Transport from Lodz, Ghetto, Poland to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 08/08/1944

Of about 206,000 Jews living in the Łódź (Litzmannstadt) ghetto, only 68,516 remained on August 1, 1944—40,023 females and 28,493 males, including 4,635 children.^[1] By the end of August, the ghetto had been liquidated and almost the entire remaining population had been deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and murdered.

Despite extensive research, we cannot yet give full and accurate transport dates for this phase of massive deportations, which may have lasted until the beginning of September 1944. The approaching defeat of Nazi Germany and the chaos during the final months of the ghetto’s existence had a great impact on the documentation conducted by both the Germans and the Jews.^[2] Even though the Judenrat’s statistical department made notes until August 21, what is recorded about the first deportations in August was taken by the council’s members retroactively from their records of August 18 to 21, 1944. They listed deportations on August 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 13, with a total of 12,400 deportees.^[3] However, according to our research, it seems highly likely that the first two August transports left the ghetto as early as August 4 and 5, and it is unclear whether the department noted differing deportation dates by mistake or intentionally.^[4] On August 8, according to a Statistical Department report dated August 19, 1,300 Jews were deported to Auschwitz^[5]—a number which Jakub Poznański also noted in his diary on August 9.^[6]

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