Enjoy Łódź, but don’t omit its tragic past | Letter
Dr Richard Bradbury responds to a travel article about the Polish city, home to one of the largest Jewish ghettos during Nazi occupation I was shocked to read your travel article detailing the delights of Łódź without a single mention of the city’s past as the site of one of the largest ghettos during the second world war ( A city break in Łódź, Poland’s capital of cinema and factories, 5 September ). The article says: “I ask Anna how Łódź fared in the second world war. ‘It was not too badly damaged,’ she says. ‘Both the Germans and the Russians wanted the industry intact.’” I wonder how the s
Dr Richard Bradbury responds to a travel article about the Polish city, home to one of the largest Jewish ghettos during Nazi occupation
I was shocked to read your travel article detailing the delights of Łódź without a single mention of the city’s past as the site of one of the largest ghettos during the second world war ( A city break in Łódź, Poland’s capital of cinema and factories, 5 September ).
The article says: “I ask Anna how Łódź fared in the second world war. ‘It was not too badly damaged,’ she says. ‘Both the Germans and the Russians wanted the industry intact.’” I wonder how the surviving family members of the perhaps 200,000 people who died after being herded into the ghetto, often to work as slaves for the Nazi war effort, would feel about that.
Łódź is indeed a wonderful city, and I have watched its transformation since I worked there in the late 1980s. Your article highlights the many great pleasures of the city today, as I too experienced on my most recent visit in July. But as so many have said in the past, if we ignore history, all too often we repeat it. Dr Richard Bradbury Exton, Devon
