Transport from Lodz, Ghetto, Poland to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 16/08/1944

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

Despite extensive research, it is impossible to cite full and accurate transport dates for this phase of the massive deportations from Łódź, which may indeed have spilled over into September. Nazi Germany’s looming defeat and the concomitant chaos during the final months of the ghetto’s existence impacted powerfully on the records kept by both the Germans and the Jews.^[2]

On August 15, 1944, Chaim Rumkowski, the chairman of the Łódź ghetto’s Judenrat, issued an announcement urging the population to report voluntarily for the transports in order to facilitate their journey together with their family and belongings.^[3] On August 16, 1944, Hans Biebow, chief of the Gettoverwaltung (German administration of the ghetto) was wiretapped saying that “the Jews in ghetto must be  evacuated (Abtransport),” though he noted  that “so far there has been no shooting.”^[4] Nevertheless, deliberate violence had by now become pervasive in the ghetto.^[5]...