Source Information
This collection was indexed by World Memory Project contributors from the digitized holdings of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, RG-15.083M: Przełożony Starszeństwa Żydow w Getcie Łódzkim. For more information about this collection, click on the collection title above to access the USHMM’s catalog record, or email [email protected].
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Original data:Przełożony Starszeństwa Żydow w Getcie Łódzkim [German: Der Aelteste der Juden vom Litzmannstadt-Getto; English: The Eldest of the Jews in the Łódź Ghetto, 1939–1944]. Series RG-15.083M, Reels 217–250. Record Group 15: Poland. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington D.C.
About Poland, Lódz Jewish Ghetto Register Books, 1939-1944 (USHMM)
This database contains details extracted from register books of streets in the Łódź Ghetto, 1939–1944. The original register books are held by the Polish State Archives in Łódź.
Historical Background
Prior to the German invasion of Poland, Łódź had a large Jewish population, estimated at around 223,000 of the 665,000 residents of the city. The Łódź ghetto was established in February of 1940, and by May it was sealed, with residents not allowed out and outsiders not allowed in.
Leadership of the ghetto was put into the hands of Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, who believed that the ghetto’s productivity provided its best chance at salvation. Workers labored for food rations that were based on their occupation.
This collection features indexes to street registers from the Łódź ghetto. The records are in German. Details that can be found in the indexes include:
- surname
- maiden name
- gender
- birth date
- deportation date
- death date
- age
- profession
- current and former addresses
- card number
When the Russians liberated the Łódź ghetto, there were only 877 survivors left. The vast majority had died from the harsh conditions or were sent to the killing center at Chelmno or, in the ghetto’s final days, to the extermination camp at Auschwitz.
