The Shoah (1939–1945)
Closure of the Łódź ghetto
30 avril 1940·Łódź
The toll is reproduced exactly as the source states it — never rounded, never added to another. Tolls overlap from one event to the next.
The ghetto is sealed, the first great enclosed ghetto in occupied Europe; it will not be liquidated until August 1944.
On the thirtieth of April, the ghetto of Łódź is sealed. It is the first great enclosed ghetto in occupied Europe, and it will be the last to be liquidated, more than four years later.
Its longevity derives from its function: the Jewish council led by Chaim Rumkowski makes the ghetto into a vast workshop working for the German army, on the premise that economic utility will protect its inhabitants. The gamble fails, but it buys time — and this tension between survival through labor and inevitable deportation is one of the great dilemmas of the Jewish councils, still debated today.
- Period :
- The Shoah (1939–1945)
- Type :
- Shoah
- Region :
- Central and Eastern Europe
- Country :
- Pologne
Archives du ghetto de Łódź ; chronique quotidienne tenue par ses habitants.