Transport from Piotrkow Kujawski, Ghetto, Poland to Chelmno, Extermination Camp, Poland on 22/04/1942

Piotrków Kujawski (German: Petrikau) was a town with a population of approximately 1,100 in 1939. The town was annexed by the Germans on October 26, 1939 and it became part of 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] 915 of them in Piotrków Kujawski.^[3] By January 1940, most of the Jews had been expelled, some 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, 550–631 of them in Piotrków Kujawski.^[5] In autumn 1940, a ghetto was established in Piotrków Kujawski,^[6] and on June 24, 1941, eighty men were sent to a forced labor camp in Mogilno, which was situated some 40 kilometers northwest of the town.^[7]

On March 27, 1942, the gendarmerie in Radziejów wrote a report in which it discussed how the Jews in the county were anticipating 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).^[8]...