July 22, 2010

We had a tour of Lodz this morning. going to several of the places that would fit into our Holocaust trip. Lodz is an industrial cities, in fact our hotel is in one of the factories owned by the Poznanski family, whose palace is just around the corner. Lodz, with a Jewish population of over 230,000 before the war, was one of the first large cities to isolate their Jews in a ghetto. Rather than walls, there were high barbed wire fences surrounding an area. Mordechai Rumkowski, was chosen head of the Judenrat (the ruling group of Jews who helped organize and carry out the wishes of the Germans) He was quite a megamaniac and even had stamps and money printed with his picture. He's a very controversial person in that the Lodz ghetto had more people survive than other large city ghettos, but he also seemed to assist the Germans in eliminating groups of people, such as agreeing to deportation of a large group of children - saying that the parents could work for the Germans and they could have more children. In the Lodz ghetto he organized religious services, medical and post offices. There were trolleys running through the ghetto and bridges were erected to get from one side to another.
We visited St. Mary's a church(interior church picture) in the center of the ghetto where the Germans had stored the confiscated down comforters and spreads that the Jews owned. The feathers were bagged and sent to Germany, while the Jews were left to freeze.
Next, we drove to the Jewish cemetery of Lodz (under lock and key because of vandalism. It had avoided being destroyed during the war, but acres of stones sat overgrown as in the Warsaw Cemetery. There was a large area of mass graves noting those that died from starvation and disease in the ghettos. In addition, there were four large pits, that the last 88 prisoners in the ghetto were tasked to dig. The plan was to shoot them and cover up the last remains. The Soviets came in and liberated the ghetto before the prisoners were killed - thus the empty graves.
Our next stop was the Radegast Railway Station, which like Warsaw was the place of deportation. They had a huge wall with 1941-1945 - and a building with the words - "Thou Shalt Not Kill" inscribed above. The tracks at the station stopped within a large cement tunnel that had been created for the memorial. The sides of the walls were covered with the documents naming each individual on each deportation train. It was a long tunnel!! This station had authentic railway cars from Germany - one that we could walk in and touch - it was unsure whether these had actually been used in deportation.
Our final stops were at two memorials - One was the Park of the Saved and the Wall of the Righteous - where we saw Roman Kent's name as a Lodz Survivor - he spoke to us before we left Washington. When I walked around the Wall of the Righteous, I came across a marker for a man who shares my grandmother's last night - Wladaslaw Glowacki - I plan to look and see who he is and if we are related. That would be wonderful!
Our last stop was at the Broken Heart Cemetery - a monument to the Polish Children who were killed during the war. - There was so much thought that went into these monuments - I find it very interesting and try to find the meaning in all we have seen. We returned to our hotel, which, as I said was once a factory. Across the street are the apartments that were erected for the workers - quite a difference from our hotel.
We have had the afternoon free and a group of us ate at a Mexican Restaurant - A Polish Chimichanga and a Margarita - both of which tasted a bit different, but nonetheless, were delicious! We are meeting at the pool this afternoon and then dinner with the group. Tomorrow we leave Lodz for Treblinka and our last night here in Poland. It's hard to think that it's coming to an end.