Songs of the ghettos, concentration camps, and World War II partisan outposts
Individuals
Jews stand in line for food in the Lodz ghetto.
— USHMM #99777
Jewish council chairman Rumkowski delivers a speech. Lodz ghetto, Poland, between 1941 and 1943.
— USHMM #86228/Beit Lohamei Haghettaot
Lodz ghetto, summer 1940
Lyrics by: Jankiel Herszkowicz
Music by: unidentified
Performed by Jankiel Herszkowicz
Hunger March commemorates the food riots that took place during the summer of 1940. Staged within the first few months of the ghetto's existence, these demonstrations on behalf of the starving populace caught the Jewish administration by surprise. German forces, assisted by the Jewish police, quelled the riots, but chairman Rumkowski soon yielded to the protesters' demands and created a Department of Relief to help support the poorest households. (It is Rumkowski who is addressed in song stanza 2; his reply appears in stanza 3.) The present recording of Jankiel Herszkowicz was made by Polish radio in 1965.
Listen to:
Related Links:
Lodz (article in the USHMM’s Holocaust Encyclopedia)
Jewish Councils (article in the USHMM’s Holocaust Encyclopedia)