Transport from Tuszyn, Lodz, Lodz, Poland to Piotrkow Trybunalski, Ghetto, Poland on 12/1939

In September 1939, on the eve of World War II, some 1,500 Jewish men, women, and children lived in Tuszyn, a townlet belonging to Litzmannstadt (Łódź) County in the Wartheland (or Warthegau). When the German Wehrmacht troops entered Tuszyn, the Germans executed twelve Jews in public,^[1] leaving the local Jews in a state of horror and fear.^[2]

In mid-December 1939, all of the Jews from Tuszyn were deported, most to Piotrków Trybunalski.^[3] This town, located some 25 kilometers south of Tuszyn, was situated in Radom County, in the General Government (Generalgouvernement, the zone of Nazi-occupied central Poland not formally annexed to the Reich). Nazi Germany’s deportation of the Jewish community was part of the so-called Nahplan (short-term plan). Danuta Dabrowska and Abraham Wein, in the introduction to Pinkas HaKehillot, note that Tuszyn was among the Jewish settlements located in Litzmannstadt County which "ceased to exist in December 1939."^[4] Different testimonies suggest that while most of the Jews from Tuszyn were deported to Piotrków, others were merely expelled from the town.

David Frish, one of the deportees, recalled in an interview that "on a Friday night, in the middle of the night, …the drummer was waking us up at midnight, it was December, the middle of December, it was snowing, a very cold winter, and the news was that all the Jews have to leave town. They gave us half an hour time to pack what we can, and get out of the city. Our neighbor had a horse wagon, and we packed whatever we could, and we went to another part of Poland."^[5] Chaim Fuks (Harry Fox), another deportee, also recalled in an interview how he was woken during the night by loud noise, and how the Jews of Tuszyn were told to leave their homes: "Take whatever you can take…you have two hours, you go to Piotrków."^[6] Many of those who survived the deportation recalled the severe cold at the time of transport. In her postwar testimony, Regina Rubinzstein remembered: "We were allowed to take things with us, but that was not possible, because not many had wagons [but were walking].… It was freezing, and the children were awfully freezing.... In Srock [a townlet, also spelled Srocko], 12 kilometers before Piotrków, at the border of the General Government, police searched us. They took money, jewelry, and everything of value. One night they held us in an open field. In Piotrków it was terribly cramped."^[7] Other accounts and sources state that children froze to death during the deportation.^[8] While most of the deportees were sent to Piotrków Trybunalski, some arrived in other communities, including the townlet Srock. In his interview, Joel Frish recalls how his family was instructed to leave Tuszyn but was not told where to go. They went to Srock, and from there some 16 kilometers further east to Wolbórz.”^[9]...