dz ghetto, created in December 1939, "was a notorious, man-made hell on earth," said Alan Adelson, a writer and documentarian from New York who has chronicled the history of the ghetto in two films — "Lodz Ghetto" and "Sequel to Lodz Ghetto" — and several books.
Unlike the Warsaw ghetto, Lodz was "hermetically sealed," Adelson said. No one could get in or out without German sanction. Its boundaries were protected by military guards who would shoot on sight anyone caught outside the fence without permission.
Jacobs said his family and others were forced out of their homes, marched into the 4-square-kilometer ghetto and assigned to single-room apartments. They had no toilet or running water and nothing but a wood-burning stove for heat, though there was little wood available and families had to scrounge for anything that could be used for fuel.