Transport from Leczyca, Ghetto, Poland to Chelmno, Extermination Camp, Poland on 10/04/1942

By the end of September, 1939, the Germans had occupied Łęczyca County, annexing it to the German Reich under the name Landkreis Lentschütz on November 20. Following the occupation, the Germans mistreated the Jews, blackmailed them, and sent them to forced labor. In the course of establishing ghettos all over occupied Poland in the months before April 1940, the Germans erected the county’s first ghetto in Piątek (German: Piontek) and then in Poddębice (Poddembice; December 1940), in Grabów (February 1941), and in Ozorków and the city of Łęczyca (fall/winter 1941). The county’s total population numbered some 126,000 people, of whom between 9,631 and 14,300 were Jews—numbers which varied with the refugees’ movement. In Łęczyca city, 4,228 Jews were registered at the beginning of WWII. By January 1, 1940, their numbers had declined to 3,400; by the end of that year, they reached 2,987. In December 1940, February 1941, and April 1941, the German authorities carried out several deportations from Łęczyca to other places in Łęczyca County and possibly to the General Government (Generalgouvernement, the zone of Nazi-occupied central Poland not formally annexed to the Reich). In the summer of 1941, deportations went to forced labor camps in the Poznań (German: Posen) area. Consequently, the Łęczyca ghetto was reduced to some 1,750 Jewish residents. ...