Jewish mail
Jewish Post , also Ghetto Post , actually " Jews Post Lodz Ghetto ," was the official name for the postal service within the Ghetto Lodz . The Jews deported there built up their own postal service during the Second World War with the help of a so-called self-administration of the Judenrat and also issued their own postage stamps .
background
After the invasion of Poland and the occupation of Lodz by the army in September 1939, previously was Polish town according to leaders adopt in the kingdom incorporated and on 11 April 1940 after Karl Litzmann in Lodz renamed. The ghetto was set up under the command of SS Brigadier Johannes Schäfer in a district of Łódź and sealed off on April 30, 1940. Subsequently, it was handed over to the Judenrat under strict conditions under the direction of the "Jewish elder" Chaim Rumkowski and was subject to German authorities. Chaim Rumkowski campaigned for the establishment of his own postal service in the Litzmannstadt ghetto until the ghetto was gradually dissolved and liquidated and his own deportation to Auschwitz in 1944. Several small post offices and letter boxes were set up, with the post service being restricted to the ghetto only. Around 1941 they even issued their own stamps .
Postage stamps
Three types of postage stamps with a uniform drawing of 5 pfennigs in dark blue, 10 pfennigs in dark green and 20 pfennigs in dark brown are known. The ghetto stamps were issued cut on slightly roughened paper . Some of them had a slightly yellowish rubber coating . The drawing in landscape mode on the 5-pfennig stamp shows next to the inscription "JEWS POST Lodz Ghetto" and the value specified with lying behind Judenstern a portrait of Chaim Rumkowski, a stylized image of the work done in the ghetto forced labor for textile mills and factory chimneys. These stamps were soon banned by the German authorities and most likely destroyed.
From a philatelic point of view, the few remaining stamps can be attributed to German postal history , since Litzmannstadt was considered a city in Germany at the time of issue. This is also shown by the value, as it is given in pfennigs and not in złoty , as used in the Generalgouvernement .