Prezentacja projektu „Leksykon getta łódzkiego” w BUŁ

Historical outline

The Encyclopedia written in the Łódź Ghetto is an exceptional undertaking for many reasons. Journalists, scientists and writers working in the Archive Department undertook to describe the reality of the ghetto in the form of encyclopedic entries, selecting, in their opinion, the most important events, phenomena, institutions and people. They undertook the task quite late, in the autumn of 1943, when the fate of the war had already been decided and tens of thousands of people imprisoned in the ghetto lived in hope of an end to the nightmare.

The goal that the "encyclopedists" set for themselves was formulated clearly: "In a later era, when research on the ghetto is carried out, such a collection, such an encyclopedia, will provide information where a mere description of the conditions is not enough."

The liquidation of the ghetto in August 1944 interrupted work on the encyclopedia. Only one of the ten people working on the project survived the Holocaust.

In the ghetto, it was possible to develop over 378 entries out of the planned at least 1,347. They were published 10 years ago in a publication entitled "Encyclopedia of the Ghetto. Unfinished project of archivists from the Łódź ghetto".

About the project

The growing knowledge about the history of the ghetto and the increasing availability of archival materials have become an impulse for contemporary researchers to develop the remaining, undeveloped entries and complete the work of encyclopedists from the "closed district" of Lodz.

The task was carried out by an interdisciplinary team of several researchers from the the Philip Friedman Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Lodz, who worked for over six years creating the "Lexicon of the Łódź Ghetto". In addition to the entries complied in the ghetto, a number of new ones were prepared, showing the ghetto from an unknown side, discovering the fates of many forgotten people. The lexicon is the first such comprehensive collection of knowledge about the Łódź Ghetto.

The internet portal leksykongetta.pl which will be presented during a meeting on 24 April 2025 at the University of Lodz Library is one of the results of the project. During the event employees of the Philip Friedman Centre for Jewish Studies involved in the project will talk about the challenges related to working on the lexicon.

The "Lexicon of the Łódź Ghetto" project is funded by "National Programme for the Development of the Humanities" (project number 11H17022685).

Information about the meeting

The event will be held on 24 April (Thursday) 2025 at 5:00 p.m. at the University of Lodz Library (Rossman Zone).
The event will be broadcast online.


Information: Philip Friedman Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Lodz