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Memorial Trees in the Survivors’ Park

“We are eternal trees... Stories from the Łódź ghetto” presents
biographies of ten people from over six hundred and forty
Holocaust Survivors whose symbolic Memorial Trees can
be found in the Survivors’ Park. The fates of our heroes
varied. During the Second World War, most of them, found
themselves in the Jewish district created by the Germans in
February 1940 - in the Old Town and Bałuty. In the Łódź
ghetto, they endured witnessing the deaths of their loved
ones, the despair of separation from their families, famine
and then deportations to Auschwitz and other camps. Others
left Łódź in the first months of the war and did not return
until 1945. The post-war choices of those who survived were
also different: some stayed in Poland and tried to rebuild
their lives, others left their homeland to seek out a place
for themselves in another part of Europe or elsewhere in
the world. Today, their children and grandchildren speak
different languages and live in almost every continent.
The Survivors’ Park symbolically connects them with Łódź.
What’s more, it shows the triumph of life over death and
love over hatred.
Halina Elczewska née Goldblum (1919-2013), a Survivor
of the Łódź ghetto, was the instigator of the practice of
planting a row of trees in Łódź symbolizing those who
survived the Holocaust and her idea was taken up by Jerzy
Kropiwnicki, the Mayor of Łódź. On 30 August 2004, the
first Memorial Trees were planted by three hundred and
eighty-seven people who came from all over the world
to take part in the 60th anniversary of the liquidation of
the Litzmannstadt Ghetto. Since then, new trees – birches,
larches, oaks, maples, lindens, hornbeams, beeches, pines,
spruces, have been planted in the park every year. There

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