Lodz Ghetto Research Paper

Mitarbeiter, traurigkeit, leid, gedemütigt, verängstigt, terrorisiert, missbraucht, diskriminiert, and opfer are all German words that translate into words that describe what the Jews in the Lodz ghetto were and the feelings that they may have experienced. In order the words translate to workers, sadness, grief, humiliated, scared, terrorized, abused, discriminated, and lastly, victims. Jews were looked at as different and evil during the time period 1933 to 1945, also known as the time period of the Holocaust. Many Jews were sent away to concentration camps and locked up in ghettos; for instance, one of the ghettos that Jews were forced to live in was the Lodz ghetto. The Jews in the Lodz ghetto were victimized because they were forced …show more content…
When the persecution of Jews began in the Lodz District they were humiliated, forced into labor, physically abused, and arrested (Unger 403). One way that Jews were treated unfairly was when they were in the Lodz District and had to wear yellow stars for identification, and were despoiled of their property (Unger 404). To add on, Jews used armed and unarmed resistance in the ghetto; one example of unarmed resistance is spiritual resistance. On the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website it states, “Spiritual resistance refers to attempts by individuals to maintain their humanity, personal integrity, dignity, and sense of civilization in the face of Nazi attempts to dehumanize and degrade them” (“Spiritual”). Another meaning for that phrase is the “refusal to have one’s spirit broken in the midst of the most horrible degradation” (“Spiritual”). Spiritual resistance includes prayer, which makes sure that the Jews remember who they are religiously and culturally. Similarly, many Orthodox Jews did not believe in violence, so to them prayer and other religious activities were the truest form of resistance (“Spiritual”). Prayer went from being a way of life into a way of finding protection and hope. Also, children in the ghetto turned into orphans daily, and had to beg for food from people who did not have a lot of food. In the Lodz ghetto, adults organized secret classes to educate the children as a way of insubordination. Any child that had a book would hide it under their clothes. Children witnessed and were victims of death. They fought through the tragedies by playing with toys; for instance, many children made playing cards out of cigarette boxes (“Life”). The Jews in the Lodz ghetto were humiliated and persecuted. They had to turn to spiritual resistance, find strength in trying to defy the Nazi, and adapt to