On this day in 1945, the Łódź Ghetto was liberated by Soviet troops. The ghetto, located in the center of Poland and the northeastern region of Łódź, was established at the beginning of February 1940. Łódź was officially absorbed into the Third Reich on November 7, 1939. In the months that followed, Jews were rounded up on a daily basis, assigned forced labor, and subjected to spontaneous acts of physical abuse and street murders. Shortly thereafter, on November 16, the Nazis forced Jews to wear yellow armbands on their right arms when making public appearances. This identification marker served as a precursor to the yellow Star of David badge implemented on December 12. The ghetto was initially conceived on December 10 by Governor Friedrich Übelhör who presided over the Kalisz-Łódź District and outlined its premise in a secret contract. Unlike past Polish ghettos, which were small in scale and allowed for interaction between Jews and non-Jews, this ghetto was closed off. The various security factions, which were responsible for the ghettos planning and establishment, put out a warning on January 17, 1940, to keep out non-Jewish residents from the ghetto, saying that the designated area was full of disease. The order that established the ghetto was issued on February 8, 1940. Jews living throughout Łódź were ordered to relocate to the ghetto. The following month the Nazi Party installed a fence around the ghetto, and on April 30 the order was given to close the ghetto. It was officially sealed on May 1, 1940. Beginning that month, the Nazis installed factories within the ghetto and utilized the Jews for forced labor. Come August 1942, the number of factories within the ghetto neared 100. The Nazis made Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski the Jewish Council chairman for the Łódź ghetto. A big believer in an independently-run, ghetto operated by Jews, Rumkowski believed that such labor would ensure both the preservation of the ghetto and Jewish survival until the War’s end. In the two years that followed, close to 40,000 Jews were sent to the ghetto; this was in addition to the 250,000 Jews already living within its quarters. There were also about 5,000 Romani people who were sent to the ghetto from Austria. Deportations from the ghetto began in January 1942: 70,000 Jews were sent to Chelmno by the end of September, where the majority of them were exterminated in gas vans. In the spring of 1944, the Nazis began desecrating the ghetto, which still held roughly 75,000 Jews. Heinrich Himmler, architect of the Holocaust and Hitler’s right-hand man, later ordered that the ghetto be liquidated on June 10. The Nazis continued deportations in June and July, with 7,000 more Jews sent to Chelmno, Poland. The ghetto's remaining residents were informed that they were being relocated to labor camps in Germany. Of the roughly quarter million Jews held at the Łódź ghetto, since it was established in 1939, only 877 survived the war.