„Dane nam jest oglądać wroga w jego ostatnich godzinach”

Nastroje mieszkańców Łodzi w ostatnich miesiącach okupacji niemieckiej

Abstract

„WE ARE FORTUNATE TO WATCH THE ENEMY IN HIS FINAL HOURS.” PUBLIC FEELINGS AMONG THE RESIDENTS OF ŁÓDŹ IN THE LAST MONTHS OF THE GERMAN OCCUPATION

World War II in Łódź was a time of great terror, massive surveillance and spreading propaganda. At the beginning of the war the city was incorporated into the German state which intensified the violence towards non-German nationals. The change in the city’s social structure became visible already in the first few months of the German occupation when German authorities carried out the extermination of the local intelligentsia and conducted the massive transportation of Polish and Jewish families to General Government. Following the Geman invasion of the Soviet Union the direction and purpose of transportations changed since Polish citizens were from then on exploited as forced labourers in German factories and farms in the heart of the Third Reich. From 1940 onward the Jewish population was concentrated in the ghettos and exterminated. The arrival of the front in 1945 was eagerly anticipated by Poles and a handful of Jewish survivors alike. The Germans did everything in their power to not let the front reach the city, refusing to admit that their days in Łódź are numbered. The aim of the present paper is to portray the public feelings of Łódź’s residents of Polish, German and Jewish nationalities in the final period of the German occupation using the surviving accounts and memoirs.