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Lodz
Ghetto
September
16, 1942
On
September 5 the situation became clearer, and the frightening
whispers of the past days became terrifying fact. The
evacuation of children and old people took on the shape of
reality. A small piece of paper on the wall in a busy part of
the city announced an address by the President in an urgent
matter. A huge crowd in Fire Brigade Square. The "Jewish
Elder" will reveal the truth in the rumors. For it
concerns the young, for whom he has great love, and the aged,
for whom he has much respect. "It cannot be that they
will tear the babes from their mothers breasts, and drag old
fathers and old mothers to some unknown place. The German is
without mercy, he wages a terrible war, but he will not go as
far as that in cruelty." Everybody has faith in the
President** and hopes for words of comfort from him.
The
representative of the ghetto is speaking. His voice fails him,
the words stick in his throat. His personal appearance also
mirrors the tragedy. One thing was understood by everybody:
20,000 persons must leave the ghetto, children under 10 and
old people over 65....
Everybody
is convinced that the Jews who are deported are taken to
destruction... People ran here and there, crazed by the desire
to hide the beloved victims. But nobody knew who would direct
the Aktion: the Jewish Police, the Gestapo in the
ghetto, or a mobile unit of the SS. The President, in
coordination with the German authorities (Biebow) decided in
his area of responsibility to carry out the deportation (with
his own forces). It was the Jewish Police that had to tear the
children from the mothers, to take the parents from their
children... It was to be expected that parents and relatives
would try in this situation to make changes and corrections in
registered ages. Errors and inaccuracies that had not been
corrected up to now did exist. Something that gives you the
right to live today may well decide your fate tomorrow. There
was a tendency to raise the age of the children, because a
child from the age of 10 up could go to work and so be
entitled to a portion of soup. Other parents lowered the age,
because a younger child had a prospect of getting milk.
Yesterday the milk and the soup were the most important
things, today there is literally a question of staying alive.
The age of the old people also moved up and down for various
reasons.
An
unprecedented migration began to the Registration Office. The
officials tried to manage the situation. They worked without
stopping, day and night. The pressure of the people at the
office windows increased all the time. The applicants yelled,
wept and went wild. Every second could bring the death
sentence, and hours passed in the struggle to restrain their
passion... On Saturday the Gestapo already began on the
operation [deportation], without paying any attention to the
feverish work of registration that had been going on at No. 4
Church Square. Everyone had supposed that the Order Police
[Jewish Police] would not stand the test. It could not itself
carry out the work of the hangmen....
The
little ones who were loaded on the cart behaved quietly, in
submission, or yelling, according to their ages. The children
in the ghetto, boys and girls less than 10 years old, are
already mature and familiar with poverty and suffering. The
young look around them with wide-open eyes and do not know
what to do. They are on a cart for the first time in their
lives, a cart that will be pulled by a real horse, a proper
horse. They are looking forward to a gay ride. More than one
of the little ones jumps for joy on the floor of the wagon as
long as there is enough space. And at the same time his mother
has almost gone out of her mind, twisting about on the ground
and tearing the hair from her head in despair. It is difficult
to persuade them to give their children up willingly to death,
as a sacrifice. It is difficult to take out the old people who
hide in the smallest and most hidden corners.
All
this was to be expected. The President imposed a general
curfew which came into force at 5 o'clock on Sunday afternoon.
Anyone who broke it was threatened with deportation.
Dokumenty
I materialy, II,
Akcje i wysiedlenia ("Documents and Records, II, Aktionen
and Deportations"), Warsaw..., 1946, pp. 243-246.
*
From the description written by O.S. (Oscar Singer), a refugee
from Czechoslovakia, a journalist who managed the Jewish
archives in Lodz at the time of the Occupation.
**
The reference is to Rumkowski. |
