Before the Second World War, Lodz, located in central Poland, was with the 230,000 strong community one of the major  Jewish centres in Europe. During the war, it became the site of the Litzmannstadt ghetto, the second largest ghetto in Poland. The ghetto was liquidated in June 1944 and only about 10,000 of over 200,000 Jews who passed through it survived the war. After the war, Lodz became one of the largest centres of Jewish vocational training. In May 1948 ORT school in Lodz trained 156 students.  The courses offered included  dressmaking, underwear making, corsetry, children's wear as well as metal work and carpentry. There was also a successful school for dental mechanics, the equipment for which was sent from Switzerland.