Hyperinflation in the Łódź Ghetto

Like several of the ghettos established by the Nazis during World War II, the one in the Polish city of Łódź—which was the longest lived and second-largest—had its own currency. As the ghettos’ ultimate purpose was to exploit the labor of their Jewish residents until the time came for them to be murdered, the German government kept bread rations very low, and saw deaths by starvation as a collateral benefit. The price of foodstuffs in the Łódź ghetto thus soared, creating severe inflation. In fact, high prices are a pervasive theme of residents’ diaries. Joshua Blustein and his colleagues subjected the wealth of data in these diaries to economic analysis in a scholarly article. He discusses their findings, and their relevance for understanding how Jews lived during the Shoah, in conversation with Andrew Jenkins. (Audio, 40 minutes.)