NOT COMING. - Lot 239

  2. Result
  3. NOT COMING. - Lot 239
  4. Lot n° 239 
Lot n° 239
Go to lot
Estimation :
4000 - 6000 EUR
NOT COMING. - Lot 239
NOT COMING. [Lodz Ghetto. Wielka Szpera. Final Solution]. Diary of Leo Wolle, a resident of the Lodz ghetto, from January 1, 1942 to March 3, 1943. Before the war he was a laundryman in Lodz, 65 Gdanska Street. This diary is in the form of an account book with debit-credit columns (winien-ma) with a first part, mainly composed of accounts with brief annotations mentioning events from January 1, 1942 to September 19, 1942 (pp. 1-25). A second part develops his impressions in short sentences describing the events in the ghetto. It runs from January 21, 1942 to July 30, 1942 (pp. 26-125). The third part of the notebook goes backwards from the last page from April 12, 1942 to August 1, 1942 (pp. 126-144). Instead of the succession of notes, information and accounts that make up the second part, it is mainly figures concerning largely food expenses. On pages 27 and 28, the author has transcribed a letter in German that he wrote to his wife on January 4, 1941. A second set of blank forms from his dyeing plant partially overlaps the previous notebook. The diary is in Yiddish and is written in German. The diary is in Yiddish and Polish, with a few words in German, written in pencil, sometimes corrected in red. A loose leaf attached to this set appears to be a fragment of an older diary. It appears to be dated December 3, 1940 and is written in German. In short sentences, with numerous abbreviations and allusions, it gives a daily picture of the living conditions in the ghetto, with the evolution of the price of foodstuffs (bread, flour, margarine, potatoes, etc.). There is information or rumours about the advance of the Russians, about deportations or deaths, especially of his relatives, about the health situation and in particular about his own state of health (fatigue, fever, leg problems). It seems that he works as a tailor for the Lufwaffe. He mentions his environment and the inhabitants of the ghetto with whom he had to deal: the names Cytrynowicz, Kapelusznik, Najman, Szteinfeld, Grynsztein, etc. are often mentioned. He mentions the Wielka Szpera (Gehsperre) between 5 and 12 September 1942, when the Germans rounded up 15,000 old men and children and took them to Chelmno to be gassed. He talks about the babies torn from their mothers' hands by the Jewish police, who left in vans at night for Minsk. He also talks about the alarms at night, the air raids. Three exclamation marks punctuate the presence of the chairman of the council of elders, Rumkowski, at a concert where 35 musicians are playing La Traviata. Leo Wolle's fate is unknown. This is an exceptional document which completes the rare testimonies on the history of the Lodz ghetto before its liquidation in 1944. We thank Mr. Max Polonovski for his research work.
My orders
Sale information
Sales conditions
Return to catalogue