Transport from Kalisz, Kalisz, Lodz, Poland to Kaluszyn, Minsk Mazowiecki, Warszawa, Poland on 06/12/1939

The Germans occupied Kalisz (Kalisch), the capital city of the Kalisz region, which had a Jewish population of approximately 25,000 prior to the war, in September 1939. At the end of November that year, the Germans entered Jewish homes and ordered the occupants to leave the place, taking whatever they could with them. According to Heinrich Himmler's order on the expulsion of Jews and Poles from the Warthegau, Jewish deportees were allowed to take food, one suitcase with necessities, and cash of up to fifty złotys. The transport to Kałuszyn in the district of Warszawa (Warschau) left Kalisz on December 6, and was one of two transports to depart that day (the other transport went to Łuków). The deportees were assembled in a market hall located in Rynek Dekerta (Dekert's Marketplace), which belonged to two Jewish merchants, brothers Abram and Henoch Szrajer. During the period between December 2 and 14, the majority of the Jewish population of Kalisz was assembled there. These deportations were organized by the mayor of Kalisz, Walter Grabowski, Obersturmführer SS Telo Klause, and several Gestapo men. According to a report on Nahplan I deportations in the Warthegau, the trains were guarded by seven policemen and thirty Selbstschutz (a paramilitary Nazi group of ethnic Germans subordinated to the local SS and police)....