Łódź
Łódź: Where the Family Lived
YoungPa grew up in Łódź. These are the streets the family lived on, the shuls near them, and where the family rests, as far as the records show today. Each place is marked Confirmed when a document names our family there, Likely when the evidence is strong but not final, or Possible when it is close by and fits, with no record yet. Context marks city landmarks of the time with no family link.
“A yid mefurt vayter.”
The map
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The places, by number
Ghetto home Confirmed 1940–42
Brzezińska 63, flat 44 (Sulzfelder Straße under the Germans) → today ul. Wojska Polskiego; that side of the street is mostly gone
The family’s flat in the ghetto, in Bałuty. YoungPa was sent from here to a labour camp on 2 May 1941.
First Łódź home Confirmed 1919–20
ul. Południowa 42 → today ul. Rewolucji 1905 r. 42
Their first home after arriving from Klimontów in August 1919. The old tenement likely still stands.
Next home, same street Confirmed 1920
ul. Południowa 38 → today ul. Rewolucji 1905 r. 38
The family’s next flat, a few doors along the same street.
Lejzer and Estera Chaja’s home Likely c. 1916–21
ul. Południowa 16 → today ul. Rewolucji 1905 r. 16
Home of Lejzer z"l and Estera Chaja ע״ה, likely YoungPa’s grandparents.
The address he gave in 1945 Likely 1930s
ul. 1go Maja 44 (Scharnhorststraße 1940–45) → today al. 1 Maja 42/44
The home YoungPa wrote on his Buchenwald form. Likely the family’s 1930s home, before the ghetto.
Reicher Synagogue Possible built 1895–1902; still in use
ul. Południowa 28, in the courtyard → today ul. Rewolucji 1905 r. 28
A few doors from the 1919–20 homes. The only pre-war Łódź shul still standing.
Ghetto prayer house Possible 1940
Brzezińska 53 → today ul. Wojska Polskiego
On the ghetto’s 1940 list of prayer houses, about 100 m from the family’s flat.
Rabbi Parzęczewski’s prayer house Possible 1940
Brzezińska 35 → today ul. Wojska Polskiego
A ghetto minyan in the rabbi’s own home, on the same street.
Shul and old religious school Possible 1940 (school before the war)
Brzezińska 23 → today ul. Wojska Polskiego
A pre-war religious school that became the ghetto’s community shul.
Alte Shul Context burned Nov 1939
ul. Wolborska 20 → today ul. Wolborska; flats stand on the site
The old Orthodox community shul of Łódź, burned by the Germans.
Great Synagogue Context burned Nov 1939
ul. Spacerowa 2 → today al. Kościuszki 2; now a car park
The great Tempel of Łódź, burned by the Germans.
Vilker Shul Context destroyed 1940
ul. Zachodnia 56 → today ul. Zachodnia 70; nothing remains
The city’s largest beis medrash, with learning day and night.
Jewish Cemetery Confirmed 1928, 1936, 1941
Bracka Street → today ul. Bracka
Lejzer z"l, Estera Chaja ע״ה and Frajda Hy"d are in the cemetery’s burial index.
Radegast station Context 1942–44
Radegast (Radogoszcz) station → today Radegast Station memorial
Deportations from the ghetto left from here, including to Chełmno in 1942.
Uncle Nachman’s ghetto home Likely 1940s
Hohensteiner Straße 53 (ul. Zgierska) → today ul. Zgierska 53
Ghetto home of Nachman Rotfogel and his wife Laja. He was likely YoungPa’s uncle.
Klimontów Confirmed until Aug 1919
Klimontów, near Sandomierz → today Klimontów; the 1851 synagogue still stands
Where the family lived before coming back to Łódź in 1919, about 200 km southeast of Łódź. The Rotfogels themselves came from Nowa Słupia, near Opatów.
The homes
- Confirmed Południowa 42, then 38 (1919–20). When the family came to Łódź from Klimontów in August 1919, they lived at ul. Południowa 42 and soon after at no. 38, in the centre of the city. The street is called ul. Rewolucji 1905 r. today, and the old house numbers still apply. Source: 1919 Łódź address card · street renamings
- Likely 1 Maja 44 (likely the 1930s). In January 1945, at Buchenwald, YoungPa wrote his home address in his own words: “ul. 1go Maja 44”. That is today’s al. 1 Maja, in the west of the city and outside what became the ghetto. It was most likely the family’s home in the 1930s. Source: his Buchenwald form, Arolsen Archives
- Confirmed The ghetto flat: Brzezińska 63, flat 44 (1940–42). In 1940 the family was forced into the ghetto in Bałuty. The Germans called the street Sulzfelder Straße. YoungPa was sent from this flat to a labour camp on 2 May 1941. The street was renamed ul. Wojska Polskiego in 1945. Likely The building itself is likely gone: most of that side of the street was torn down. Source: Yad Vashem ghetto list · ul. Brzezińska, Wikipedia
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The shuls
No record yet says where YoungPa davened. What we can show is which shuls stood closest to the family’s homes. Any link below is by nearness only.
- Possible The Reicher Synagogue, Południowa 28. Built by the Reicher family in 1895–1902, a few doors from the 1919–20 homes. It survived the war as a German storehouse and is the only pre-war shul in Łódź still standing and still in use. Source: Virtual Shtetl
- Possible The ghetto prayer houses on Brzezińska. The ghetto’s 1940 list of approved prayer houses has three on the family’s own street: no. 53, about 100 m from their flat; no. 35, in the home of Rabbi Parzęczewski; and no. 23, a religious school before the war that became the ghetto’s community shul. Source: Leksykon getta, prayer houses
- Context The great shuls of the city. The Alte Shul on Wolborska, the Great Synagogue on Kościuszki and the Vilker Shul were all destroyed by the Germans in 1939–40. Source: KehilaLinks Łódź synagogues
Chassidus
- Confirmed Kintzk is Kinsk. “Kintzk” is the Yiddish name of Końskie, a town south of Łódź. The Kinsker rebbes were descended from the Yid HaKadosh of Przysucha. Source: Pinkas HaKehillot, Końskie
- Confirmed Kinsk and Ger. The family were Kinsker chassidim, with close ties to Ger as well. Source: the family’s history page
- Confirmed Shamash to Reb Areleh. As a boy, YoungPa met the Kozhnitzer Rebbe and became shamash to Reb Areleh of Kozhnitz, R’ Aharon Yechiel Hopstein Hy"d, the last Kozhnitzer Rebbe, who was killed in the Żelechów ghetto in 1942. Reb Areleh lived in Łódź for a time, which fits a boy there meeting him. Source: the family’s history page · Kozienice yizkor book
- Confirmed Koshnitz later in life. The family remembers that in his later years YoungPa leaned toward Koshnitz. Source: family memory
The family trade
- Confirmed The family worked in kosher meat and poultry. YoungPa’s Buchenwald record names his father, Yitzchak Aron Hy"d, as a butcher, which fits. Source: the family’s history page · his Buchenwald form, Arolsen Archives
The cemetery and Radegast
- Confirmed The Łódź Jewish Cemetery, Bracka Street. Three of the family are in the cemetery’s burial index: Lejzer z"l (1928), Estera Chaja ע״ה (1936) and YoungPa’s sister Frajda Hy"d, who died in the ghetto on 18 March 1941. No gravestone photos have been found yet. Source: JRI-Poland cemetery index · the cemetery’s own site
- Context Radegast station. Deportations from the ghetto left from Radegast, which stands today as a memorial. YoungPa’s parents, Yitzchak Aron and Sura Hy"d, were sent from the ghetto to Chełmno in 1942. Source: Yad Vashem records
Klimontów
Confirmed Before Łódź, the family lived in Klimontów, a small, mostly Jewish town near Sandomierz. The 1919 address card says they came from there, and that the older children were born there, but a JRI-Poland researcher (2026) found no Klimontów birth record for YoungPa or his siblings. The Rotfogels came from Nowa Słupia, and YoungPa was possibly born in or near Opatów. Its stone synagogue of 1851 still stands. Source: 1919 Łódź address card · Klimontów history, KehilaLinks · Virtual Shtetl
Photographs
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Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors.