Transport from Lodz, Ghetto, Poland to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 21/08/1944

Of about  206,000 Jews who had,  inhabited the Łódź (Litzmannstadt) ghetto, on that date 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 the extensive research that has been conducted, it is not always possible to cite full and accurate transport dates for this phase of the massive deportations, which may indeed have spilled over into September. Nazi Germany’s approaching 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] Deportations began early in August, but even though the Judenrat’s statistical department kept records until August 21, the first deportations that month were listed only retroactively, appearing in the records for August 18-21, covering August 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 13, and comprising a total of 12,400 souls.^[3] However, our research indicates that the first two transports left the ghetto as early as August 4 and 5, and it is unclear whether the statistical department listed different dates by mistake or intentionally.^[4]

For the first few days after the deportations began, only a relatively small number of ghetto inmates reported for them voluntarily. In response, the Germans resorted to tactics such as halting food distribution and ratcheting up the use of violence. Thereafter, they went about sealing off parts of the ghetto, reducing it in size and thereby forcing the inmates in those sections to move to other parts until they, too, were sealed off.^[5]...