Lodz Ghetto Commemoration 2021

The Landsmanshaftn were societies of Jewish immigrants who came from the same town or region in Eastern Europe. They were named for the members’ original birthplaces. They were formed to assist their fellow ‘townspeople’ in settling into their new lives in Australia. This assistance- material, emotional, cultural, social- helped many new arrivals to begin their acclimatisation to life in their new country.   

 By 1949, numerous attempts had been made to form a Lodzer Landsmanshaft. In 1953 an initiating committee was formed with the aim of calling a general meeting of Melbourne Jews from the Polish city of Lodz and to organise a commemorative evening to the memory of their annihilated community.  

Today’s Lodz Committee consists of second and third generation descendants. As the years pass by and we have fewer of our precious survivors with us, we realise the importance of involving the younger generations in helping us remember the Lodzers who called Melbourne their home. Today we remember and honour Jewish Lodz, and its inhabitants, the last embers of a once glorious and vibrant community.  

This years speakers include: Holocaust Survivor Krysia Lipshutz and her granddaughter Andrea Lipshutz. Second generation Frances Prince with her father, Holocaust Survivor David Prince and third generation Mel (Lipson) Raleigh and her son, fourth generation, Tyler Raleigh.

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