Friday 7th November 2014

On the last day of the meeting the pleasant autumn weather changed into pouring rain. In the morning we set off on a guided tour of Bałuty – the district of wartime Litzmannstadt Ghetto. We started from the St. Mary's Assumption’s Church in the Old Town. During the Second World War the church became a part of the ghetto. Initially, the church doors were closed. Later, the Nazis decided to turn it into a warehouse for property stolen from the Jews. From spring to autumn 1942, the clothes of the people murdered at Chelmno-nad-Nerem were brought here. When transports to the death camp were suspended, a sorting plant for feathers and down was established in the church. The Jews called it "The White Factory" in reference to Ludwik Geyer's textile factory, famous in Lodz before the war. In this case, however, they did not mean the color, but the down floating in the air. Under such dramatic circumstances, the Catholic church became a part of the Jewish tragedy.

Then we proceeded to Broken Heart Monument – the place of the Polish children tragedy. In December 1942, a camp for Polish children and youth was established in a separate area within the confines of the ghetto. The main gate to the camp was located on Przemyslowa Street; hence, it was often referred to as "The Camp on Przemyslowa Street." Appearances were fabricated to suggest it was an educational facility to rehabilitate juvenile offenders. In reality, it was a concentration camp for children and youth up to the age of 16. The young inmates had numbers instead of names, wore grey prison garbs and clogs, and worked from morning to night. They were routinely beaten, even flogged. Many of them died of starvation, cold and emaciation, especially during the typhus epidemic that broke out in late 1942 and early 1943. We had a short ceremony commemorating those innocent victims of the cruelty of war.

The next stop was the Jewish cemetery - Europe’s largest Jewish cemetery. About 230,000 Jews are buried here. During the war, an estimated 45,000 people were interred in the so-called Ghetto Field. We learnt about the Jewish burial tradition, went to Israel Poznanski’s tomb, listened to the story about blind Max.

In pouring rain we walked to Radegast Station. This is one of the most important historical sites connected to the Litzmannstadt ghetto. From this place, tens of thousands of people were herded off to the death camp at Chelmno-nad-Nerem in the years 1942-1944 and then to Auschwitz in August 1944. The original wooden building along with its loading platform still stands today.

The final stop was at Radogoszcz Prison - The tragic history of the Radogoszcz prison begins in early November 1939. It was then that the German occupying forced had decided to establish a massive penitentiary facility for political prisoners at the factory. The establishing of the prison played a pivotal part in the repressive and exterminatory policies carried out by the Nazis. Their task was to round up, isolate and ultimately exterminate all the members of Lodz’s intelligentsia – namely: teachers, academics, civil servants, politicians, and artists. Due to the multicultural character of the city and the region, a considerable part of this intellectual elite was of Jewish descent. Polish citizens of German origin who refused to relinquish their Polish identity were also imprisoned there.

On average, there were between 500 and 1 000 prisoners at a time in Radogoszcz. It is estimated that a total of 40 000 people were imprisoned here. Most inmates were people who have committed “crimes against the interests of the Third Reich”. The greatest tragedy came with the massacre of the prisoners and the burning of the prison building, in the night of 17/18 January, just several hours before the arrival of the Red Army in Lodz . The Germans initially intended to execute all of the prisoners in the prison halls. When they defied, the executioners decided set fire to the building and burn them alive. That night, about 1 500 people were killed. Only 30 of the inmates survived.

After lunch at the nearby diner we went to school for the final part of the program – the workshops. We were divided into two groups – according to our preferences– a dance group and an art group. Remembering the past we still wanted to share the joy of the meeting. We learnt the traditional folk dances. These are the living traces of the multicultural past. The art group referred in their work to the project entitled Children of Bałuty – Murals of Memory. On our Bałuty tour we could see the monochromatic paintings on the walls. They presented children who were imprisoned in the Litzmannstadt Ghetto. The paintings were based on archival photographs and are the sad reminder of the past. The paintings that were created during the meeting presented us in lively colours happy to be together.

Finally two groups met and presented the results of the workshop to the whole group. We liked the national Polish, Jewish, Russian and German dances. We also danced Zorba as our dance instructor was Greek. We also appreciated colourful pictures presenting the shapes of our friends’ bodies. Just at the closing of the meeting a Greek student recited beautifully a poem by Bertold Brecht. It was very passionate and moving performance. When certificates were given we had a farewell meal prepared by Polish families. We were happy to see that our friends enjoyed the treat. Then we had to say goodbye to our Latvian friends. The rest of the group left on Saturday morning.