Jews who numbered 160,000. In 1941 Jews and Roma from elsewhere in Germany and Austria were deported to the ghetto which had been sealed on April 30, 1940 and was being used essentially as a labor camp. Conditions were extemely harsh and many ghetto residents succumbed to starvation and to typhus and other diseases.
The Aktion Reinhardt extermination camp at Chelmno was established in December 1941 and shortly thereafter residents of the ghetto were being deported for gassing. The method used was the sealed gas van where exhaust was redirected into the rear "passenger" compartment. This was before the more efficient mass murder used in the gas chambers at Auschwitz II (Birkenau) and Majdanek which employed Zyklon B gas.
Over the course of time the ghetto also held prisoners from Central Europe. As Soviet forces neared the ghetto the pace of liquidation sped up and prisoners were now deported to Auschwitz. The ghetto was liberated on January 19, 1945. Of 204,000 Jews forced into the ghetto, only 900 remained alive at the time.
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Map of the ghetto in Łódź
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Cattle cars used in deportations from Łódź ghetto
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One of the bridges connecting different parts of the ghetto (Zgierska Street)
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German postcard showing the entrance to the Lodz ghetto. The sign reads "Jewish residential area--entry forbidden." Lodz, Poland, 1940-1941