(HOLOCAUST).

When German forces occupied Lodz on the 8th September 1939, the city had a population of some 670,000 of whom 30% were Jewish. The Nazi authorities sought to “purify” the Polish city (which they renamed Litzmannstadt) and thus forcibly removed all Jews to specific streets within the Old City. Over a period of months, barriers were erected to cut the area off from the rest of the city and by the 1st May, 1940 all Jews were formally sealed within the ghetto walls. Hans Biebow was the chief Nazi administrator of the Lodz Ghetto, whose role was to usher it through a “grand scheme of historic population changes,” beginning with its isolation and culminating with the murder of its entire population. See J. Horowitz, Ghettostadt: Lodz and the Making of a Nazi City (2008).