Lodz Kripo
In an ecclesiastical building just outside the Jewish ghetto in Lodz something called Kriminal Commissariat Getto was set up in 1941. Here the German Criminal Police (KRIPO) was located, whose main task was to combat smuggling back and forth the ghetto. Kripo arrested people suspected of smuggling and brought them to the house for interrogation. Not infrequently they used torture and maltreatment to force out confessions and concession from prisoner. Among the inhabitants of the ghetto the building was called the red house because of its red brick.
Current status: Preserved with memorial tablet (2017).
Address: Koscielna 8, 91-001 Lodz.
Get there: Car.
Follow up in books: Höhne, Heinz: The Order of the Death’s Head: The story of Hitler’s SS (1969).
The smuggling was a necessity for the inhabitants of the ghetto. It meant that essential supplies could arrive to those in need. The German side was fully aware of the smuggling and they did what they could to prevent it. One way was to execute people who had been revealed and hoping that this would deter others from msuggling. But this probably didn’t help, the conditions in the ghetto were of such a nature that the risks of smuggling were worth taking. It was just a matter of outwitting the Germans and watch out for informers.