The Deportation of the Children from the Lodz Ghetto
(September 4, 1942)
"...The ghetto has been struck a hard blow. They demand
what is most dear to it − children and old people. I was not
privileged to have a child of my own and therefore devoted my best years to
children. I lived and breathed together with children. I never imagined
that my own hands would be forced to make this sacrifice on the altar. In
my old age I am forced to stretch out my hands and to beg: "Brothers
and sisters, give them to me! − Fathers and mothers, give me your
children..." (Bitter weeping shakes the assembled public)...
Yesterday, in the course of the day, I was given the order to send away
more than 20,000 Jews from the ghetto, and if I did not – "we will
do it ourselves." The question arose: "Should we have accepted
this and carried it out ourselves, or left it to others?" But as we
were guided not by the thought: "how many will be lost?" but
"how many can be saved?" we arrived at the conclusion – those
closest to me at work, that is, and myself – that however difficult it
was going to be, we must take upon ourselves the carrying out of this
decree. I must carry out this difficult and bloody operation, I must cut
off limbs in order to save the body! I must take away children, and if I do
not, others too will be taken, God forbid... (terrible wailing).
I cannot give you comfort today. Nor did I come to calm
you today, but to reveal all your pain and all your sorrow. I have come
like a robber, to take from you what is dearest to your heart. I tried
everything I knew to get the bitter sentence cancelled. When it could not
be cancelled, I tried to lessen the sentence. Only yesterday I ordered the
registration of nine-year-old children. I wanted to save at least one year
– children from nine to ten. But they would not yield. I succeeded in one
thing – to save the children over ten. Let that be our consolation in our
great sorrow.
There are many people in this ghetto who suffer from
tuberculosis, whose days or perhaps weeks are numbered. I do not know,
perhaps this is a satanic plan, and perhaps not, but I cannot stop myself
from proposing it: "Give me these sick people, and perhaps it will be
possible to save the healthy in their place." I know how precious each
one of the sick is in his home, and particularly among Jews. But at a time
of such decrees one must weigh up and measure who should be saved, who can
be saved and who may be saved.
Common sense requires us to know that those must be
saved who can be saved and who have a chance of being saved and not those
whom there is no chance to save in any case..."
Sources: Rumkowski's speech at the time of the deportation, I.
Trunk, Lodzsher Geto ("Lodz Ghetto"), New York, 1962, pp.
311-312; Yad Vashem |