v37_1602 - POLONIA - OCCUPAZIONE TEDESCA - GHETTO DI LODZ 5 mark 1943 Lodz

POLAND - GERMAN OCCUPATION - LODZ GHETTO

(1940-1944)

An important industrial city in western Poland before the Second World War, Lodz was the first to house a ghetto established by the Nazis in April 1940 (six months before that of Warsaw) and was renamed "Litzmannstadt". Controlled by the German administration, the ghetto was run by the Jewish Council installed by the occupier and whose president, Chaïm Rumkowski, got caught up in the "game" of the simulacrum of power conceded by the occupier: his effigy appeared on the stamps and his signature on coins in circulation in the Jewish area. The ghetto was the last to close in August 1944.