Lodz Ghetto Hospital Death Records

Deaths Reported during Various Weeks between 24 Nov 1941 and 18 Jun 1944

Introduction by Roni Liebowitz and Nolan Altman

· Background
· Database
· Acknowledgements
· Searching the Database

Background

Given the close living quarters in the Lodz ghetto, its poor sanitary conditions, hard labor, lack of heat and warm clothing, and an inadequate food supply, it is not surprising that many succumbed to epidemics, starvation, and freezing weather, as well as the physical brutality of the Nazis.  Heart disease, tuberculosis, and malnutrition caused many of the deaths in the ghetto. (A vast amount of additional information about the ghetto is at http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/Lodz/holocaust.htm.)

In the ghetto's five hospitals, staff tried to fight illness without adequate medicines, medical equipment, even beds.  In March 1940, the psychiatric ward at Poznanski Hospital was evacuated, and later, on July 17, 1941, the psychiatric hospital on Wesola Street was emptied, the patients never seen again.  On January 16, 1942, deportations from the ghetto directly to the Chelmno death camp began in earnest.

On a clear morning in early September, marking the third anniversary of the war, German policemen encircled all the hospitals in the ghetto and the children's isolation ward in Marysin, as military trucks pulled up to the hospitals on Lagiewnicka, Wesola, and Drewnowska Streets. Patients were roughly loaded aboard the trucks, many thinking they were being relocated to shacks on Krawiecka Street. As news of the real purpose of the transfer reached the Lodz Ghetto residents, families and friends of the patients frantically ran to the hospitals in a desperate effort to save their ailing loved ones. A few of the patients managed to escape their fate this time, but many were captured and removed from the ghetto the next morning.

This was followed on September 4, 1942, by the announcement of a deportation of children and nearly all other elderly and infirm. Between September 5 and 12, 1942, a second deportation to Chelmno took place. There were periodic deportations to the death camps over the next two years, with those deaths unreported. Records of deaths in the hospitals were maintained from November 1941 to December 1943. By May 1944, the Nazis decided to liquidate the ghetto and reestablished Chelmno. Between June 23 and July 7, 1944, Jews from the ghetto were again sent to Chelmno and perished there. A new destination was determined in August, and 74,000 Lodz Jews were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Only 800 inmates remained in the Lodz Ghetto on the day of liberation by the Soviet army, January 19, 1945.

Database

The database contains the names of individuals who died in the Lodz Ghetto Hospital(s).  As mentioned in the above "Background" there was more than one hospital in the ghetto, but we cannot tell if these records relate to one or all of the ghetto hospitals.

The original records were prepared in weekly sets.  There are two sources for the records: the Ghetto Hospital Records and the Statistical Office Records.  The Statistical Office copies were not as legible as the Hospital copies and therefore there is a greater possibility for errors in the database information for those records.  The Statistical Office records also have a significant number of handwritten notes on them.  However, as neither we nor USHMM could determine what these notes refer to and as they were very difficult or impossible to read, they were not included in the database.  The ledgers were kept on a weekly basis and include approximately 14,500 individual records. (Please see the table below for an analysis of the weekly information and source.)  Any breaks in the weeks were due to missing ledgers.  If the missing weekly ledgers are ever found, we will add them to the database.  USHMM has a collection of about 800 reels of data on Lodz and many files are in different reels; therefore, it is quite possible that the missing weeks will be discovered at some future time.  The catalog number at the USHNN is [RG 05.008M], reels 8 and 9 .  To view images of some of the hardcopy pages transcribed from the microfilms, click here.

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) initially provided JewishGen with only the hospital records.  After these had been computerized, Peter Lande of USHMM discovered the Statistical Office files.  Some of them were duplicates of the hospital records and were not input again.  Many, luckily, were missing weeks and were added to this database.

The fields of the database are as follows:

To assist the researcher with German terms, please see JewishGen InfoFile http://www.jewishgen.org/InfoFiles/GermanOccs.htm for translations of occupations, and the file Translation of "Cause of Death" Field in Lodz Ghetto Hospital Records for translations of the German medical terms for cause of death.

The following chart lists the weeks, by starting date, the number of pages in the set, the number of deaths for that week, and the source of the documents.

 
  Year Week Starting Date # of Pages in Weekly Set # of Deaths in Weekly Set Document Source  
 
 

1941

24 Nov

8

238

  Hospital Records

   

01 Dec

7

246

  Hospital Records

   

08 Dec

8

240

  Hospital Records

   

15 Dec

7

204

  Hospital Records

   

22 Dec

7

216

  Hospital Records

   

29 Dec

9

281

  Hospital Records

     

46

1,425

 
           
 

1942

05 Jan

9

286

  Hospital Records

   

12 Jan

13

418

  Hospital Records

   

19 Jan

13

469

  Hospital Records

   

26 Jan

16

562

  Hospital Records

   

02 Feb

14

434

  Hospital Records

   

09 Feb

15

529

  Hospital Records

   

16 Feb

14

446

  Hospital Records

   

23 Feb

13

467

  Hospital Records

   

02 Mar

14

462

  Hospital Records

   

22 Jun

13

472

  Hospital Records

   

29 Jun

12

455

  Hospital Records

   

06 Jul

13

500

  Hospital Records

   

13 Jul

13

432

  Hospital Records

   

20 Jul

13

441

  Hospital Records

   

27 Jul

14

454

  Hospital Records

   

03 Aug

11

368

  Hospital Records

   

10 Aug

13

374

  Hospital Records

   

24 Aug

13

401

  Hospital Records

   

31 Aug

9

293

  Hospital Records

   

13 Sep

8

207

  Hospital Records

   

28 Dec

4

104

  Statistical Office

     

257

8,574

 
           
 

1943

04 Jan

4

104

  Statistical Office

   

11 Jan

4

152

  Statistical Office

   

18 Jan

6

124

  Statistical Office

   

25 Jan

4

115

  Statistical Office

   

01 Feb

5

122

  Statistical Office

   

08 Feb

4

111

  Statistical Office

   

15 Feb

4

113

  Statistical Office

   

22 Feb

3

101

  Statistical Office

   

01 Mar

4

130

  Hospital Records

   

08 Mar

4

144

  Hospital Records

   

15 Mar

4

141

  Hospital Records

   

22 Mar

4

134

  Hospital Records

   

29 Mar

4

125

  Statistical Office

   

05 Apr

4

139

  Statistical Office

   

11 Apr

4

134

  Statistical Office

   

19 Apr

4

124

  Hospital Records

   

26 Apr

4

126

  Hospital Records

   

03 May

3

99

  Hospital Records

   

10 May

4

118

  Hospital Records

   

17 May

4

125

  Hospital Records

   

24 May

2

67

  Hospital Records

   

31 May

4

107

  Hospital Records

   

07 Jun

4

113

  Hospital Records

   

14 Jun

3

87

  Hospital Records

   

21 Jun

3

102

  Hospital Records

   

28 Jun

3

96

  Hospital Records

   

05 Jul

3

82

  Hospital Records

   

12 Jul

2

57

  Hospital Records

   

19 Jul

2

67

  Hospital Records

   

26 Jul

2

75

  Hospital Records

   

09 Aug

2

72

  Hospital Records

   

16 Aug

2

72

  Hospital Records

   

23 Aug

2

45

  Hospital Records

   

06 Sep

2

63

  Hospital Records

   

13 Sep

2

61

  Hospital Records

   

20 Sep

2

55

  Hospital Records

   

27 Sep

2

52

  Hospital Records

   

04 Oct

2

54

  Hospital Records

   

11 Oct

2

53

  Hospital Records

   

18 Oct

2

52

  Hospital Records

   

25 Oct

2

49

  Hospital Records

   

01 Nov

2

44

  Hospital Records

   

08 Nov

1

35

  Hospital Records

   

15 Nov

2

42

  Hospital Records

   

22 Nov

2

45

  Hospital Records

   

29 Nov

2

44

  Hospital Records

   

06 Dec

2

52

  Hospital Records

   

13 Dec

2

46

  Hospital Records

   

20 Dec

2

44

  Hospital Records

   

27 Dec

2

45

  Hospital Records

     

148

4,359

 
           
 

1944

18 Jun

4

128

  Statistical Office

           
 

PROJECT TOTALS

455

14,486

 
 

Street Codes

The addresses used in the field "Address" are problematic.  It was not unusual for the Germans to rename streets and rename them more than once!  Within the weekly ledgers, we found street codes that were made up of number and letter series: 1 Str. through 61 Str. and A Str. through AY Str. and additional letter codes.  One possible reason for the shorter codes was to be able to fit the street codes in maps.  However, researchers have found that even the codes changed from map to map.  The information in the table below was compiled by Roni Liebowitz and Petje Schroeder.  It gives you certain, not all, Lodz street name equivalents for the German street codes used in the database.  The information came from "Straßenverzeichnis von Litzmannstad," the Lodz Street Register, published by the Mayor of L. Department of Statistics in 1941.

Researchers will also want to consult the Lodz Streets Database at http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/Lodz/streets.htm, which includes the list of all streets in the city of Lodz for the past 100 years.

STREETS

Code Street Name
1 Str. Rauchgasse
2 Str. Oststrasse
3 Str. Kirchgasse
4 Str. Scheunenstrasse
5 Str. Schlosserstrasse
6 Str. Korngasse
7 Str. Bierstrasse
8 Str. Tirpitzstrasse
9 Str. Lustige Gasse
10 Str. Basargasse
11 Str. Fischstrasse
12 Str. Breite Gasse
13 Str. Steinmetzgasse
14 Str. Sattlergasse
15 Str. Mühlengasse
16 Str. Franzstrasse
17 Str. Schneidergasse
18 Str. Kräutergasse
19 Str. Ackerweg
20 Str. Kelmstrasse
21 Str. Honigweg
22 Str. Hofgasse
23 Str. Nebengasse
24 Str. Sudetenstrasse
25 Str. Pfauenstrasse
26 Str. Storchengasse
27 Str. Blattbindergasse
28 Str. Bleichenweg
29 Str. Glöcknergasse
30 Str. Zimmerstrasse
A Str. Talweg
B Str. Krämergasse
C Str. Hausierergasse
D Str. Kreuzstrasse
E Str. Gänsestrasse
F Str. Buchbinderstrasse
G Str. Richterstrasse
H Str. Halbe Gasse
I Str. Reigergasse
J Str. Frohe Gasse
J Str. Schloßstrasse / Schloss
K Str. Hirtenweg
L Str. Sophienstrasse
M Str. Matrosengasse
N Str. Runde Gasse
O Str. Inselstrasse
P Str. Braune Gasse
Q Str. Brunnenstrasse
R Str. Pfeffergasse
S Str. Kühle Gasse
T Str. Cranachstrasse
U Str. Altmarkt
V Str. Rembrandtstrasse
W Str. Rubensstrasse
X Str. Tizianstrasse
Y Str. Am Bach
Z Str. Holzstrasse
AU Str. Putziger Strasse
CH Str. Glöcknergasse
OE Str. Rastweg
SP Str. Kurze Gasse
UE Str. Königsberger Strasse
Alexanderhofstr. Limanowskiego
Am Quell Zródlowa
Baluter Ring Rynek Bałucki
Blaue Gasse Modra
Bleigasse Mianowskiego
Bolzengasse (Gnesenstrasse) Gnieźnieńska
Brotgasse Zbożowa
Brunhildstr. (Hertastrasse) Staszica
Buchdruckergasse Okopowa
Dietrich-von-Bern-Str. (Bertholdstrasse) Kolińskiego J.
Donarstr. (Leiblgasse) Oblęgorska
Donaustr. 3-ego Maja
Dunkle Gasse Ciemna (does not exist anymore)
Fahrergasse (Sperlinggasse) Wróbla
Fauststr. (Gewerbestrasse) Przemysłowa
Fischstr. Rybna
Forststr. (Wendener Str.) not located
Franzstr. Franciszkańska
Frohe Gasse Kurasia J. "Ognia"
Froschweg (Packerstrasse) Żabia
Glöcknerstr. Mierznica
Goldschmiedegasse Tokarzewskiego gen. M.
Güntherstr. (Maxstr.) Plater Emilii
Hadumothstr. (Richardstrasse) Przelotna
Hamburger Str. (Telegrafenstr.) Lutomierska
Hanseatenstr. (Sonnleite) Łagiewnicka
Herthastr. (Brunhildstr.) Staszica
Hohensteiner Str. Zgierska
Hüttenwinkel Garbarska
Inselstr. Zawiszy
Kirchplatz plac Kościelny
Königsmarkestr. (Ewaldstr.) Bracka
Korbgasse Koszykowa
Korngasse Żytnia
Krankenhaus hospital
Kranichweg Żurawia
Kräutergasse Zielna
Kreuzstr. Krzyżowa
Krimhildstr. Sucharskiego mjr H.
Leiblgasse (Donarstrasse) Oblęgorska
Lindwurmstr. (Veit-Stoss-Str.) Smugowa
Müllerstr. Młynarska
Neustadtstr. Nowomiejska
Nordstr. Północna
Oststr. Wschodnia
Ottilienstr. (Hagenstr.+ Roderichstr.) Mostowskiego T.
Packerstr. (Froschweg) Żabia
Packerweg (Froschweg) Żabia
Questenbaumstr. Kaufmana M.
Radegast Radogoszcz (district)
Rastweg (OE Str.) in the ghetto, not located
Reitergasse Urzędnicza
Reiterstr. Urzędnicza
Rembrandtstr. Jakuba
Richardstr. (Hadumothstr.) Przelotna
Rüdigerstr. (Konradstr.) Głowackiego
Riemergasse Rymarska (does not exist anymore)
Robertstr. (Tristanstrasse) Górnicza
Roderichstr. (Ottilienstr.) Mostowskiego T.
Rüdigerstr. (Konradstr.) Głowackiego
Schmiedegasse Kowalska
Siegfriedstr. Marysińska
Siegrunenweg (Bertramstr.) Jonschera K.
Spulergasse Adwokacka
Storchengasse Masarska (now part of Zachodnia)
Sulzfelder Str. Wojska Polskiego
Telegrafenstr. (Hamburger Str.) Lutomierska
Tirpitzstr. Rawicka (does not exist anymore)
Torstr. / Thorstr. (Rungestr. / Rungeweg) Widok
Tristanstr. (Robertstr.) Górnicza
Trödlergasse Szklana
Veit-Stoss-Str. (Lindwurmstr.) Smugowa
Waldemarstr. Niemojewskiego
Wirkerstr. Stefana

Acknowledgements

The information contained in this database was indexed from the files of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM).  These records were scattered over a number of reels.  This information is accessible to you today thanks to the effort of the following JewishGen volunteers who are responsible for the transcription of this file: Nolan Altman (coordinator), Nancy Biederman, Anna Blanchard, Eve Blum, Beny Bobek, Joy Conroy, Joyce Eastman, Carol Edan, Shana Egan, Kurt Friedlaeder, Harry Green, Ernest Kallmann, Bill Leibner, Elisheva Malovicki, Edward Mitelsbach, Fritz Neubauer, Shimon Neuman, Hans Nord, Joan Parker, Ralph Salinger, Nicolas Trokiner, Karen Weinberg and Paula Zeiselman.  Special thanks to Edward Mitelsbach for the German "Causes of Death" translations and to Roni Liebowitz and Petje Schroeder for the information and assistance regarding the Lodz Street codes and to Michael Meshenberg for his help with editing the Background information.

Thanks to JewishGen Inc. for providing the website and database expertise to make this database accessible.  Special thanks to Susan King, Warren Blatt and Michael Tobias for their continued contributions to Jewish genealogy.  Particular thanks to the Research Division headed by Joyce Field and to Nolan Altman, coordinator of Holocaust files.

Roni Liebowitz and Nolan Altman
June 2004


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Last Update: 22 June 2004 by WSB