Lodz

The Jewish community of Lodz

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Lodz is a Polish city seventy five miles southwest of Warsaw. Jews, mostly craftsmen and traders, settled in the Old Town section towards the end of the 18th century. Larger influxes came in 1793 and again in the middle of the 19th century, attracted by the rapidly expanding textile industry.

In 1825 Germans were invited to help industrialize the city. They championed the “Zagirez Treaty,” requiring that Jews live only on the southern edges of the city. But in 1862 the Jewish community obtained the right to purchase land and build anywhere in the city. Many more Jews came to work in the huge fabric factories. By 1914 175 such factories were Jewish owned. As a result of these developments Lodz had the second largest number of Jews in Poland, behind only Warsaw.

Following the invasion of Poland, the Nazis began to round up and deport this large and prosperous community. The Radegast train station was the major debarkation point. Today at the Radegast Memorial you see the bare wooden train cars the Nazis jammed full of people who could not sit for the duration of their journey, freezing in the cold months and boiling in the hot sun of summer, before they were enslaved or murdered.

You enter the memorial’s hall to find yourself in a long, large tunnel. On the walls they inscribed the names of victims, recounting the forced labor, starvation and other acts of inhumanity imposed upon these innocent victims. the horrific cruelty of which our species is capable.

Destinations of death camps
Entrance to the train station memorial

The result: the Jewish population plummeted from 265,000,, constituting about one third of the population, to about 27,000 by the end of the WWII.

To the ever lasting shame of the Polish people, Poles inflicted post war pogroms on the remaining Jews. Polish soldiers, police officers, and others assaulted 7 Planty Street in Kielce. The house was occupied by about 160 Jewish holocaust survivors. They killed 42 and wounded 40, falsely accusing the occupants of child kidnapping. Another 2000 deaths occurred elsewhere in the country.

Never bear false witness.

Never forget.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/lodz-poland-jewish-history-tour

Lodz- or should I say ‘Łódź?’ Another must visit

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Europe has a nearly endless supply of great cities, towns and villages. Add Lodz to your list, one of Poland’s top destinations. It features Ulica Piotrkowska, a 5 kilometer shopping street lined with restored Art Nouveau houses. Scoot over on the tram to the Manufaktura, a large complex of beautifully renovated textile factory buildings filled with shopping, dining and an excellent museum. Go to Radegast Train Station, the Jewish memorial at the station used to whisk Jews to concentration camps. The Central Museum of Textiles has examples of worker housing, a mansion and textile machinery.

The pałace of Izraela Poznańskiego. Workers in his factories were worked to the bone and paid little. That’s how this came to be.

Lodz has been around since the 14th century but it was a town of just 750 until the 1820’s. The Kingdom of Poland decided to industrialize central Poland, which had been part of Russia. By the outbreak of WWII, Lodz had a population of 1 million!

Opulence galore in the Palace

The 19th century industrialization began with the establishment of the industrial zone then known as New Town. In came German migrants knowledgeable in the manufacture of textiles, attracted by Polish government offers of loans and concessions. Starting in the 1870’s Jewish entrepreneurs fueled the industrial explosion, making Lodz one of the world’s largest textile producers. The structures were largely preserved. Renovated in the early 2000’s, it is now a huge shopping, restaurant and museum pedestrian zone. The last factory closed in 1989 after years of declining production.

On one edge sits the Palace of Izraela Poznańskiego.

Rynek Manufactury, until 1989 a huge textile factor, now shopping, entertainment, museum

Jews played a prominent role in the development of the textile industry, none more so than  Izrael Poznański (1833-1900). He was born into a family of merchants who moved to Lodz in 1834. He took over the family business in 1852. By 1872 he had built a plant with 200 mechanical looms. The expansion continued, reaching its peak around 1890.

The infrastructure and edifices of Łódź were built at the expense of Poznański and Karl Wilhelm Scheibler. They sponsored schools, hospitals, orphanages, and places of worship. But they did so on the backs of workers who suffered with terrible working conditions and horrible housing, leading to many strikes.