Śluby i rozwody w getcie łódzkim
Marriages and the Divorces in the Łódź Ghetto

Summary/Abstract: Chaim M. Rumkowski, as the head of the Elders of the Jews in the Łódź Ghetto, selected for cooperation suitable lawyers residing in the ghetto and created fairly efficient, albeit makeshift, legal and judicial institutions. Until September 1942, ritual weddings of Jews were officiated by ghetto rabbis, while all marriage cases within the ghetto were examined by a special Rabbinical Council attached to the Ghetto Registry Office. Later, when there were no more rabbis after the September "Sperre" (1942), weddings were officiated by Rumkowski himself, while marital disputes were settled by the divorce department (known as the divorce Court), which operated within the organisational structure of the Ghetto Court (the Court of the head of the Elders of the Jews). The competence of this court included the following cases: granting permission for Jewish religious (ritual) marriages, recognition of the effects of a religious marriage already performed clandestinely and divorce of Jewish couples. In January 1943, a special Codification Commission of the ghetto (headed by Stanislaw Jakobson, president of the court) drafted its own divorce law for Jewish ritual marriages, which was original in content. This law was based on pre-war matrimonial law and the Polish civil procedure from 1930, but took into account Jewish religious norms and the characteristics of Jewish life in the Łódź Ghetto. Among the novelties were the institution of a defender of the bond (this role was performed by ghetto advocates) and the need to register divorces in the Civil Registry Office of the ghetto.

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