Transport from Osieciny, Aleksandrow Kujawski, Warszawa, Poland to Chelmno, Extermination Camp, Poland on 22/04/1942

On October 26, 1939, the town of Osięciny was annexed by the Germans, becoming part of the Landkreis Nessau (Nieszawa County), which was renamed Hermannsbad (Ciechocinek) in 1940.^[1] According to German records, almost 4,000 Jews lived in the county,^[2] 436 of them in Osięciny.^[3] By January 1940 most of the Jews had been expelled, some of them deported to the General Government (Generalgouvernement, the zone of Nazi-occupied central Poland not formally annexed to the Reich).^[4] According to different sources, in June 1940 between 1,530 and 2,188 Jews were left in the county, approximately 363–405 of them in Osięciny.^[5] In early 1940, a ghetto was established in Osięciny.^[6] In the spring of 1941, two transports with a total of eighty-seven Jewish men and youth left to labor camps in Mogilno and its vicinity.^[7] By the end of 1941 less than 400 Jews, mostly women, children, and elderly, remained in Osięciny.^[8]

The community's awareness of and anxiety about the impending deportation was evident to the local Nazi administration. On March 27, the gendarmerie in Radziejów wrote a report in which it discussed the Jews in the county’s anticipation of their imminent deportation:

Recently about 100 Jews from these three locations [Radziejów, Piotrków Kujawski, and Osięciny] fled, primarily to Upper Silesia (Kłobuck [Klobutzko]), for fear of the impending resettlement (extermination). In general, there is quite a stir among the existing Jews, since everybody suspects that the destruction is imminent. Rumors to that effect spread among Jews after they learned with certainty from unknown sources in those counties [Landkreise] in which similar operations had occurred [in the Jewish communities] (Warthbrücken and Kutno).^[9]...