Jakub Poznański

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Jakub Poznański (born July 26, 1890 in Łódź , Russian Empire ; died August 11, 1959 in Łódź, Poland ) was a Polish- Jewish engineer , chemist, and pharmacist , whose diary is one of the most important sources on life in the Litzmannstadt ghetto applies.

Origin and education

Jakub's father worked in a local cotton factory. In 1906 the family moved from Łódź to Kiev . Jakub graduated from secondary school in this Ukrainian city ​​in 1909. Then he succeeded through a selection exam to be admitted to the agricultural department of the Institute of Agriculture and Forestry in Puławy . Later he moved to the chemical department of the Polytechnic in Kharkov . The conscription to the military during the First World War (1914-1918) interrupted his training, which he completed in 1918. From 1918 to 1920 he worked in the main institute of the sugar industry in Kiev. In 1920 Jakub Poznański went to Germany. He received his doctorate from the Technical University of Charlottenburg on sugar manufacturing issues. In 1922 he returned to Łódź. He married Felicja Torończyk, with whom he had a daughter. Because he could not find a job in his field of sugar processing, he worked in the local textile industry. In 1935, after a year of unemployment, he got a job in Łódź until 1940 in the company of his German school friend Alfred Haessler.

In the Litzmannstadt ghetto

During the German occupation of Poland , Poznański, his wife and daughter were sent to the Litzmannstadt ghetto in 1940. There he founded the Hachshara Unit, which was supposed to prepare young people in particular for emigration to Palestine and for the agricultural tasks necessary there. Then Poznański became the head of the agricultural department. After their dissolution, he found work in the ghetto's paper department. In August 1944, the three family members hid on the ghetto grounds. On January 19, 1945, the Red Army liberated the last survivors of the ghetto, which included the Poznański family. Jakub Poznański kept a diary from October 4, 1941 to June 2, 1945.

Post-war years

After the war, Poznański worked in the factory where he was employed before the outbreak of war. Its previous owner, Alfred Haessler, fled to Germany and then on to Switzerland . Jakub Poznański was promoted to factory director. At the association level he became department head of the Central Association of the Textile Industry, and later the Synthetic Industry.

diary

The diary records Poznański's observations about the living situation, the balance of power, the measures of repression , forced labor , the deportations , the fears, speculations and hopes of the ghetto residents. In his notes, the author also made use of information obtained from the German local newspaper and radio broadcasts - he had a receiver that he used despite the prohibition.

After the death of her husband, Felicja Poznańska moved to Warsaw in 1960 . She took the 13 exercise books in which the deceased had written his diary. In 1960 the diary appeared in Poland. In many places, however , the editor Horacy Safrin intervened in the original text. After Felicja Poznańska's death, the original booklets were lost. Six of the exercise books reappeared by chance in 2000, the seven other exercise books have been lost until further notice.

In 2002 a second edition of the diary was published in Poland. The basis was the original notebooks and - where they were missing - the first Polish publication from 1960. In 2010, a Hebrew edition of the diary was published. In 2011 a German version was published, which Ingo Loose, employee of the Institute for Contemporary History , translated from Polish .

Works

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Biographical keywords on the website for the Chronicle of the Łódź Ghetto.
personal data
SURNAME Poznański, Jakub
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish-Jewish engineer, chemist, pharmacist and Holocaust survivor
DATE OF BIRTH July 26, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Łódź , Poland
DATE OF DEATH August 11, 1959
Place of death Łódź , Poland