Page 41 - Centrum Dialogu im. Marka Edelmana w Łodzi. Jesteśmy drzewami wiecznymi.

Na nasze getto spadło wielkie nieszczęście. Żądają
od niego, by oddało najlepsze, co posiada – dzieci i starych ludzi. […]
Na moje stare lata muszę wyciągnąć ręce i błagać: bracia i siostry,
oddajcie mi je! Ojcowie i matki, oddajcie mi swoje dzieci!

– Mordechaj Chaim Rumkowski –

A grievous blow has struck the ghetto.
They are asking us to give up the best we possess – the children and the
elderly.
[…] In my old age, I must stretch out my hands and beg.
Brothers and sisters: Hand them over to me! Fathers and mothers:
Give me your children!

– Mordechaj Chaim Rumkowski –

Deportations continued until the autumn of 1942. On 3 September, the
Germans demanded that all children under the age of 10 and the elderly aged
over 60 should be deported from the ghetto. Rumkowski decided to inform
the ghetto inhabitants of the authorities’ demands himself and to this end he
organized a public speech at the fire brigade square. On 5 September, on
the order of the German authorities, “szpera” was proclaimed in the ghetto
(Gehsperre in German means closure). No one was allowed to leave the flats
under threat of the harshest punishment. Special groups of the German police
and the Jewish Order Service systematically went through each block of the
streets, where, having gathered the inhabitants, German officials made selec-
tions, deciding who was able to work and who was to be displaced. Desperate
people hid their children and the elderly in the hope of saving their lives. By
12 September, over fifteen and a half thousand people had been captured
and deported from the ghetto and killed. In the illustration: announcement
No. 391, announcing the “complete closure” of the ghetto.

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