one more!” The outraged woman showers the director with very much
deserved abuse and invective. Miedziński takes revenge. He orders the
janitor to throw the woman out, and he refuses to send a physician.
Several days later, the leg of the woman’s son is amputated.
The resettlement from Łowicz (Umleitung: nur nach Warschau!)⁷²⁹ did not
come as a surprise. There had long been rumours about it, but the Judenrat
persistently denied them. The reason was clear: the point was to prevent the
rich from taking away their property. That enabled the Judenrat to demand
exorbitant sums of money at the last moment for permission to take anything
out of the ghetto. The Council cared little about the fact that such a policy
could put many people in danger of suffering losses.
The resettlement⁷³⁰ from Łowicz in the spring of 1941 proceeded in a very
humane way when compared to that from Aleksandrów Kujawski. The people
could take everything with the exception of furniture, which they took nonetheless.
The Judenrat could be and often was the only obstacle. It demanded
from several dozen zlotys to sometimes even several hundred zlotys per family
for the right to leave Łowicz. Moreover, the people had to pay due taxes plus
a usurious percentage for the benefit of the poor, the Committee, etc. After
everything had been finally settled, the Jewish Police demanded a big bribe
for the opening of the ghetto gate. My last memory from Łowicz is the sight
of the most hideous creature from the entire Ordnungsdienst — policeman
I. Natan. He refused to open the gate for a cart with several poor families,
who were departing at the Community’s expense. He demanded, “Letztgeld,
letztgeld⁷³¹ or I won’t open!” in a persistent tone.
ARG I 684 (Ring. I/789)
Description: original (handwritten - FLIG*, ink, 224×354 mm, damaged, missing,
and illegible fragments), Polish, 5 sheets, 9 pages; duplicate (typewritten,
208×296 mm, damaged and missing fragments), Polish, 19 sheets, 19 pages.
In Hersh Wasser’s hand on the first page of the duplicate (ink): “Fligar.”
Edition based on the original, 5 sheets, 9 pages, completed with the help of the
duplicate.
729 (German) Detour: only to Warsaw!
730 The Łowicz ghetto inmates were deported to the Warsaw ghetto in February and March 1941. The resettlement to the Warsaw ghetto began on 22 January 1942. By 15 March almost 7,000 people had been resettled.
731 (Yiddish) farewell present.
