Transport from Kolo, Ghetto, Poland to Chelmno, Extermination Camp, Poland on 09/12/1941

The mass deportation from the Koło ghetto started on December 7, 1941. On December 8, as soon as the synagogue was emptied of the deportees assembled there on the previous day, the remaining Jews in the ghetto were ordered to gather in front of the Judenrat office at Nowy Rynek (New Market) Square, renamed Theaterplatz (Theater Square) by the Germans. The procedure of the previous day then repeated itself.
About 500 Jews – men, women and children alike – were selected for deportation through the pre-prepared list. They were told that they would be sent to western Poland to perform agricultural work and build a rail line.
Szlama Ber Winer from Izbica Kujawska (Mühlental), a small town 25 kilometers northeast of Koło, who managed to escape from the Chełmno extermination camp and spoke about his experiences to the Ringelblum Archive, reported that the deportees were allowed to bring a parcel of only one kilo. The deportees stayed overnight in the synagogue next to the Judenrat office. This synagogue was the largest in Koło, incinerated by the Germans on September 20, 1939, its interior entirely destroyed. The devastated building nevertheless served as an assembly hall where most of the deportees were detained overnight. The next morning, on December 9, an SS-officer stood at a table in front of the Judenrat office, read out each name of the Jews from the synagogue and marked each person after he mounted the truck. Rumors spread that something terrible was going to happen, but Mordechaï Podchlebnik, another escapee from Chełmno, reported that a well-known local ethnic German (Volksdeutscher), who appeared to serve in the Gendarmerie, succeeded to calm the deportees down....