Wave of Deportation from Kalisz, Ghetto, Poland to Lodz, Ghetto, Poland on 06/07/1942

Ultimately, the Jews were deported following the Nazi authorities' decision to transform the Lodz ghetto into a labor camp. Meanwhile, as Arthur Greiser wrote in a letter to Heinrich Himmler on May 1, 1942, the ongoing extermination of 100,000 Jews was scheduled to end by August 1942. As a result, beginning on May 17, the Nazi authorities liquidated all the remaining Jewish communities in the Wartheland. This began two days after the third deportation wave from the Lodz ghetto to the Chełmno extermination camp (Kulmhof), and was completed by the end of August 1942. A selection process was carried out in the communities, sending some of the Jews to Chełmno, others to forced labor camps, and the rest to the Lodz ghetto. In May, 7,046 Jews from the Regierungsbezirk (district) of Hohensalza were taken to the Lodz ghetto; in June and July, 1,351 from the district of Litzmannstadt; and in August, 6,244 from the Wielun, Schieratz (Sieradz), and Zdunska-Wola ghettos, which were also in the Litzmannstadt district. According to the Chronicle of the Lodz Ghetto, the deportations began with an order from Posen (Poznan), by the Wartheland regime led by Arthur Greiser. Gestapo men at every forced labor site announced to the Jews that they had one hour to prepare to leave for Lodz. The atmosphere was hectic. The local Jewish council in Kalisz rented wagons for transportation and even a car. Then, after approximately two hours, 150 Jews from Kalisz were assembled in front of the train station. Concurrently, hundreds of Jews from the Koźminek ghetto were taken there. According to the testimony of Shoshana Haftka Nehorai, a survivor from Koźminek, they were taken by bus to Kalisz. The liquidation of the Koźminek ghetto was commanded by SS officers Willi Schonrogge and his deputy Heinrich Notlee. According to Moshe Gross, born in 1921, who resided in the Kalisz ghetto, the deportees were assembled at the Reich and Chmielnicki mill, which was next to the train station. Moshe recalled how his sister Dvora tried to hide together with her husband and baby but was denunciated. Moshe was able to flee when the rest of the Jews were taken, and hid himself together with two Jewish couples. At night, the five of them could hear Poles coming and taking some of the deportees’ belongings. The next day, one couple gave themselves up because the woman was pregnant. Also, two girls from an orphanage in Poznan gave themselves up. The other couple who was in hiding escaped to Zdunska Wola, but that ghetto was liquidated one month later. Another Jew who managed to escape was captured some days later and was deported to Lodz....