Isaiah Spiegel was an inmate of the Lodz Ghetto from its inception in
1940 until its liquidation in 1944. While there, he wrote short stories
depicting Jewish life in the ghetto and managed to hide them before he
was deported to Auschwitz. After being freed, he returned to Lodz to
retrieve and publish his stories.
The stories examine the relationship between inmates and their families,
their friends, their Christian former neighbors, the German soldiers,
and, ultimately, the world of hopelessness and desperation that
surrounded them. In using his creative powers to transform the suffering
and death of his people into stories that preserve their memory, Spiegel
succeeds in affirming the humanity and dignity the Germans were so
intent on destroying.
Originally published as Malchut geto (Malkhes geto) in Yiddish.