RADEGAST

The railway station Radegast. A wooden house, only 7 meter high, so unsightly, that on the pictures from the IIWW it disappears behind the pile of planks.

Radegast was the railway station of the closed Jewish quarter of Lodz. It was situated on the north-east outskirts of Ghetto, just behind its borders. Radegast was connected to Ghetto by a winding road. Road by which the Jews left the Ghetto...

To Radegast came the sparsely Ghetto supplies. From here the death transports left... to the north-west situated Chelmno on Ner, the first extermination camp in Poland and to the south-west situated Auschwitz.

Deportations started on the 16 I 1942. The first transport left Radegast Station in the direction of Chelmno. During the next 4 months, till 15 V 1942, all people receiving subvention, prisoners and dealers, and after them west European Jews were send to death.

Several months later, in September 1942 the transports with old people and children left Radegast Station to Chelmno. So called "wielka szpera" (big barrier) had changed the Jewish Quarter into a big camp of slave work for the Nazi Germany.

The final liquidation of the Ghetto in Lodz, the last ghetto in Poland, started in 1944. On the 29 VIII 1944 the last transport of the Lodzer Jews left Radegast Station in the direction of Auschwitz.

The original wooden building of the station prevailed. For a long time it was still used by the railway authority. To day the building serves as a store house and need repairs. Next to the building there are two original tracks. On these rails the Jews went from the Ghetto to Chelmno and Auschwitz.

On the 29 VIII 2004, on the anniversary of the last transport from Ghetto Lodz, the commemoration of the liquidation of the Ghetto Lodz will take place in Lodz. One of the key elements of this event will be the renovation of the Radegast Station and changing it to the place of remembrance and the scientific-educational center. The Foundation Monumentum Iudaicum Lodzense takes an active part in preserving of this site - silent witness for the last way for thousand of Jews, who went through the Lodzer Ghetto.