Transport from Kowale Panskie, Ghetto, Poland to Radziwill, Camp, Poland on 05/1942

In May-June 1942, the Nazi authorities carried out at least three roundups in these villages. Young Jewish men and women were taken to several forced-labor camps in the vicinity of Poznań (Posen) and Mogilno, where they were put to work on the construction of railroads and a highway, as well as on the German urban plans for modernizing Poznań by enlarging green areas of the city, inter alia. Many Jews tried to escape or hide during the roundups, but most of them were caught. Postwar testimonies of Jews from Turek and vicinity mention three transports: a) first transport was of men alone; the second was of women alone; and c) the third transport included both Jewish men and women. In the first transport, the Germans needed approximately 400 Jewish men to fill their quota. According to Yehoshua Eibeshitz (b. 1916), this transport ended up in the forced-labor camp of Schwaningen. Eibeshitz, in his autobiography, provides a detailed description of the events that occurred at the time of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot (Pentecost): He heard the news about the Germans hunting Jews while he was praying. Eibeshitz tried to hide, but was caught and taken to a "small dirty hole," where he and other Jews were imprisoned. The next morning, a Saturday, the prisoners were forced to march to the Turek train station, a distance of approximately 20 km. In Turek, the prisoners were forced by German gendarmerie into cattle cars, where they joined Jews from other villages of the rural ghetto. They were guarded by armed gendarmes. According to Eibeshitz, the train left the station at 12:00 and reached Kalisz (Kalisch) seven hours later, in a ride that usually only lasted three and a half hours. In Kalisz, the German police lined the prisoners up and marched them to a school building and locked them in; on the way, the Jews were able to talk with local people. While they were imprisoned in the school, three Jewish women brought them food. Before dawn the following day, a Sunday, the Germans ordered the Jews to line up five in a row. They were counted and marched back to the train station, where they waited several hours until a freight train picked them up and departed at noon. Two German policemen guarded them on the train, warning that if anyone went missing, five of them would be killed. On Monday, in the late afternoon, the train reached Schwaningen. This forced-labor camp was also known as Schwersenz (Swarzędz) or Gemeinschaftslager Jung-Schmidt. It was named after Wilhelm Jung, one of the companies for which the Jews were working there. The other company was Grün und Bilfinger. Between 700 and 1,200 Jews worked in this camp. The second transport took place approximately one week later. This time, the Germans demanded 100 Jewish women. The Jewish police was forced to cooperate, but in some cases turned a blind eye. The women were gathered in Turek and marched to the train station. On the way, they were beaten and abused by German youths from the RAD (Reichsarbeitsdienst, the Reich Labor Service). Fela Sommer, née Tobiak (b. 1925), was, it seems, one of the two Jewish women who were deported that summer to the forced-labor camps and who survived the Holocaust. The transport she was on reached the Radziwiłł Fort forced-labor camp in Poznań. In the third transport, the Jewish men were deported to Mogilno, approximately 80 km north of Turek, and the women were probably deported to Poznań. The sources for this transport of both men and women are a unique letter and a testimony. Bronka Górna, a Jewish woman who lived in the village of Pacht, in the Kowale Pańskie ghetto, wrote on June 7, 1942, in an encrypted letter in Polish to her relatives in Warsaw that on June 4, "it was very merry, there was a baptism" — alluding to the deportations. She added that they were expecting another "party" like that in the coming days. Her sister in-law, Hela Waksztok, added in the same letter: "For the time being I was saved from the hands of those brutes, may God in Heaven help us!". This group was taken by train from Turek to Kalisz, where they were corralled into a school and had to go through a humiliating process of delousing. Afterwards, the deportees were taken from Kalisz to Poznań on one train, but with men and women in separate cars. Bronka Górna's letters were found after the war in the Oneg Shabbat Archive — directed by Dr. Emanuel Ringelblum — in the Warsaw Ghetto, along with a diary of Jehiel Górny (possibly her brother-in-law), who noted on June 11, 1942, that "we received news in the letters that arrived from Pacht near Turek that many young men and women were sent to labor in the area of Poznań. And also children up to the age of 10 are being taken away from their parents. What happens to them… we still don’t know." As mentioned above Poznań was the destination of the women's transport. In a short stop in there, Josef Kiersz (b. 1926 in Uniejów) managed to say goodbye to his mother before the men continued by train to Mogilno, where they were housed in a former school building. At least seven forced-labor camps existed at that time in Mogilno and vicinity, of which four were for women alone. Thus, there were only three possible options for the destination of the transport for the men: Scheglin (Szczeglin); Bielsko/Bilsko; or Wiesengrund (Żegotki). The deportees were sometimes able to correspond with each other, as did Josef Kiersz with his mother, until 1943. The Kowale Pańskie ghetto was liquidated a short time afterwards, in July 1942. Most of the Jews were deported to the Chełmno extermination camp, and a mere 196 were sent to the Łódź ghetto. Of those who were deported from the Kowale Pańskie ghetto in summer 1942 to the forced-labor camps, we know of only four Holocaust survivors.