Date unknown, Warsaw ghetto, author unknown, [recorded by Mordkhe
Schwartzbard?]; account of events in Łódź (December 1939 — March
1940). Resettlement in the Bałuty district and the Old Town. Deportation
to the camp in Radogoszcz.
(a)
[1] December 1939 t o January 1940 in Łódź (recollections of Mrs L.G.³¹⁸)
The requisitioning of Jewish flats increased in the first half of January and
assumed mass proportions. The police, pol ice auxiliaries, etc. would arrive
suddenly into Jewish flats and expel the tenant and his household with barely
the shirt on their backs. For the most part, this occurred in flats belonging to
wealthy Jews in the central and southern parts of the city. The behaviour of
the authorities towards those expelled was cruel, brutal, and callous. Almost
everywhere where Jews were driven from their homes, they were given 5 to
10 minutes to get dressed and gather a small bundle of linen and bedclothes.
Sometimes even that was not permitted. There are several known cases in
which evicted Jews were literally allowed no more than a hand towel (true!)
Better-quality clothes and overcoats were confiscated and their owners made
to dress in rags and tatters.
At that point, the Judenrat set up a housing department, which was
doubtless by order of the German authorities. The creation of the department
was a necessity, because the need for flats on the part of the expelled Jews was
enormous. The expelled literally had no place to lay their heads. There was no
point in turning to relations or acquaintances in the same district, because
they too were in danger of being thrown out of their homes at any moment.
The housing department thus had a really important task to carry out: to find
some sort of flats for the expelled. The Judenrat began settling expelled Jews
in the northern district of Bałuty, and some in the Old Town. It certainly did
so with the knowledge and approval of the German authorities, who were
doubtless already planning to create a Jewish quarter — a ghetto — precisely
318 It is possible that the original was marked L.G. = Litzmannstadt-Getto, and the word Froy [Mrs] was added later.
