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In the spring of 1940 we found ourselves in the ghetto. [glossary] There was some ordinance of the Germans, that you could only take the most necessary items, which would fit in one cart. So we packed our bags on that cart, the rest of our things remained at our house on 1 Maja Street.
We settled on Wawelska Street 16. The house isn’t there anymore. Why there? I don’t know, Father arranged it somehow. It was a bungalow. There were 2 rooms, a hallway and a kitchen, without any windows. We called it a kitchen, but it was a small, separate room.
I slept in one room with Mother, Father, Mother’s sisters Rozka, Lonia and Lonia’s son, Bolek. The second room, an even smaller one, was taken up by Dora with her 2 children – Bluma and Gutka, her husband and her husband’s father.
Grandma slept in the kitchen, because there was no other place where you could fit a bed. The conditions were very difficult. We used a koza [a kind of small iron stove] for cooking. It was also the only source of heat.
We all worked in the ghetto. Mother and Rozka worked in Schnaiderresort [a tailoring workshop on Dworska Street 10, currently Organizacji ‘WiN’ Street], a tailoring resort [workshops producing mostly for the needs of the army were called resorts].
Father also worked in a tailoring resort – as a cutter. At first he didn’t want to. But he learned that he had to, because that’s where they distributed soup. No one would have survived without this soup.
Bluma was employed in the kitchen. Families would help one another. Provisions were distributed on the Baluty Market [the Department of Provisions, created in May 1940, was located there]. A quarter of coal would be distributed, or a quarter of potatoes, I don’t remember for how many months, I don’t remember today. And I had to carry it – for my family and Mother’s sisters. But I was strong and I took it all well.
I worked in three resorts myself, one after another. In Strohschuch, making shoes for the army, straw shoes, for standing. You couldn’t have any fire in there, because these shoes were made of straw. So even in the winter we worked in unheated halls. It was very cold.
I later worked in Sattlerwarenresort [a leather products and saddlery workshop on Lagiewnicka Street 70]. I sheathed backpacks with leather, using a machine. And then, the last 2 or 3 years [1942, 1943], I worked in the resort of ‘weak power’.
We used to receive broken telephones from Germany and we had to do the electrical assembly. We had diagrams of these electrical connections and we had to assemble the phones according to this diagram. I also worked in a varnishing shop and in the mechanical assembly department.
I remember the day when children were taken out of the ghetto [glossary]. Gutka, Dora’s youngest daughter, was taken from us. This was during the szpera [round-the-clock curfew] in 1942. The Jewish police came to our house first, at night [glossary].
They searched the house, but we managed to hide Gutka then. We hated the Jewish police. We thought that in exchange for better conditions they behaved in a shameful way. Aunt Dora said if they took the child, it would be over her dead body.
They didn’t take her. But several days later, I don’t remember exactly, there was an assembly, roll call. Everyone had to be there, everyone, because they were searching the apartments. I don’t know if it was the Jewish police, or if the Germans were there on that square as well. Gutka was taken from that assembly and her mother, Dora, Mother’s sister, went with her.
She somehow made it to the other side, to the group of people who were supposed to be deported. Children, sick and old people were taken then. Bluma, Dora’s older daughter, was not there at the assembly, because she was working in the kitchen. But she must have found out somehow, because she ran to the station in Radogoszcz. [People from the Lodz ghetto were taken from the station in Radogoszcz to death camps in Chelmno and Auschwitz.]
I ran after her. I tried speaking to her, but she wouldn’t listen. Bluma survived the war, she survived Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. [located in northern Germany, a concentration camp was located there since 1940] She went to Paris, she was a physician there. She died a year ago.
From this szpera I remember our neighbor’s horrible tragedy. She had 2 children. When they took the younger one, she followed him. Her older daughter was left standing on that square. She was maybe 12 years old.
This older daughter shouted: ‘How can you leave me, how can you, mother, after all I am your daughter as well!’ It was a horrible experience. This child’s scream. Mother’s sister, Dora, also left her older daughter Bluma, when she went to die with Gutka. But Bluma was an adult, she was 20 years old. I didn’t hear Bluma scream, she simply followed Dora to the station. And I followed her.
We settled on Wawelska Street 16. The house isn’t there anymore. Why there? I don’t know, Father arranged it somehow. It was a bungalow. There were 2 rooms, a hallway and a kitchen, without any windows. We called it a kitchen, but it was a small, separate room.
I slept in one room with Mother, Father, Mother’s sisters Rozka, Lonia and Lonia’s son, Bolek. The second room, an even smaller one, was taken up by Dora with her 2 children – Bluma and Gutka, her husband and her husband’s father.
Grandma slept in the kitchen, because there was no other place where you could fit a bed. The conditions were very difficult. We used a koza [a kind of small iron stove] for cooking. It was also the only source of heat.
We all worked in the ghetto. Mother and Rozka worked in Schnaiderresort [a tailoring workshop on Dworska Street 10, currently Organizacji ‘WiN’ Street], a tailoring resort [workshops producing mostly for the needs of the army were called resorts].
Father also worked in a tailoring resort – as a cutter. At first he didn’t want to. But he learned that he had to, because that’s where they distributed soup. No one would have survived without this soup.
Bluma was employed in the kitchen. Families would help one another. Provisions were distributed on the Baluty Market [the Department of Provisions, created in May 1940, was located there]. A quarter of coal would be distributed, or a quarter of potatoes, I don’t remember for how many months, I don’t remember today. And I had to carry it – for my family and Mother’s sisters. But I was strong and I took it all well.
I worked in three resorts myself, one after another. In Strohschuch, making shoes for the army, straw shoes, for standing. You couldn’t have any fire in there, because these shoes were made of straw. So even in the winter we worked in unheated halls. It was very cold.
I later worked in Sattlerwarenresort [a leather products and saddlery workshop on Lagiewnicka Street 70]. I sheathed backpacks with leather, using a machine. And then, the last 2 or 3 years [1942, 1943], I worked in the resort of ‘weak power’.
We used to receive broken telephones from Germany and we had to do the electrical assembly. We had diagrams of these electrical connections and we had to assemble the phones according to this diagram. I also worked in a varnishing shop and in the mechanical assembly department.
I remember the day when children were taken out of the ghetto [glossary]. Gutka, Dora’s youngest daughter, was taken from us. This was during the szpera [round-the-clock curfew] in 1942. The Jewish police came to our house first, at night [glossary].
They searched the house, but we managed to hide Gutka then. We hated the Jewish police. We thought that in exchange for better conditions they behaved in a shameful way. Aunt Dora said if they took the child, it would be over her dead body.
They didn’t take her. But several days later, I don’t remember exactly, there was an assembly, roll call. Everyone had to be there, everyone, because they were searching the apartments. I don’t know if it was the Jewish police, or if the Germans were there on that square as well. Gutka was taken from that assembly and her mother, Dora, Mother’s sister, went with her.
She somehow made it to the other side, to the group of people who were supposed to be deported. Children, sick and old people were taken then. Bluma, Dora’s older daughter, was not there at the assembly, because she was working in the kitchen. But she must have found out somehow, because she ran to the station in Radogoszcz. [People from the Lodz ghetto were taken from the station in Radogoszcz to death camps in Chelmno and Auschwitz.]
I ran after her. I tried speaking to her, but she wouldn’t listen. Bluma survived the war, she survived Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. [located in northern Germany, a concentration camp was located there since 1940] She went to Paris, she was a physician there. She died a year ago.
From this szpera I remember our neighbor’s horrible tragedy. She had 2 children. When they took the younger one, she followed him. Her older daughter was left standing on that square. She was maybe 12 years old.
This older daughter shouted: ‘How can you leave me, how can you, mother, after all I am your daughter as well!’ It was a horrible experience. This child’s scream. Mother’s sister, Dora, also left her older daughter Bluma, when she went to die with Gutka. But Bluma was an adult, she was 20 years old. I didn’t hear Bluma scream, she simply followed Dora to the station. And I followed her.
Period
Location
Lodz
Poland
Interview
Irena Wojdyslawska
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