Transport from Widawa, Lask, Lodz, Poland to Bełchatów, Ghetto, Poland on 14/12/1941

On the eve of World War II, some 730 Jews lived in Widawa, in the county (Landkreis) of Łask, making up one third of the townlet’s population. At the beginning of the occupation, in early September 1939, the last rabbi of Widawa, Avraham Mordechai Maroko, was brutally executed by German soldiers. On August 8, 1940, the Jewish community of Widawa turned to the American Joint Distribution Committee (the JDC) in Warsaw, asking for support for the impoverished local Jews—numbering ninety families, 430 souls—who were suffering from heavy German bombings. During the following months, many Jews left Widawa for neighboring places such as Bełchatów, Zelów, and Zduńska Wola.

On December 14, 1941, at least twenty-five Jewish families from Widawa were deported to the Bełchatów ghetto, some 35 kilometers to the east. Pinkas HaKehillot states that Jews remained in Widawa after this transport; however, due to the lack of sources about Jews in Widawa during 1942, it must be assumed that the Germans deported Widawa’s entire community at the end of 1941, much like they did with other Jewish communities in the Warthegau....