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, Reel 203. Record Group 15: Poland. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington D.C.
About Poland, Lódz Jewish Ghetto Transportation Lists, 1939-1944 (USHMM)
This collection contains transport lists for Jews brought to the Łódź Ghetto and those deported from the Ghetto. There are deportation lists from Berlin, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Emden, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Prague, and Vienna, as well as from Luxemburg. There are also lists of new arrivals from various Polish towns. Additionally, this project contains list of individuals deported from the Łódź Ghetto.
Historical Context
The city of Łódź is located about 75 miles southwest of Warsaw, Poland. The Jews of Łódź formed the second largest Jewish community in prewar Poland, after Warsaw. In 1940, German troops occupying Łódź established a ghetto in the city's northeastern section, which was isolated from the rest of Łódź with barbed-wire fencing.
In 1941 and 1942, almost 40,000 Jews were deported to the Lodz ghetto: 20,000 from Germany, Austria, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and Luxembourg, and almost 20,000 from the smaller provincial towns in the Warthegau. About 5,000 Roma (Gypsies) from Austria, primarily from the Burgenland province, were deported to the ghetto. They were confined in a segregated block of buildings.
Living conditions in the ghetto were harsh. Most of the quarter had neither running water nor a sewer system. Hard labor, overcrowding, and starvation were the dominant features of life. The overwhelming majority of ghetto residents worked in German factories, receiving only meager food rations from their employers. More than 20 percent of the ghetto's population died as a direct result of the harsh living conditions.
In 1942, German authorities began deporting Jews from Łódź to the Chelmno killing center. In 1944, the surviving ghetto residents were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
What’s in the Records
Details vary by form, but this index may include the following:
- name
- birth date
- birth place
- occupation
- local address
- death date
More information about the Lódz´ ghetto is available in the online Holocaust Encyclopedia. Click here to watch video footage from the ghetto.
Ordering Original Records
Additional details about these victims may be included in the original records. While the index is freely accessible from Ancestry.com, the images of these records are not available in this database. Copies of the images can be ordered at no cost from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Click here for ordering information.
