The existence of a previously unreleased “declaration of independence” establishing a blueprint for a future Jewish State by inhabitants of the Lodz Ghetto in Poland, even as they were marked for death by the Nazi war machine, was revealed Sunday in honor of International Holocaust Memorial Day.
The announcement was made by Simcha Stein, director-general of the museum at Kibbutz Lochamei HaGetaot (Warriors of the Ghettos), who said the three-page document would be exhibited at the museum in the near future.
The besieged Jews in the Lodz ghetto called for the formation of an official Jewish State in the document written seven years before David Ben Gurion declared its establishment to the world in his historical radio broadcast in 1948.
Lodz held the second largest Jewish community in Europe, with Warsaw being the brightest jewel in the pre-Nazi Eastern European Jewish world.
The Lodz declaration, dated May 18-19, 1941, includes a basic outline of what the Jewish State should be, and why.
“A Jewish State is something the world needs and that is the reason it will be formed,” reads the document. “In the Jewish State, the young generation will discover a future of light, freedom and dignity, “continues the author, who museum officials say may have been Oskar Singer, a Czechoslovakian journalist who managed the Jewish archives in Lodz during the Nazi era.
The document provides details on the creation of such a state, including proposed punishments for those who break the law. Citizens of the future Jewish State will “live in freedom” and “receive recognition for our tremendous achievements,” declares the document, signed at the bottom by Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, head of the Lodz Ghetto Judenrat.
The document, handwritten in Polish and believed to have been a draft, was written on the back of papers containing lists of the ghetto occupants eligible for food and clothing as well as lists of those who were no longer eligible – a list of life and death. Food was delivered to the ghetto as payment by the Nazis in exchange for goods produced by the Jews. Eligibility and the amount of food distributed to each individual was determined by work status.