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Transport from Kalisz, Kalisz, Lodz, Poland to Kosow Lacki, Sokolow, Lublin, Poland on 11/12/1939

Transport
Departure Date 11/12/1939 Arrival Date 13/12/1939
Dekert's marketplace (Rynek Dekerta), Kalisz
Kalisz train station
Cattle Cars
Shirley Yedwab, who was deported with her family from Kalisz to Kosów Lacki in Sokołów County in December 1939, recalled in her post-war testimony that they managed to take a blanket and two pillows with them. They were then ordered to go to a "big indoor market place." A market hall that used to belong to Jewish merchants, brothers Abram and Henoch Szrajer, was located in Rynek Dekerta (Dekert's marketplace) and served as an assembly site for Jews from November 20 until December 14. The majority of the Kalisz Jewish population was assembled in the market hall and sent out in ten transports to various locations in the Generalgouvernement during the period December 2 to 14. These deportations were organized by the mayor of Kalisz, Walter Grabowski, Obersturmführer SS Telo Klause and several Gestapo men.
There are conflicting sources regarding the departure date of the transport. Chana Lewkowicz, in a report given to the Oneg Shabbat archives in the Warsaw ghetto, directed by Dr. Emanuel Ringelblum during the war, stated that the transport left Kalisz on December 13 with 750 Jews on board and arrived in Kosów Lacki two days later, at noon on Wednesday. However, it is most likely that the transport from Kalisz to Kosów Lacki was part of a transport to Sokołów Podlaski (located approximately thirty kilometers away from Kosów) that departed from Kalisz on December 11. On that day, the Jews marched early in the morning from the market hall to the train station and were deported in closed cattle train cars, without food. Several members of the transport testified in their post war testimonies that the journey took two days, therefore the transport must have reached Kosów by December 13, which was a Wednesday.
The train went through Minsk Mazowiecki, and stopped there for a long period. The local Jews were ready to take the deportees in, but for unknown reasons the train continued on its way to Kosów Lacki....
Shirley Yedwab - deported from Kalisz to Kosow Lacki on 11/12/1939