On this day in 1940, the Nazis announced the order to establish the Łódź Ghetto. The Nazis’ invaded and occupied Łódź, Poland at the beginning of September 1939. Jews began to feel the effects of living under Nazi rule as soon as they occupied the city. On December 10, 1939, a secret memo was written and passed around the Nazi Party, that outlined the plan for a creation of a ghetto in Łódź. The Nazis wanted all Jews in ghettos in order to figure out the solution to the “Jewish Problem” and putting them into ghettos kept them all together. The Łódź Ghetto was going to contain around 230,000 Jews; this required some planning before they could officially announce the creation of the ghetto.The Jewish community in Łódź was the second largest in Poland, only second to Warsaw. On Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year), only six days after the Nazis occupied Łódź, they forced all of the Jews to close synagogues and keep their businesses open on the holiday. The Jews also became the victims of robberies and beatings. Beginning on November 16, 1939, Jews had to wear an armband to distinguish themselves. The infamous yellow star was later added to the armbands. This allowed the Nazis to easily recognize who was a Jew in time for their daily roundups, where they would subject prisoners to forced labor. To prepare for the creation of the Ghetto and to keep the non-Jews out of the area, the Nazis spread the rumor that northern Łódź was filled with infectious diseases. Then, on February 8, 1940, the Nazis officially announced their plan to create the ghetto. The Jews from the entire city were forced to move into the Ghetto and, given just a few minutes to retrieve their belongings, packed the necessities. While in the beginning, the Ghetto remained open, on May 1, 1940, the Łódź Ghetto was officially sealed.