Nazi diary reveals brutal tactics employed against Lodz Jews

Kobi Nachshoni

Entry from diary (Photo: Shem Olam Institute)

Recently uncovered diaries written by Nazi officers meticulously document horrifying occurrences within Lodz ghetto.

Seventy years after the liquidation of the Lodz ghetto during World War II, a diary containing meticulous documentation of day-to-day life within its walls, as depicted by Nazi officers, was recently uncovered, it was reported Thursday.

Using laundered language, the Germans describe their treatment of the local Jews, including how they punished them over thoughts of escape, and their use of brutal methods to extract information from the “smart alecks” among them.

During World War II, Lodz was home to the second largest Jewish ghetto. Over 200,000 Jews are said to have passed through the ghetto, many later going to the notorious Auschwitz death camp. Only 10,000 are said to have survived.

‘Hunt after crosbreed’

The Shem Olam Institute for Education, Documentation and Research on Faith and the Holocaust recently managed to get hold of the rare find which the Nazis attempted to hide, and has now revealed it, on the occasion of Yom Hakaddish Haklali, the memorial day for victims of the Holocaust whose dates of death are unknown.

The difficult text shows another aspect of the violent and brutal regime directed against the locals, which showed no patience to those who failed to obey cruel orders.

The diary, the majority of which has not yet been translated into Hebrew, features descriptions of the use of torture in interrogations of Jews who are termed as “smart alecks”, arrests of Jews suspected of possessing “prohibited items”, and an account of contacts with the Judenrat, a Jewish governing council, from which the officers extracted incriminating inside information against Jews who did not adhere to the strict rules.

“The Jew Goldberg Meyer was caught after we received information that he was pretending to be a Pole, and trading textile products that he had acquired in the past,” the German officers wrote in one of the diary’s pages.

Read more: Nazi diary reveals…