Edzia Abbe

Edzia Abbe, the daughter of Carola and Israel Abbe, was born in 1926. Her father owned a haberdashery store where he sold hats, gloves, and other accessories. She had one sister and two brothers.

Edzia grew up in Lodz, Poland. A large, fairly liberal city, Lodz was home to over 233,000 Jews. It was a major center of the textile industry. A diverse population of Jews, Poles and Germans lived together in relative peace.

When the Germans occupied Lodz in September 1939, Edzia was a 13-year-old schoolgirl. Anti-Jewish restrictions were immediately enacted. Jews were forbidden to congregate for religious services, they were subject to curfew, their radios were confiscated, and they were forced to wear yellow stars to identify them as Jews. In addition, Jews were barred from most professions, and all Jewish communal institutions were ordered to disband.

On February 8, 1940, Edzia, her family, and all of Lodz’s Jews were forced to relocate to a run-down part of the city. On May 1, 1940, the overcrowded ghetto was closed off.

Living conditions were horrendous. There was no heat, little food or medicine, and inadequate sanitation. People fell dead in the street from starvation, disease and exposure. Still, the basic appearance of normal inner-city life was maintained. Schools and hospitals still functioned inside the ghetto.

The Germans constantly harassed the Jewish residents of the ghetto, randomly seizing people on the streets, raiding their apartments, and subjecting them to terrible indignities. People were shot at random. Young children often became the sole support of their families, risking their lives to smuggle food into the ghetto.

In late 1940, a German soldier shot Edzia’s older brother, 16-year-old Natan, at the ghetto gate. Her mother died of starvation in early 1941. Edzia, 15 years old, was seized and sent to forced labor in a German-run textile factory in Augsburg. Conditions there were horrible. There was little food, and the workers were constantly tortured. In May 1943, the factory was evacuated. The Jewish workers were sent to an unknown destination and were never heard from again.

Jews first came to Poland from central Europe at the end of the 11th century, as refugees from the Crusades. They were welcomed by the Polish nobility, which was eager to use their skills in modernizing their country. Jews were granted charters to live in specific towns and engage in various businesses and crafts. After the massacre of 1648-1649 by the Cossacks, Poland’s surviving Jews were impoverished.

Despite the economic poverty, however, religious and cultural life was rich. Poland was home to some of the world’s greatest rabbis and scholars. Religious observance throughout the large cities and smaller towns, known as shtetlach, was the norm, and religious scholarship was highly prized. By the late 19th and early 20th century, Jewish cultural life in Poland expanded to include political parties and Zionist groups, as well as a wide range of literature and sports clubs. By the 1930s, Poland’s Jews numbered over 3 million and accounted for 10% of the total population.