Transport V from Lodz, Ghetto, Poland to Chelmno, Extermination Camp, Poland on 26/02/1942

Three days before the impending deportation, most of the deportees were informed by mail about where to assemble. “Transport V” of February 26, 1942, listed 979 Jews to be removed from the ghetto. It is known that the deportation list included prisoners serving sentences in the ghetto, people on welfare, sewage workers; and "socially harmful individuals," such as notorious informers. The list has only partially been preserved: 2 handwritten pages with 120 names (first name and family name) and the place of residence (street name and number). The headline on the list reads "Transport V, 26/2/1942." There is no further information about the victims on the deportation list. It is not known with certainty to which assembly areas the Jews of this transport were summoned, but it can be assumed that at least 1 or 2 of the known locations from the first deportation wave were among them — the school building on Młynarska Street (Mühlgasse); the place on Szklana Street (Trödlergasse) near the central prison; and the collection point in Marysin. At the assembly area, everybody was initially registered and then had to hand over their ration cards. This time, neither luggage nor money was permitted. However, the Austrian-Jewish writer Oskar Rosenfeld (deported to the Łódź ghetto in November 1941) noted on February 25, 1942, that there were "additional transports with [individual luggage up to] 12.5 kg and 10 reichsmark personal allowance." Moreover, Rosenfeld wrote that the Jewish police stormed the dwellings of those who had failed to show up at the assembly point and prevented them from taking any baggage. Jews who arrived with knapsacks and bags were forced to dump them. Some of the children destined for deportation were discovered frozen to death in their rooms. Most of the deportees had to walk from the assembly points to the railway station at Radogoszcz (Radegast), the so-called Umschlagplatz of Łódź, situated just beyond the boundary of the ghetto on its northeastern side. Izrael Tabaksblat writes in his postwar memories about the "deep despair" caused by the renewal of the deportations in February: "The image of groups of men, women, and children, wrapped in tatters, shivering from cold, marching through the ghetto in the direction of Marysin, shocked people, particularly because the break in deportations — from the end of January until February 22 — was considered a sign that the deportations had been halted, at least for the winter months. People now sensed that they were confronting a total liquidation of the ghetto."...