Armor105 wrote:Am I right in saying the Nazi's were actively encouraging emigration of Jews out of Lodz even in 1939?
Does anyone know what month in 1939 they began to force Jews into the Lodz ghetto?
Were they basically saying...either we concentrate you into a ghetto or you leave to the east?
I will respond to the posts here when I get back from work tonight. Thanks to everyone for the input.
Hi Armor,
and sorry for the confusion of yesterday.
It turns out that the polish campaign was not the first step of the Holocaust, but of course violence targeting civilians was extreme on both side. The Poles targetting ethnic Germans, the Germans the Poles and the Jews. But at that time, the Poles were the main target, especially in territories to be included in the Reich.
But there were enough killings (some estimations are 5000 iirc) of Jews, burning of synagogues, to convice a family to move.
Lodz having been integrated to the Warthegau (annexed), the Ghetto there was created as a temporary concentration of soon to be expelled Jews. Remember that the Warthegau was to be Germanized and made Judenfrei. So yes, you are right...Those Jews were supposed to be moved into the GG.
100.000 were sent to the GG which raised the opposition of Frank.
You family must have been among the 300.000 or so that could still crossed the new border with the USSR.
The Russians later chose to remove hundreds of thousands jews from the newly occupied regions, and yes indeed dispatched them into labor camp or factories ( most were transported to the east or were about to), and cities.
Strangely enough, the supposedly temporary Lodz Ghetto, the first that was created, would be the last to be closed due to its industrial efficiency...the charachter of Chaim Romkowsky, who ruled over the Ghetto, is very interresting to study (but that another subject)
Back to you mum and you family from where she was, she only could have learned about the faith of the Jews that were under German occupation only after the war...