Memoria [EN] No. 22 (07/2019) | Page 12

INTERACTIVE MODEL OF THE litzmannstadt GHETTO

Andrzej Grzegorczyk, Izabela Terela

Independence Traditions Museum in Łódź, Radegast Station department

“The closed district” was characterized by tightly and incoherently constructed tenement and detached houses. After the end of WW2, communist authorities decided to transform this poorest district into the most modern, exemplary socialist housing estate. The construction of new blocks and establishment of new streets began. Due to the decision concerning the reconstruction of the capital, the implementation of this plan was discontinued, enabling further uncontrolled filling of gaps emerging after the demolition of historical buildings. The observation of changes taking place within the area of the city influenced the decision made in 2015 to take the initiative to construct the model of the ghetto. The aim of the project is to create a new medium of remembrance and symbolically rescue the decaying buildings from oblivion.

The first model of the ghetto was the work by Leon Jakubowicz, who in the spring of 1940 began his activity and conducted it until its liquidation in August 1944. The 1:5000 scale model survived hidden in a chest in one of the Łódź basements. Discovered by his brother, it was transported to Israel and then to the United States. It is now displayed within the permanent exhibition at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

From the beginning of occupation, in September 1939, the Jews from Łódź were subjected to severe repressions, which finally led to the establishment of the ghetto within the area of the Bałuty and Stare Miasto districts on February 8th 1940. It was the second largest ghetto within the occupied zone, after the one in Warsaw, completely isolated from the rest of the city. Until the end of April 1940, 40 thousand people were concentrated there within the area of 4.13 km2.