Bidspirit auction | Litzmannstadt (Lodz) Ghetto Food Ration

Litzmannstadt (Lodz) Ghetto Food Ration Card Issued to Henoch Celnik, with Identification Sheet - A printed ration card headed ”Der Aelteste der Juden in Litzmannstadt, Verpflegungs-Abteilung, Lebensmittel-Karte, ” bearing the printed signature and stamp of the Jewish Council administration, with a numbered distribution point and rows of tear-off ration numbers. The reverse carries handwritten entries reading ”Celnik Henoch, ” a birth date of 20.VIII.34, the address ”Alexanderhof 27/14,” and case/file numbers, along with purple ink date stamps from 1941. Accompanying the card is a printed reference sheet identifying the cardholder as Henoch Celnik, male, born 1934, residing at the same ghetto address, citing ”Lodz-Names: A Record of the 240,000 Inhabitants of the Lodz Ghetto” as its source. The Lodz Ghetto, renamed Litzmannstadt under German occupation, was among the largest ghettos established in occupied Poland, administered internally by the Jewish Council under Chaim Rumkowski. Ration cards of this type regulated the distribution of food to registered ghetto inhabitants, with individual entries such as this one tied to a specific named resident and address. The Lodz Ghetto, established in 1940 and renamed Litzmannstadt by the German occupation authorities, held over 200,000 Jewish inhabitants under a Jewish Council administration led by Chaim Rumkowski, which distributed food through ration cards such as this while conditions of forced labour, overcrowding, and deliberate starvation prevailed. Such cards, tied to named individuals and addresses, formed part of the ghetto's internal bureaucratic control system before mass deportations to Chelmno and Auschwitz between 1942 and 1944 eliminated most of the population. The reference work ”Lodz Names” was compiled from surviving ghetto registration records to document individual inhabitants, many of whom, including children such as the young boy named on this card, did not survive the war.