Transport VIII from Lodz, Ghetto, Poland to Chelmno, Extermination Camp, Poland on 10/07/1944

On July 9, 1944, 700 people selected for the eighth transport from the Łódź ghetto to Chełmno were gathered at the Central Prison. They were waiting to depart the next morning, supposedly to work in Germany.^[1] The authors of the Ghetto Chronicle wrote: “To work outside the ghetto. Tomorrow’s transport [quota] has been completed. The Inter-Ressort Commission is working frantically. Requests for release from the transport keep coming and the institution really grants release permits in cases deserving consideration.”^[2]   

The task of providing the quota of deportees every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday was forced by the German authorities upon the ghetto’s Jewish administration. Heads of all of the work departments were made to select those who were deemed less necessary than others, and to provide a list of between 20 and 25 percent of their workers. By July 6, most managers had provided their lists. Some of these lists, along with numbers of the names that each work department provided, have been preserved among the files of the ghetto’s Jewish administration.^[3] 

These lists were then passed on to the Inter-Ressort Commission, established by the Jewish administration to manage the deportations.^[4] Their primary task was to fill the quota of people demanded by the Germans and to create deportation lists using those provided by the managers of the various work departments. They also received exemption requests from those who had been selected. Copies of hundreds of such letters have been preserved among the files of the ghetto’s Jewish administration at the Polish National Archives.^[5] The commission examined every case, which automatically delayed the departure of those who submitted a request for release. ...