Wave of Deportation from Brzeziny, Ghetto, Poland to Chelmno, Extermination Camp, Poland on 15/05/1942

The town of Brzeziny is located in the Łódź District. It was occupied by the Wehrmacht on September 8–9, 1939, and annexed to the Reich, becoming part of Reichsgau Wartheland (Warthegau), which was governed by SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Arthur Greiser. The town was renamed Löwenstadt and its street names were Germanized.

A ghetto was established on April 28, 1940. By the end of 1940, some 6,000 Jews lived in the ghetto, about a quarter of whom were refugees. The ghetto was surrounded by a fence, the lax security around which enabled secret, illegal trade between the Jews and the local population. From the beginning of 1942, the situation in the ghetto deteriorated and illegal smuggling and trade became increasingly difficult. As a result, the ghetto residents began to suffer from severe hunger and there was an outbreak of typhus. During this period, rumors of an impending deportation began to spread....