the evening, kept in a basement or a factory overnight and ‘employed’ in the
morning. Others were taken outside the city, and even to Zgierz⁹⁵ or Pabianice.
There were various types of work. People were rarely taken to do actually
useful labour, and even then the captors never bothered with the [6] physical
capabilities of the seized individual. The sadists were the first among the
catchers. Sadism, in combination with seeking a chance for a szpas,⁹⁶ usually
lowbrow and devoid of wit, very often decided the method of employment of
the captured Jews. Hence such ideas as cleaning carpets with a toothbrush and
without bending one’s legs, sharpening pencils on some Jew’s bald head, cleaning
toilets with one’s bare hands, beating doormats with batons on the back of
another Jew with whom one shared the misery, lining up the Jews in two rows
so that one Jew spat at another or beat him, pouring water on coal and then
carrying it down to a basement without using a shovel, while having to wipe
one’s dirty hands on one’s face and forehead, and if that was deemed insufficient,
each Jew had to smear the dirt onto another. Jewish work also involved
choral singing about how it was the Jews who were guilty of the war, because
they wanted it. Any shirking or inability to complete the work provoked beatings,
and in some workplaces, work started with beatings and ended with
beatings. Particularly famed for their sadistic ingenuity as to the employment
of Jews were the Volksdeutsche stationed in the middle school of the
poet Katzenelson⁹⁷ and the German Singing Society.⁹⁸ In Katzenelson’s school,
the central heating furnace located in the basement was broken and spewed
out smoke. One day they began to catch Jews to start fire in that furnace.
‘Starting fire’ meant [7] that every captured Jew had to go down to the dark
and smoky basement for several minutes to swallow the smoke. As a result
of such a Volksdeutsche’s prank, many a Jew lost his health. Another time,
the Volksdeutsche found the theatre props in Katzenelson’s school. One day,
on a Saturday afternoon, a number of Jews were captured, mostly from the
intelligentsia, and a show was organised in the yard. One tall, handsome
95 Zgierz (Łódź County).
96 (from German, Spaß) fun, joke, prank.
97 Yitzhak Katzenelson (1886–1944), Yiddish and Hebrew poet and playwright; pedagogue and translator. He established the renowned Hebrew middle school at Zawadzka Street 43 (now Próchnika Street). The changes of street names in Łódź can be found in the Appendix.
98 The German Singing Society was at Piotrkowska Street 243.
