Page 96 - Centrum Dialogu im. Marka Edelmana w Łodzi. Time of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto. Film images.

tragedy of the ghetto and the situation in other camps.
Among them there were toddlers between 1 and 3 years
of age, incapable of looking after themselves. The chil-
dren were dirty, famished and soiled with excrement.
Some of them were suffering from diarrhoea, respiratory
11
tract infections and angina . They regularly wetted
11 — their beds, which apart from their ‘too Slavic features’
Jan Zielina, Dzieci z Lidic, was considered an indication of being unfit for German-
„Przegląd Lekarski“ 1966, nr 1,
p. 138-140 after: Michał Trębacz, isation. Those of them who would wet their bed
op.cit., p. 140. were forced to go outside, hosed with cold water and
12
beaten .
12 —
Ghetto Litzmannstadt 1941-1944. The tragedy of the Czech children was parallel to the
Dokumenty a výpovědi o životě tragedy of the Jews incarcerated in the Litzmannstadt
českých židů v lodžském ghettu, Ghetto. They met the same fate and were sent to the ex-
ed. Richard Seemann, Ústav
mezinárodních vztahů, Terezínský termination camp in Chełmno nad Nerem at the begin-
13
památník, Praha 2000, p. 141. ning of July, 1942 . Unsent postcards and witnesses’
reports (of incarcerated children and doctors who
13 —
The fate of Lidice children treated them) are all that remains of the children from
is illustrated in the film Kukułka the camp at Żeligowskiego Street, but their fates were
w ciemnym lesie [A Cuckoo not left nameless thanks to numerous commemorative
in a Dark Forest]
(Poland-Czechoslovakia,1985), actions organized mainly in the Czech Republic to honor
directed by. Antonin Moskalyk. the tragedy of Lidice.
Its main character is a Czech girl
subject to germanisation. The film
features her father being killed by Conclusion
German soldiers and her mother Cinematic testimonies regarding West European and
being taken away, her stay in the Czech Jews and their fate constitute an interesting
transitory camp and later in
Lebensborn, and the time she source of narratives on life in the ghetto which highlight
spent with a German family. No the experience of a new, unknown world. The collision
place names are mentioned, but of the West with the East seems to be an important per-
the story itself and commentaries
of the filmmakers show their inspi- spective of the ghetto memories. Survivors from West-
ration with the story of the children ern Europe and Czechoslovakia who visit Łódź, often for
from Lidice, particularly that of the first time since the war, still do experience the exis-
Marie Hanfova, who survived the
war and gave evidence in the tence of the ghetto through the remaining buildings and
Nuremberg Trials. meetings with their current inhabitants, who are as so-
cially and materially excluded class as the ghetto in-
mates were.
Documentary films concerning the testimonies of
West European Jews allow the audience to broaden
their knowledge of Czech children from the towns of
Lidice and Ležáky, the non-Jewish victims of the Nazis
in Łódź.

94 Ewa Ciszewska