an unfamiliar area. There is an interesting and extensive testimony on this
subject, written by a person hiding behind the initials D.T. – an employee
of the Jewish Community¹², a member of a group delegated to the ghetto
(Doc. 24). Resettlement lasted until 24 February. Hundreds of Jews, carrying
their possessions on their backs or pulling a loaded sleigh, relocated to
the ghetto (Docs. 25 and 26). After 24 February, there were several days of
reprieve, but on 28 February, to the dismay of the Jews of Łódź, the second
phase of the resettlement began, taking a violent and brutal form — namely
a regular roundup of the residents of the city centre. The captured were
closed in the building of the factory on Krakowska Street (today Liściasta
Street) and tortured. It was a prelude to the operation of the German army
against the Jews who refused to move into the ghetto, a two-day long bloody
massacre that took place on Wednesday, 5 March and “Bloody Thursday,”
6 March 1940. The Nazis blocked a part of Piotrkowska Street and ordered the
Jews to leave their flats within several minutes. Various German formations
broke into houses on Piotrkowska and Zawadzka Streets, injuring and killing
Jewish residents. A few of the people who resisted were killed. Others moved to
Bałuty in fear of their lives. Those who managed to escape alive, wounded and
bloodied, ran in terror toward the ghetto, where people tried, unfortunately
rather clumsily, to help them (Docs. 25 and 26). It is estimated that there were
hundreds of victims of that massacre.¹³ The March atrocities committed by the
German authorities allowed them to achieve the intended purpose faster than
originally planned, and the Łódź Jews were crowded into the designated area.
The ghetto covered an area of 4.13 square kilometres, inhabited by
156,402 Jews (as of July 1940).¹⁴ The absolute ruler of the ghetto was Mordekhai
Chaim Rumkowski, who effectively removed the Beirat from power. With
the help of a trus ted group of people, Rumkowski established over a hundred
12 When the Germans established the office of the Eldest of the Jews and of the Beirat, the board of the Łódź religious community was dissolved and its duties were transferred to the new institutions. However, in both official documents and personal testimonies the Jews often referred to the structures subordinate to the Council of the Elders as gmina (community, in Polish).
13 Icchak Rubin estimates their number at 200–1,500; idem, op. cit., p. 194.
14 According to official censuses, on 1 May 1940 the population number was 163,777; on 12 July 1940 it was 156,402 including 71,227 men and 85,175 women, among them 17 014 children up to the age of 14.
