The industrial Lodz of the 19th century was formed by four nations – Poles, Germans, Jews, and Russians. Germans and Jews were craftsmen and they opened factories which employed the Poles who were coming to the promised land of Lodz from small towns and villages. And all this was taking place on the territory of the Russian Partition. Cultures and languages were intertwined the traces of which remain to this day in the cuisine and language of Lodz.
Material remnants of the multicultural Lodz are primarily temples and cemeteries. In Lodz there is one of the largest Jewish necropoles in Europe featuring the mausoleum of Izrael Poznański, which is probably the biggest Jewish tomb in the world. Karol Scheibler’s Neo-Gothic chapel in the Protestant part of the Old Cemetery, symbolizing the factory owner’s fame and wealth, is considered one of the largest and most beautiful tombs in Europe.
The memory of the multicultural Lodz is preserved especially during the annual Festival Lodz of Four Cultures that constitutes the continuation of the Festival of Dialogue of Four Cultures. Currently, the event is organized by the Marek Edelman Center for Dialogue, an institution dedicated to the popularization of the multicultural and multiethnic heritage of Lodz.
