Transport from Lodz, Ghetto, Poland to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 30/08/1944

On August 30, 1944, a final transport left the Łódź Ghetto to Auschwitz-Birkenau, carrying an unknown number of Jews. A few days before, on August 27, 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 the last transport would leave the ghetto on August 29, and those who didn’t appear at the specified assembly areas, would be killed. On August 28, 1944, Hans Biebow, Head of the Gettoverwaltung (the German Administration of the Łódź Ghetto), estimated that some 8,000 Jews still remained in the ghetto, requiring two more trains to deport them, and that by August 31, every Jew would be deported.^[1]

By the end of August, the ghetto had shrunk considerably. Most of the Jews who attempted to hide were either tracked down and arrested through patrol searches, or gave up and voluntarily reported to the assembly areas, due to fear, diseases, exhaustion, despair, but some also clung to hope.^[2] Violence was noticeable on the abandoned streets of the ghetto, where belongings of murdered and deported Jews, food, and the number of corpses left behind were strewn.^[3]

As in previous deportation operations, which preceded the August 1944 transports, various German forces in Łódź participated in the deportee roundup: the Gestapo, the Schutzpolizei (SCHUPO – uniformed regular police force), the Kriminalpolizei (KRIPO, Criminal Police), and the Gettoverwaltung. Jewish units, like the Ordnungsdienst (OD, the Jewish Ghetto Police), were also forced to take part, for example, in blocking streets. Growing numbers of those Jewish forces were included in the last transports leaving the ghetto to Auschwitz. Among them was Max Chrzastowski (1896–1975), one of the Jewish Ghetto Police, who was deported on August 30.^[4]...