On September 1, 1939, there were approximately 6,000 Jews living in Bełchatów (Łask County), one of the major Jewish communities in the Wartheland before the Holocaust.[1] After the German occupation of Poland, many Jews left Bełchatów for the bordering General Government, and Jews from smaller places around Bełchatów moved or were relocated to the town.[2]
With the Germans occupying Bełchatów on September 5, 1939, life for the Jews worsened dramatically.[3] Schupo and gendarmerie were stationed in town, and the Gestapo Litzmannstadt maintained a branch in Pabianice.[4] The Jewish population faced daily violence at the hands of the Germans and their local ethnic German (Volksdeutsche) assistants.[5] Bełchatów’s major Josef Tralmer, was especially brutal.[6] In March 1941, Bełchatów’s Jews were herded into a ghetto at the town's market square[7] and registered for slave labor.[8] Hunger amongst the Jews grew, and the smuggling of textiles across the border to the neighboring town of Piotrków Trybunalski in the General Government brought some relief.[9]
Preparation for the deportations of the Bełchatów Jewish community began in the summer of 1941. On August 7, a list with the names of eighteen Jewish women and men classified as infirm or sick was sent by Tralmer to the Landrat of Łask (County Commissioner) Stiller, as requested by Friedrich Uebelhoer, Regierungspräsident (Governor) of the Litzmannstadt administrative district.[10] A few days later, on August 20, transports to slave labor camps in the Poznań area began.[11]...