Lodz Ghetto Essay

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Second to Warsaw, located in central Poland held the second largest community in Europe, Lodz. The city of Lodz can be found around 75 miles southwest of Warsaw. Hitler surprised the world by attacking Poland; Poland fell within three weeks and after seven days on the attack, and Lodz was occupied on September 1, 1939. Lodz was only occupied for 4 days before the Jews became the main target. While Warsaw was fighting off the Germans the 230,000 Jews of Lodz began to feel the beginning of Nazi persecutions. Lodz became part of Hitler’s Third Reich and Lodz soon became known as Litzmannstadt. It was named after a general who died while in attempt to take down Lodz during WWI. (Lodz Ghetto, Jewish Virtual Library.) The Nazi’s gained total control extremely fast in the City of Lodz. The next months were the start of daily round-ups for Jews for forced labor as well as random killings and abuse on the streets. It became easy to distingushsh a Jew and Pole because soon Jews were forced to wear an armband on their right arm. After the occupation was in full effect, the next step was getting the Ghetto started. On December 10, 1939, a secret memorandum was sent out to set out the premise for a ghetto in Lodz. The Nazis wanted the Jews restricted to the ghetto so that when they had found a solution to the Jewish Problem it could easily be carried out. The Nazis believed the Jews were hiding secret treasure; this made it easy for them to extract the problem. They believed that keeping the Jews in one small area was easier to keep them under control and disciplined to the German ways. (Lodz Ghetto, Jewish Virtual Library.) Other ghettos were established all throughout other parts of Poland, some were considered open due to the relatively small population. If the ghetto remained open this meant the surrounding civilians and other Jews were able to keep contact. Lodz
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