Transport I from Lodz, Ghetto, Poland to Chelmno, Extermination Camp, Poland on 23/06/1944

On June 15, 1944, a group of Nazi officials, headed by the chief of the Gestapo and mayor of Łódź, Otto Bradfisch, arrived in the office of the head of the Judenrat, Chaim Rumkowski, and informed him that they needed large groups of workers from the ghetto to clear out rubble in the bombarded regions of the Reich.^[1] This was a ploy to cover the real aim of the deportations: the further destruction of the Łódź ghetto and the murder of its inhabitants.

The next morning, on June 16, Gunther Fuchs, the head of the Gestapo in the Łódź ghetto, arrived at Rumkowski’s office to provide further instructions. He assured the Judenrat that the deportations were destined for towns in the Reich and provided a detailed plan for the upcoming transports. The first group of 500 men was to leave shortly—bound, he claimed, for Munich, where they would clear out the rubble from the bombardment. The second group—900 men—would go on June 23, and, subsequently, 3,000 people were expected to leave each week over the following eight weeks.^[2] The real destination of all these transports, however, was the Chełmno death camp. In the end, the first transport was slightly delayed due to transportation problems and left on June 23.

Fuchs dictated the detailed instructions for all the transports to Dora Fuchs, one of Rumkowski’s secretaries:^[3]...