The Lodz Ghetto Work Pass of Dwosia Spektor

The Story of Dwosia Spektor

Dwosia Dlugacz was born on March 20, 1885. She married Josef Spektor, a Hebrew teacher, and they had two daughters and a grandchild. Dwosia's brother, Benjamin Dlugacz, a pharmacist in Lodz, and his wife, Brindla (nee' Jacubowicz), were both born in Bogdanow (near Belchatow) and had a daughter, Ida, and a son, Adam. Before the Germans entered Lodz in September 1939, Adam escaped to Slonim, still in the Russian sector of Poland. Afterwards, he was never heard and was presumed lost when the Germans took the town.

Ida and her parents were forced to move into the Lodz ghetto. Both of Ida's parents died in the ghetto; her father was shot. After Benjamin's death, Ida was questioned by the Gestapo about hidden stock from his pharmacy. Ida saved her own life by telling the Gestapo what she knew. She managed to gather enough money to have both her parents buried in the Jewish cemetery, despite the desperate situation in the ghetto.

After Dwosia's husband died of disease in the ghetto, she took her own life rather than be a burden to her children. Ida Dlugacz and her cousins, together with one cousin's husband and child, were deported to Auschwitz in 1944. Upon arrival, only Ida and one of her cousins were "selected" to live. The cousin's child called to his mother and she managed to cross over to join him, dying with him.

Ida Dlugacz survived the Holocaust and was somehow able to recover her aunt Dwosia's Lodz ghetto work pass, pictured below. The work pass was signed by Hans Biebow, the Nazi administrator of the ghetto, later executed as a war criminal.

It is a horrific story, but only one among millions.

February 23, 1999
Aubrey Jacobus
Aubrey@Jacobyte.com

Image of work pass courtesy of Aubrey Jacobus

Translation courtesy of Fritz Neubauer and Marilyn Schapiro  

Diagonally over the face of the pass, stamped: "GESTORBEN" ("died")

Handwritten:

"9. Mai 1944" ("9 May 1944")
"f. d. Statistik" ("for the statistic," followed by initials)
"Tgb 6503" ("Tagebuch" or "diary")