Transport from Lubien, Wloclawek, Warszawa, Poland to Szymanow, Sochaczew, Warszawa, Poland on 11/12/1939

According to a 1921 census, some 797 Jews lived in Lubień (German: Liebstadt), and 1,227 in Kowal—making up a third of the towns’ populations. After the occupation on September 15, the Germans began to demand money from the Jews all over the county and threatening them with deportation. On December 11, 1939, the Germans deported Jews from Lubień and Kowal to Szymanów. To date no documentation has been found relating to the deportation of the Jews from Kowal; however Arie Leib Pichotka, in his postwar account, mentions that Jews who lived next to the market square in Kowal were deported and reached Szymanów. According to survivors, the order took the Jews in Lubień by surprise. Some believed they were to be sent for daily forced labor and reported to the assembly area with a bucket and a mop. Others who lived next to the assembly area understood it was a deportation and packed some belongings; some reported with only the clothes they wore. The survivors of the deportation remember that it took place on the fifth day of Hanukkah. ...