dodatek³⁰¹ cost Łódź Jewry very dear. It hit everyone hard, because along with
the smoke of the bet hamidrash the parchment of more than thirty Torah
scrolls also went up in flames. The letters will surely take revenge upon them,
as it is written: Otiot porchot.³⁰² Chaval al de’avdin.³⁰³
ARG I 923 (Ring. I/987)
Description: duplicate (2 copies), handwritten (BW*), pencil, Yiddish,
147×206 mm, minor damage and fragments missing, 10 sheets, 10 pages. In the
margins, the sign “///” (ink), and on p. 1 of the first copy, the sign “+” (red pencil).
See Doc. 20.
Edition based on first copy of duplicate, 5 sheets, 5 pages.
Date unknown, Warsaw ghetto, Moyshe Szaja, account by a Jewish boy
deported from Łódź.
[1] 20 December [1939]
This was related by Moyshe Szaja from Łódź, 15 years old. On 7 [?]³⁰⁴ December
I was seized in Łódź and sent to Jasło.³⁰⁵ My parents had gone over to the other
side³⁰⁶ and I was left alone. From Jasło they deported all the new arrivals,
including me. The kehillah had given me 20 zlotys. And so we began wandering
from one place to another. We arrived in Tarczyn,³⁰⁷ where the local kehillah
sent us to work on an estate in Michrów.³⁰⁸ There were 70 of us Jews working
301 (Polish) addition; in this case, annex.
302 (Aramaic) the letters are soaring on high (Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zarah 18a). A reference to the execution of Rabbi Hanina ben Teradion, who was burnt together with a Torah scroll. When asked what he saw, Rabbi Hanina replied that the scrolls were burning, but the letters were soaring up to heaven.
303 (Hebrew) Alas for those who are gone (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 111a).
304 Reading uncertain. Possibly “9”.
305 Probably to a forced labour camp in that area.
306 i.e. onto the territories occupied by the Soviet Union.
307 Tarczyn (Grójec County).
308 Michrów (Grójec County).
