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Yad Vashem is open to the general public, free of charge. All visits to Yad Vashem must be reserved in advance.

December 1943, A Hanukkah celebration in the Lodz Ghetto, Poland

In 1943, the Jewish festival of Hanukkah  was celebrated in the Lodz ghetto in the shadow of severe food and heating shortages. Despite the hardships, the ghetto Jews tried to mark the festival with get-togethers, sing-alongs, food that they had squirelled away from their meager rations, gifts and candle-lighting ceremonies. They greeted each other with the wish that Hanukkah 1943 would be the last festival of lights in the ghetto and the war.

Approximately 8 months later, in the summer of 1944, the ghetto was liquidated.  Almost all the 80,000 Jews remaining in the ghetto after the Aktions of 1942 were deported to the Auschwitz and Chelmno extermination camps.