On 10 December 1939, the word “ghetto” appeared in a circular issued by Friedrich Uebelhoer, the president of the Kalisz District. It was the first time the word was used in the context of a plan to separate and isolate the Jewish residents of Łódź. Soon after, as the German authorities intensified their efforts to concentrate the Jewish people, the term “Jewish residential area” (vide) appeared in a regulation setting the stage for the establishment of the Łódź Ghetto on 8 February 1940 (vide). In Jewish administration documents, “ghetto” began to be used in late April and early May 1940, when its borders were sealed. On 30 April 1940 (vide), during a meeting when the organisational framework of the new administrative body was developed, the word was used by Rumkowski, among other people.

The term was also used by Dawid Sierakowiak (vide) in his diary (vide). He noted the “ghetto” as he commented on the Jewish people prohibited from leaving their homes between 5 p.m. and 8 a.m. and required to wear yellow armbands, introduced on 14 November 1939. However, he was merely referring to the colloquial term for the Jewish districts of the city, not as a place of regulated isolation.