Transport from Opatowek, Kalisz, Lodz, Poland to Schwaningen, Camp, Poland on 05/1941

In May 1941, a transport left Opatówek with its 150 inmates. According to survivor Wolf Lassman, born 1923, other Jews from the Krawiec labor camp were taken to Opatówek and together they were about 300 people. Possibly the train might have passed through the townlet of Rawitsch (Rawicz). This transport was part of an ongoing wave of deportations of Wartheland Jews to labor camps, beginning on December 10, 1940. A number of officials decided on these deportations, among them: Arthur Greiser, governor of the Wartheland; Friedrich Uebelhoer, district president of Litzmannstadt (Łódź); Hans Biebow, Head of the Administration of the Lodz Ghetto; and Ernst Kendzia, head of the Ministry of Labor in Posen. The majority of the transports left the Łódź ghetto in the first nine months of 1941. About 4,000 Jews were deported from there to labor camps in the Wartheland. It seems that this program was intensified during the spring and summer months of 1941, when more transports from small towns in the Wartheland left to such labor camps. This included in May alone several transports with a total of more than 1,000 Jews from the Łódź ghetto. ...