Since the moment of getting equality of rights, the Jewish community took an active part in social and cultural life of Poland. On the eve of the Second World War outbreak in 1939, more than 321 thousand Jews lived in Łódź. When the German army entered the city on 8th September 1939, the Jewish community was obliged to follow Nuremberg laws of 1935. The German authorities, both civilian, military and the police, used to accomplish them by depriving Jews of all their citizenship rights and imposing economic limitations and restictions. Jews were forbidden trade and earn and the manufactured goods and materials of Jewish companies were confiscated. The terror increased in November 1939 when Artur Greiser was appointed the Governor - General of the Warta District (Kraj Warty) and since then Jews were made to wear a yellow armband as a sign of Jewish nationally. On 11th December, Gauleiter Greiser issued the decree to replace the yellow armband with cloth symbol made up of two interlocking triangles, called Star of David, which was to be sewn on the chest and back. Before the Second World War more then 50 per cent of all the factories and almost all workshops in Łódź belonged to Jewish owners. The German invader desired to take the wealth over by supervising campanies, confiscating bank accounts, pludering and looting flats, houses and shops. Hence, the local authorities promulgated still new laws and circulars. The operational task forces of SD (Einsatzgruppen), the Main Eastern Fiduciary Department of Łódź (Lodzer Warenhandelsgesallschaft - LWGH) and the squads of local military services took the leading role in these shameful actions.

The Nazis decided also to persecute, round up, capture and kill Jewish intellectual elite of Łódź. The most famous political leaders, social wokers and celebrites, as well as the members of Jewish Council, were arrested and imprisoned in the former factory of Glaser in Radogoszcz (Radegast). As a consequence, many Jewish intellectuals were sent to extermiantion camps of Dachau and Mauthausen. In November 1940 the four synagogues in Łódź were set on fire and next blown up.

According to Heinrich Himmler's order, about 40 thousand Jews of Łódź were resettled to the areas of the General Governship between December 1939 and February 1940. After that time however, the mass action was stopped due to huge density of Jewish population on the same area, which led to transport difficulties and food supply hardships.

It was on 10th December 1939, that the local German authorities issued a top secret circular about the necessity of creating the separate area for Jewish people. On 8th February 1940, Johann Schäfer who was the German Police Commander, signed the ghetto settlement document. The Jewish ghetto of Łódź (Litzmannstadt) was created in Bałuty district, the most neglected and the poorest northern part of the city. At firs it covered the area of 4.13 square kilometres and included the region of the Old Town. On 11th May 1941, the ghetto was decreased to 3.82 squqre kilometres. When the two busy street: Limanowskiego and Zgierska/Nowomiejska were excluded from the ghetto, because of their public transport importance, the whole area turned out to be divided into 3 seperate parts connected only by 3 wooden footbridges over Zgierska Street and Limanowskiego Street. In 1942 each square kilometreof the ghrtto was inhabited by 42,587 people and in each room there were 6 to 7 dwellers. Neglected wooden houses, without water supplies, constitued majority of buildings Unlike other separated areas of this kind, the Jewish district of Łódź became absolutely isolated from the outside world, was overcrowded and had tragic living conditions. According to survey of June 1940, over 160 thousand Jews stayed hore, which made the unthinkable population density of up to 42 thousand dwellers on each square kilometre. The native Jews of Łódź constituted predominant group, but in October and November 1941 over 19.954 Jews from Czechoslovakia, Austria, Germany and Luxemburg, as well as over 5 thousand Gypsies (Romanies) from Austria and Hungary were resettled in this „closed district". In december 1941 he Nazis decided to liquidate all the ghettos in the Warta District (Kraj Warty) and another 17.826 Jews were in the only existing Jewish area in Łódź.

The ghetto of Łódź was supervised by the special department on the City Councilcalled Gettoverwaltung, led by Hans Biebow - the former merchant from Bremen in Germany. Biebow administered it from 5th May 1940 until they very end, on 29th August 1944, and transformed the Jewish district into the model of efficient and profitable company based on cruelty and exploitation of its workers. The peace and order was kept by a few police units like Kripo, Schupo and Gestapo's task was to put into practice the order of the Reich Goverment Security Department, which determined „the final solution of Jewish question" (Endlösung der Judenfrage) by the extermination of Jews in Europe. The Criminal Police of Ghetto (Kriminalkommissariat Ghetto), set in a small brick house called „the red house", and still existing, at 8 Kościelna street, coordinated and undertook many actions of looting and pillaging Jewish properties. To pretend and keep up appearances of ghetto autonomy, the Nazis appointed the Jewish muncipal self-government led by a controversial figure of Chaim Mordechaj Rumkowski - the Supervisor of the Jewish Council (Der Älteste der Juden in Litzmannstadt Ghetto). He was to initiate the appointment of the Jewish Council (Ältestenrat), Rumkowski however, took over the whole competence of the Jewish Council and, what is more, used to be subject and come to terms with the German authorities. The internal administraion units of ghetto were extremely numerous, reaching up to 14 thousand clerks.

At the same time a large number of average ghetto inhabitants, flocked in cramped, dirty and lousy rooms, being rifled and persecuted, were dying of tuberculosis, dysentery and typhoid. 85 per cent of the ghetto population had to work. Every Jew, between the age of 10 and 65, was obliged to work for at least 10 hours a day. Unfortunately, the hunger food rates were not adequate for the workers' needs. Thousand of the dwellers faced starvation, poverty and the outbreaks of epidemic. All ill, exhausted , old and unproductive Jews were transported to the specially built death camp in Chełmno over Ner. Even worse life conditions were in the Gypsy (Romany) camp (Zigeunerlager) - the small area covering 0.019 square kilometres between the streets Wojska Polskiego (sulzfelderstrasse), Głowackiego (Kondratestrasse), Starosikawska (Krimhidstrasse) and Obrońców Westerplatte (Blechstrasse).

The regular transportations from the ghetto of Łódź to the extermination camp marked the beginning of the Final Solution Strategy (Endlösung) on 16th January 1942. During the first period of deportation to the camp in Chełmno over Ner, until 12th September 1942, the Nazis murdered 72,745 Jews. The next period of mass deportation lasted between 23rd June and 14th July 1944, when the German authorities made decision to liquidate the ghetto. The initial method was shooting, and then other methods were tired, such as pumping exhaus fumes into sealed lorries in which the victims were locked. 7,196 Jews were murdered in this way.

Together with the news about the uprising in Warsaw, the Nazis made big efforts to extremiante the rest of the Jewish population. In August 1944 Germans widespread a propaganda rumor about evacauting Jews to the Reich areas. People caught in street round-ups, were run to the rail station in Radogoszcz (Radegast) and next transported to the Oświęcim-Brzezinka (Auschwizt-Birkenau) extermaination camp.

Holocaust of the Jews from the ghetto of Łódź (Litzmannstadt) came to the end on 29th August 1944. On that day Chaim Mordechaj Rumkowski set out the last stage of the Jews of Łódź journey. In the ghetto area stayed only a group of 840 men (Aufraumungskommando), whose task was tidy up the district.