Transport II from Pabianice, Ghetto, Poland to Lodz, Ghetto, Poland on 18/05/1942

In the first deportation from Pabianice, on May 23, 1941, 231 young men were sent to the Łódź ghetto and from there to labor camps. Deportations to the Łódź ghetto and labor camps continued during 1941 and 1942. From February 1942, following the decisions made at the Wannsee Conference one month earlier, the policy towards ghettos shifted. Rather than completely liquidating these smaller communities, it was decided that selections would be conducted, singling out those Jews deemed fit for labor. Thus, in February 1942, prior to the liquidation of the ghetto—which was planned for May of that year—the Gestapo ordered that all ghetto inhabitants undergo a medical examination. During this process, the naked Jews were examined and subsequently divided. Those considered able-bodied were marked with an "A," while those considered unfit for work were labelled "B." Before liquidating the ghetto, the Germans shot 150 patients from the ghetto hospital. Testimonies also report that the sick were thrown from the hospital windows. On May 16, 1942, the ghetto was surrounded by Schutzpolizei, Kriminalpolizei, and Gestapo units. The German police forces were headed by police commander Hans Georg Mayer. In his work on Chełmno, historian Shmuel Krakowski notes that Hans Biebow, the Nazi administrator of the Lodz ghetto, was personally involved in the brutal liquidation which was carried by out Gestapo forces and German police units, with the support of "improvised units composed of local German nationals—Volksdeutsche—who were issued arms for this purpose but were not in uniform." ...