Page 91 - Centrum Dialogu im. Marka Edelmana w Łodzi. Time of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto. Film images.

Lucille Eichengreen. ‘The first group of deportees from Vienna is expected
A still from Radegast, tomorrow. Reportedly there are Christians and Nazi of-
directed by B. Lankosz, 2008, ficials with Jewish grandmothers among them. Wait and
courtesy of Grupa
Filmowa Fargo see till they start some anti-semitic association here’.
But a few days later, he added: ‘yesterday, we visited the
Czechs. Some of them are good guys. Those from Lux-
embourg too. It was great to talk to them. They are sur-
prised with the filth here and are afraid of disease. They
are intelligent, clean and open-minded. Great boys. It is
4
4 — nice to spend time with them’ .
Quoted after the film Radegast. Rumkowski scheduled the Western Jews as the first
to be deported, as most of them were incapable of phys-
ical work which was most valued in the ghetto. Collec-
tives from Vienna, Düsseldorf, Köln and Prague were
sent to their deaths first. At the beginning of May 1942,
over 10,000 people from the West were sent to
Chełmno nad Nerem. They had lived in Łódź for six
months.

A staircase as dirty as it was in the ghetto
The confrontation of the Survivors’ memories with
the contemporary district of Bałuty, where the
Litzmannstadt Ghetto was located, is a frequent theme
of documentaries about the ghetto. The meeting with
the past is even more painful because of its material
carriers – houses and streets of Bałuty – remaining al-

A Journey to the Cursed Land 89