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Inscribed metal tzedakah box used to collect money for charity in Łódź

Object | Accession Number: 2004.630.2

Handmade engraved metal box used in Łódź, Poland, to collect funds for charity. The address, 20 Wolborska, engraved on the box, is the location of the main synagogue in Łódź which was set on fire in November 1939 by the German forces who occupied the city that September. A tzedakah box is used by Jewish communities as a physical reminder to be charitable and help others. The message on this box asks contributors to show support by ushering in a new Torah. On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland and, one week later, occupied Łódź. They renamed it Litzmannstadt and in February 1940 relocated all the Jews, roughly 100,000 people, into a sealed ghetto. Prewar Łódź was a thriving industrial city and the ghetto continued to be an important manufacturing center. Daily life and social and economic activity in the ghetto was handled by a Council of Jewish Elders who reported to the German authorities. There were continual food shortages and death from starvation was common. By September 1942, the Germans has deported the majority of the residents to Chelmno killing center. The ghetto was destroyed in May 1944.

Date
use:  approximately 1939
Geography
use: Litzmannstadt-Getto (Łódź, Poland); Łódź (Poland)
Language
Polish
Hebrew
Yiddish
Classification
Containers
Category
Metal containers
Credit Line
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Rafal Imbro
 
Record last modified: 2022-08-31 12:33:28
This page: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn522465