Transport from Pajeczno, Ghetto, Poland to Chelmno, Extermination Camp, Poland on 22/08/1942

The German army occupied Pajęczno, Radomsko County, on September 4, 1939. Approximately 1,042 Jews resided in the town at the time.[1] Following the annexation of the Warthegau region to Nazi Germany, Pajęczno was incorporated into Wieluń (Welungen) County and renamed Pfeilstett. Heavy German air raids during the first days of the war resulted in an influx of more than 1,000 Jewish refugees[2] who arrived in Pajęczno from the nearly destroyed neighboring town of Działoszyn.[3] All of Pajęczno’s Jews were subjected to forced labor.[4] However, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, the necessity for rapid transport of supplies to the eastern front increased the need to build suitable roads. Toward that end, the Germans began conducting manhunt “Aktions,” seizing groups of Jews and sending them to forced labor camps in the Poznań (Posen) area, where they were assigned to the Autobahn[5] projects, building the extension of the west-east highways.[6] The first roundup in Pajęczno, according to survivor accounts, took place in July or August 1941.[7] The ghetto in Pajęczno is presumed to have been erected in two stages: In March 1940, some witness statements claim, an open ghetto was established, and some Jews—having been evicted from their homes to make room for Poles whose homes had been seized by Germans—were ordered to move into it.[8] Yaakov Weiss recounted that ''When a German chose a Polish house for himself, then the mayor confiscated a Jewish house for that Pole, regardless of how many families lived there.''[9] The enclosed ghetto was established, according to survivor accounts, in October 1941, following a visit from the mayor of Praszka (Praschkau), a nearby town where a closed ghetto already existed; the mayor was surprised that Jews could still roam freely in Pajęczno. Three days later, the Jews were ordered to move, within a day, into the sealed ghetto, set in the poorest quarter of the town and bordered by Krucza, Częstochowska, Starodziałoszyńska, and Zapłocie Streets. The Judenrat was forced to surround the ghetto with barbed wire at its own expense using Jewish laborers.[10] Over the course of the year, a few hundred Jews from the neighboring villages were also forced to move into the Pajęczno ghetto.[11] Shortly thereafter, Gestapo men accompanied by head of the Jewish police in Wieluń—named Bruder—arrived and all the ghetto inhabitants were ordered to report to them. The Germans conducted a selection process, during which each ghetto inhabitant was examined and a letter “A” (meaning healthy and capable to work) or “B” (meaning incapable of work) was stamped on their bodies.[12] Rumors about ghettos in the vicinity being liquidated had reached Pajęczno by late 1941 or early 1942; Avraham Weiss attests to it: First of all, in late 1941, seventy Jews were arrested in Wieluń and taken somewhere but no one knew where; there were rumors that Jews were exterminated, but it was not clear what was really happening. After several weeks, however, some Jews began to escape from Chełmno’s soroundings…from Inowrocław and other towns nearby Chełmno and started telling stories; some believed them, and others thought they were just telling tales... They recounted that masses of Jews were taken somewhere where they were exterminated, though they did not know how. Slowly the narrative expanded as others came and told the same. I believed it was true.[13] During Passover 1942, the remaining Jews of the liquidated Brzeźnica ghetto were brought to the Pajęczno ghetto;[14] in August, the annihilation of the Jews in the Warthegau region culminated. Ghetto liquidation “Aktionen” (operations) became more frequent, with killing squads operating in several ghettos simultaneously. On August 18, 1942, the Commissioner of Pfeilstett (Pajęczno), who obviously knew about the liquidation planned for the following day, informed the Litzmanstatt Gettoverwaltung (Łódź ghetto administration) of his intention to secure for himself all of the furniture and other property left behind by the Jews in the former Pfeilstett ghetto for the sum of 4,000 Reichsmark, which would be credited to the German administration of the Łódź ghetto.[15] The liquidation of the Pajęczno ghetto—which also held Jews from the neighboring towns of Działoszyn, Brzeźnica, Sulmierzyc, Kiełczygłowa, Ożegow, Siemkowice, and Rząśnia—began on August 19, 1942 and lasted three days. The liquidation squad was comprised of the local gendarmerie, commanded by an officer named Meyer, with the gendarmes Urscharer, Micner, Hubert and Otto;[16] as well as Gestapo men and a gendarmerie unit from Wieluń. Local Germans were also recruited as an auxiliary force.[17] Yaakov Weiss described the liquidation: “At 11:00 A.M., as the sun was shining, I noted SS men surrounding the ghetto.... They ran and stopped every five steps, one of them ran into the ghetto to chase all Jews out of their houses. They shot several Jews to death in order to incite panic among the others.”[18] No information exists about how many Jews were killed during the liquidation of the ghetto. However, in a trial of Nazi war criminals in December 1968, Mieczysław Szlenk, a Pole from Pajęczno, testified that some Jews had tried to flee the ghetto during the liquidation but were caught by the liquidation squads and shot to death. Among them were seventeen-year-old Moshe Kuziwoda, Yankel Abramowicz, Paula Zawadzka, and a man named Gerber.[19] Eighteen hundred inhabitants of the Pajęczno ghetto[20] were herded into the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, at Dworcowy Square,[21] where they were kept until August 22 in overcrowded conditions and without food or water. Some 140 Jews managed to escape at the beginning of the “Aktion” and hide in a bunker. The Germans, however, with the help of the Polish firefighters, hunting dogs, and the Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans), discovered them all and brought them to the already teeming church.[22] Among them was Yaakov Weiss, who attested to the harsh conditions in the church: “We were 1,800 people in the church. I experienced three deportations: in the region of Belchatów, Częstochowa, and now in Pajęczno, but the last was the most atrocious. The church was a large hall with locked windows and doors. There was a corner to defecate in but in the heat that engulfed, the excrement spread all over the hall. The sun was burning at that time to such an extent that we thought evil united with heaven to suffocate us.''[23] The heat and the congestion inside the church were unbearable and only the thirst was worse. There was no water. Whoever tried to leave the church to reach water was shot on the spot. Yaakov Weiss recalled that “fathers who could not bear their young children’s suffering and ran out for water were shot to death.”[24] During the stay in the church, a group of fifty capable young men was selected and formed into a squad to clear out the ghetto.[25] The Łódź Gestapo, assisted by six Jewish policemen from the Łódź ghetto, was entrusted with this task. Yaakov Weiss was a member of the clearing squad and recalled that they were divided into five groups, each assigned a Jewish policeman; the sixth policeman was in charge of all five, with the Gestapo overseeing to ensure that no one try to throw anything to the Poles across the fence. The group of Jews had to load the furniture and belongings of Jews left behind in the ghetto onto trucks bearing the name “Łódź Ghetto Administration.” At the end of each working day they returned to sleep in the church.[26] Yaakov Weiss recounted that two days prior to the deportation, on August 20, a Gestapo man arrived at the church in the evening and announced that the detainees were not going to Litzmannstadt because there was no room there.[27] On Friday evening, August 21, the Germans shot eighteen elderly people—men and women—to death, among them the chairman of the Judenrat, ritual slaughterer (shochet) Berl Mruwke along with his deputy. Shortly thereafter, the Germans appointed the hairdresser’s apprentice, Meir Frenkl, as head of the Judenrat. But before long, he went mad, running around the church and beating people indiscriminately; many women lost their minds; people died of thirst, heat, and hunger.[28] On the deportation day, Saturday morning, August 22, a selection was carried out and a small group of seven men (nine, according to some),[29] all of them artisans, were selected, and sent to the Łódź ghetto.[30] On Saturday morning, August 22, the Germans distributed a bowl of soup and a piece of bread to all detainees. While they were eating in the yard, six canopied trucks bearing the caption Sonderkommando arrived, and many German policemen, accompanied by dogs and machine guns, suddenly emerged. They began beating and shoving the detainees toward the exit, where trucks awaited them.[31] Janina Modlińska, a member of the Armia Krajowa[32], watched the church from her hideout in the attic of a house opposite the church and later attested to the macabre scenes that took place during the deportation. She saw trailer trucks arriving—so-called ''krowiaki''—and the Germans, accompanied by guards and Volksdeutsche from Pajęczno, forcing the Jews onto them. At some point an old Jewish woman approached one of the the trucks because she recognized her son and wanted to pass some food to him. Gałkowski, a Volksdeutsche, saw it and pushed her away. She recognized Gałkowski and begged him to allow her to give the food to her son. The old woman kept begging, and even went down on her knees, and began kissing the Volksdeutsche's hands, asking for his permission. This annoyed him so much that he walked away, approached a German gendarme, and said something to him. The gendarme came up to the old woman from behind and shot her in the nape of the neck.[33] An unknown number of Jews were murdered on the spot; some managed to escape.[34] Everyone else was loaded onto the trucks and driven through Wieluń to the Chełmno (Kulmhof) extermination camp.[35] On August 31, 1942, the German Border Police (Grenzpolizeikommissariat, GPK) sent a situation report to the Łódź Gestapo chief, stating that by August 22, 1942, the Welungen district (Wieluń) had been made Judenrein (free of Jews).[36] No one from this transport is known to have survived. -------------------- 1. Jadwiga Pach and Krzysztof Pach, Pajęczno poprzez wieki (Częstochowa: Dom Książki, 2002), p. 176: compare with Danuta Dąbrowska and Abraham Wein, eds., Pinkas Hakehillot: Polin, vol. 1, Lodz Vehagalil (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1976), p. 181, which states that there were 800 Jews; Geoffrey Preaut Megargee, Dean Martin, and Mel Hecker, eds., The United States Holocaust Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945, vol. 2, Ghettos in German-Occupied Eastern Europe (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012), p. 90, which notes that 450 Jews lived in Pajęczno. 2. ^ Megargee, Martin, and Hecker, Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, p. 90; compare with Dąbrowska and Wein, Pinkas Hakehillot:Polin, vol. 1, p. 181, which speaks of 2,000 Jews; Testimony of Avraham Weiss, Yad Vashem Archives (YVA), O.3/2329, item no. 3556060. 3. ^ Testimony of Shmuel Shmulevitz, YVA, O.3/6685, item no. 3560513. 4. ^ Testimony of Sara Borowiecka, YVA, M.1.Q/331, item no. 3544351; Dąbrowska and Wein, Pinkas Hakehillot: Polin, vol. 1, p. 183; Megargee, Martin, and Hecker, Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, vol. 2, p. 90. 5. ^ The highway system in Germany. 6. ^ Testimony of Yaakov Weiss, YVA, O.3/2023, item no. 3556377. 7. ^ Testimony of Natan Borowiecki, YVA, M.1.E/1913, item no. 3541703; testimony of Sara Borowiecka, M.1.Q/331; testimony of Yaakov Weiss, O.3/2023; testimony of Avraham Weiss, O.3/2329. 8. ^ Testimony of Yaakov Weiss, YVA, O.3/2023; testimony of Avraham Weiss, YVA, O.3/2329; Megargee, Martin, and Hecker, Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, vol. 2, p. 90. 9. ^ Testimony of Yaakov Weiss, YVA, O.3/2023. 10. ^ Ibid.; testimony of Avraham Weiss, YVA, O.3/2329; Testimony of Sara Borowiecka, YVA, M.1.Q/331; Testimony of Natan Borowiecki, YVA, M.1.E/1913; Dąbrowska and Wein, Pinkas Hakehillot: Polin, vol. 1, p. 182; Megargee, Martin, and Hecker, Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, vol. 2, p. 90. 11. ^ Testimony of Hersh Brada, YVA, M.1.Q/332, item no. 3544243; Testimony of Avraham Weiss, YVA, O.3/2329. 12. ^ Testimony of Avraham Weiss, YVA, O.93/45083, item no. 7426034. 13. ^ ibid. 14. ^ Dąbrowska and Wein, Pinkas Hakehillot: Polin, vol. 1, p. 182; Megargee, Martin, and Hecker, Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, vol. 2, p. 91. 15. ^ Archiwum Państwowe w Łodzi (APL), Sonderkonto 12300, 39/221/0/5.1.10/29668, fr. 11; see online version: https://szukajwarchiwach.pl/39/221/0/5.1.10/29668#tabSkany. 16. ^ Investigation reports at the trial of Gunter Fuchs and others, testimony of Mieczysław Szlenk, TR.10/1311, item nr. 3528252, file 14, pp. 2-3. 17. ^ Martin Gilbert, Endlösung. Die Vertreibung und Vernichtung der Juden. Ein Atlas (Reinbeck: Rowohlt, 1982), p. 182; Shmuel Krakowski, Chełmno: A Small Village in Europe: The First Nazi Mass Extermination Camp (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2009), p. 103; Dąbrowska and Wein, Pinkas Hakehillot, vol. 1, p. 183; Megargee, Martin, and Hecker, Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, vol. 2, p. 91; Wolfgang Curilla, Der Judenmord in Polen und die deutsche Ordnungspolizei 1939–1945 (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2011), p. 182; testimony of Mieczysław Szlenk, TR.10/1311. 18. ^ Testimony of Yaakov Weiss, YVA, O.3/2023, fr. 12. 19. ^ Testimony of Mieczysław Szlenk, TR.10/1311; Krakowski, Chełmno, p. 115. 20. ^ Gilbert, Endlösung, p. 183; see also Wolfgang Benz, ed., Dimension des Völkermords: Die Zahl der jüdischen Opfer des Nationalsozialismus (München: Oldenburg, 1991), p. 450; testimony of Yaakov Weiss, YVA, O.3/2023, fr. 13. 21. ^ See church’s website: http://wnmp.org.pl/k-116.html 22. ^ Dąbrowska and Wein, Pinkas Hakehillot: Polin, vol. 1, p. 183; testimony of Yaakov Weiss, YVA, O.3/2023, fr. 13. 23. ^ Testimony of Yaakov Weiss, YVA, O.3/2023, fr. 13. 24. ^ Ibid, fr. 14. 25. ^ Dąbrowska and Wein, Pinkas Hakehillot: Polin, vol. 1, p. 183; Megargee, Martin, and Hecker, Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, vol. 2, p. 91. 26. ^ Dąbrowska and Wein, Pinkas Hakehillot: Polin, vol. 1, p. 183; Megargee, Martin, and Hecker, Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, vol. 2, p. 91; YVA, O.3/2023, fr. 14. 27. ^ Testimony of Yaakov Weiss, YVA, O.3/2023, fr. 15. 28. ^ Dąbrowska and Wein, Pinkas Hakehillot: Polin, vol. 1, p. 183; Megargee, Martin, and Hecker, Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, vol. 2, p. 91; testimony of Yaakov Weiss, YVA, O.3/2023, fr. 14; testimony of Natan Borowiecki, M.1.E/1913; testimony of Sara Borowiecka, M.1.Q/331. 29. ^ Testimony of Natan Borowiecki, YVA, M.1.E/1913. 30. ^ Testimony of Yaakov Weiss, YVA, O.3/2023, fr. 15; see also YV International Institute for Holocaust Research, “Transports to Extinction,” Transport Pajęczno to Łódź, August 22, 1942. 31. ^ Dąbrowska and Wein, Pinkas Hakehillot: Polin, vol. 1, p. 184; YVA, O.3/2020, fr. 16. 32. ^ Armia Krajowa, AK was the Polish resistance movement in Poland, occupied by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, during World War II. 33. ^ Conversation no. 1 with Mrs. Janina Modlińska; see online: “Historia Pajęczna ta nieznana i zapomniana,” Twoje Pajeczno, https://twojepajeczno.pl/forum/temat/historia-pajeczna-ta-nieznana-i-zapomniana/page/5 (accessed June 1, 2020). 34. ^ Testimony of Yaakov Weiss, YVA, O.3/2023, fr.15; testimony of Sara Borowiecka, M.1.Q/331. 35. ^ Curilla, Judenmord in Polen, p. 182. 36. ^ Tatiana Berenstein, Arthur Eisenbach, Bernard Mark, and Adam Rutkowski, eds., Faschismus—Getto—Massenmord. Dokumentation über Ausrottung p. 311; see also: Investigation reports at the trial of Gunter Fuchs and others, TR.10/1311, file 2, pp. 7-8.