The Emperor of Lies Read Online Free PDF

future
operation and administration of the ghetto, who would be allowed to stay in the
ghetto despite being formally above the age limit. The Chairman was said to have
agreed to this pact with the Devil because he believed it was the only way to
secure the continued existence of the ghetto in the longer term.
    Others said Rumkowski realised that the
time of promises was over, as far as he was concerned, the minute the
deportations began without his knowledge. That everything the authorities had
promised until then had turned out to be lies and hollow words. So what did the
lives of a few family members signify, when all that was left for him was to
look on, bewildered and powerless, as the whole mighty empire he had built
slowly crumbled?

I
    Within the Walls
    (April 1940–September 1942)

Geto, getunya, getokhna, kokhana,
    Tish taka
malutka e taka shubrana
Der vos hot a hant a shtarke
Der vos hot oyf
zikh a marke
Krigt fin
shenstn in fin bestn
Afile a ostn
oykh dem grestn

    [Ghetto,
beloved little ghetto
    You are so
tiny, and so corrupt!
    Whoever has a
hand so strong
    Whoever bears a
certain mark
    will choose
from the loveliest and the best
    and at least
the greatest, too]
    Jankiel Herszkowicz: ‘Geto,
getunya’
    (composed and performed in the
ghetto, around 1940)

    © ŁódŹ City Archive

The ghetto: as flat as a saucepan lid between the thundercloud blue of the sky and the cement grey of the earth.
    If geographical barriers were no concern, it could go on for ever: a jumble of buildings on the verge of rising up out of their ruins or tumbling back in again. But the real extent of the ghetto only becomes fully obvious once you are inside the rough barrier of planks and barbed wire that the Germans have put up all around it.
    If it were, in spite of everything – from the air, for example – possible to create an image of the ghetto for yourself, you would clearly see that it consists of two halves or lobes.
    The eastern lobe is the larger of the two. It extends from Bałuty Square and the old church square with the Church of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary in the middle – its tall, twin spires could be seen from everywhere – through the remains of what was once the ‘old town’ of Łódź and out to the garden suburb of Marysin.
    Before the war, Marysin was little more than a run-down area of allotments and small dwellings, filled in with a random collection of huts and workshops, pigsties and outbuildings. After the ghetto was cut off from the surrounding area, Marysin’s little plots of land and cottages have been turned into an area of summerhouses and convalescent homes for the ruling elite of the ghetto.
    Also situated in Marysin is the big Jewish cemetery and, on the other side of the fence, the railway yard at Radogoszcz where the heaviest goods and materials arrive. Units of the Schutzpolizei , the same force that guards the ghetto round the clock, lead brigades of Jewish workers from the ghetto every morning to help load and unload at the platform, and the same police company ensures all workers are led back into the ghetto at the end of the working day.
    The eastern lobe of the ghetto comprises all the districts east and north of the main thoroughfare of Zgierska Street. All through traffic, including Łódź’s north–south tram link, is routed through this street, which is guarded by German police at virtually every street corner. Of the ghetto’s three, wooden-vaulted bridges, the two busiest cross Zgierska Street. The first bridge is down by the Old Square. The second bridge, called Hohe Brücke by the Germans, goes from the stone base of the church of St Mary over Lutomierska Street to the other side of Kirchplatz. The wastern lobe comprises the districts round the old Jewish cemetery and Bazarowa Square where the old synagogue (now converted into stables) once stood. The four blocks of flats in the ghetto that have running water are located in this area.
    Another main road, Limanowskiego Street,