pushchairs confiscated and were ordered to carry the little children in their
arms. They got off lightly, however, because they were allowed to go home.
Those held under arrest had everything taken from them: packages of merchandise, food, and so on. Then the guards separated the women and children
from the men. The women and children were hounded through the city
from one place to another. They were terribly maltreated and tormented, and
it was only around 7 p.m. that they were they ordered to hurry home. (At that
time the curfew for Jews was 5 p.m.!)
The men, on the other hand, were kept in detention. A few of them, i.e.
those who were able to prove that they were still living outside the ghetto,
were released early the next day or the day after. Before they were released,
however, they were beaten black and blue. A large number of the remaining
prisoners were transferred to a concentration point in a factory building on
Luizy Street. A few days later, it became known in the city that the Germans
were demanding a ransom of 150 marks a head. Some of the prisoners were
freed from their murderous hands by such a payoff. Others, however, were sent
to the concentration camp in Radogoszcz, a suburb of Łódź to the north
of the city, on the road to Zgierz, where a whole row of wooden barracks
completely enclosed with barbed wire had been erected in November and
December. The Germans had been sending large groups of Łódź Jews there
since December. The remainder of those arrested in February were sent to
Galicia, for the most part to Kraków. With regard to the ransom money
which the Germans demanded for the prisoners, it must be recorded that
the Judenrat, headed by the great Rumkowski, was mixed up in the whole
business. Rumkowski announced that he himself would handle the ransoming
of the Jewish prisoners and ordered the money to be deposited with him.
The upshot was that the funds were not handed over to the Germans in time
and simply disappeared into the pockets of the Jewish rulers. A few days later,
60 of the men sent to the Radogoszcz camp were murdered.
(c)
[1] March 1940 in Łódź
(recollections and observations of Mrs L.G.)
From 1 to 6 March, the ‘regular’ requisitioning of Jewish flats continued. Jews
living on the streets under threat who had not yet been expelled continued
