Les Juifs de Lodz

Łódź became, in the nineteenth century, thanks to the rise of the textile industry, one of the largest Jewish communities in Poland and Europe. Its Jews were at once workers, craftsmen, traders, and major textile industrialists, and the city hosted a vibrant political, trade union, Yiddish-speaking, and Zionist life, with press, theater, and schools. Under German occupation, the Łódź ghetto (Litzmannstadt), established as early as 1940 and administered by the Judenrat of Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, was one of the largest and one of the last to be liquidated in 1944. The vast majority of its inhabitants were deported and murdered at Chełmno and Auschwitz, annihilating this once immense community.

Sources & resources

• The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe ↗
• Encyclopaedia Judaica — 2e éd., Keter/Macmillan