Hans Biebow

Hans Biebow (December 18, 1902 – April 24, 1947) was the chief of German Nazi administration of the Łódź Ghetto in occupied Poland.

Biebow's early life is summarized by the following curriculum vitae which he submitted to the German Ghetto Administration (German: Gettoverwaltung) on 10 May 1940:

After working as a coffee importer in his hometown of Bremen, Biebow became the overseer of the Łódź Ghetto. He realized that the Lodz Ghetto could make a profit for the Germans if it were converted into essentially a slave labor complex.

Under his administration, the 164,000 Jews of Poland's second largest city were crammed into a small area of the city. Communication between the Ghetto inhabitants and the outside world was completely cut off and the supply of food was severely limited, ensuring that many of the inhabitants of the Ghetto would slowly starve. Over the course of its existence, the population of the Ghetto swelled to 204,000 with more Jews from Central Europe being sent there. The Ghetto Administration remained in operation from April 1940 until the summer of 1944, but there were transports out of the Ghetto to extermination camps (primarily Auschwitz and Chelmno) beginning at the end of 1941.