Notes
This is not a conventional chronicle of life in the Lodz ghetto - instead it is composed of diary entries, notebooks, poems, and sketches of ghetto life. The history of the ghetto really begins in 1940 when the Nazis relocated around 200,000 Jews in Lodz into a sealed-off ghetto that came to be known as the Lodz ghetto. These Jews were later joined in 1941 by more than 20,000 Jews relocated from Austria, Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Luxembourg.Compiled from sources around the world, these documents are the remnants of lives that were prematurely ended by the murdering Nazis of the Third Reich. There are also lots of archival photographs, both black and white and color that portray the life of a community under siege, and also includes drawings by Jewish artists, such as a sketch of the ghetto.
The Lodz ghetto was primarily a slave labor camp used by the Third Reich - anyone and everyone who could, worked (and children and old people were not exempt either). Chaim Rumkowski was appointed the Eldest of the Jews in charge of ghetto affairs and was the main person who was tasked with carrying out Nazi orders. His role and actions during the war has been the subject of much debate - to some he was a benevolent figure who did what he had to do to save Jewish lives, but to many others, he was an opportunist and despot who complied with Nazi orders to save his own skin and that of his own, knowing full well what "deportation" really meant for the Jews. Not that it mattered in the end as Rumkowski and his family were eventually deported to Auschwitz and murdered.
The book is organized chronologically, tracing the beginnings of the ghetto, through ghetto life, and the deportations, and finally, the liquidation of the ghetto and eventual liberation. The documents here have been translated from the original source language such as German, Yiddish, Polish, and Hebrew. As another reviewer mentions, some of the book's flaws lie in the lack of a comprehensive index, making it difficult to cross-reference, and there is also no detailed maps showing the locations of places like Lodz, Chelmno, Auschwitz, etc. There is however, a street map of the Lodz ghetto as well as a glossary, and notes on the text. On the whole, I found this to be an enlightening read. I've read so much about the Warsaw ghetto, and this is a valuable resource that provides insights into the inner workings of the Lodz ghetto (of course, it needs to be supplemented with other materials)and it is interesting to note the similarities and differences between the two ghettos
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