Transport from Lodz, Ghetto, Poland to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 28/08/1944

On August 27, 1944, announcements on behalf of the Gestapo were hung on the ghetto’s walls declaring that all the remaining Jews in the ghetto had to report to the assembly areas on Czarnieckiego (the Central Prison location) or Krawiecka Streets by Monday, August 28, at 6:00 P.M.; and that a final transport would leave the ghetto on August 29, and those who didn’t appear at the specified assembly areas, would be killed.^[1]

On August 28, 1944, Erich Czarnulla, of the Gettoverwaltung (the German Administration of the Łódź Ghetto) was present at the Warthegau’s government administration (Reichsgau) in Poznań. There, he requested that Hans Biebow, Head of the Gettoverwaltung, deliver to him a number of Jews. Biebow replied that, by that time, approximately 60,000 Jews had already been “evacuated” (abtransportiert, a Nazi euphemism for deported) from the ghetto, and that some 8,000 still remained. Further, Biebow estimated that two more trains would be needed to deport those last Jews, and that on August 31, every Jew would have been deported.^[2]

By that time, many Jews tried to hide in the ghetto, among them the ghetto diarists, Jakob Poznanski and Menashe Wasercug, who recorded these events.^[3] Most of those in hiding were discovered, or gave up, due to different reasons. Riva (Cytryn) Chirurg (b. on April 10, 1920) for example, was among thirty-three persons—among them also, six-year old Dina Sachnowska (b. on May 20, 1939)^[4]—hiding in the cellar at 4 Kościelny Square (Kirchplatz). They eventually decided to report to the assembly area because they lacked food and medicine for their fellow Jew hiding with them, Helena Smolenska (b. May 18, 1901)^[5], who suffered from hepatitis. They went back to their apartments on 30 Franciszkanska Street, packed their things, and joined the rest of the Jews who marched towards the ghetto’s Radegast (Radogoszcz) train station.^[6] Some of the Jews who reported for the transport were scared by the threat of the announcements....