Wave of Deportation from Lodz, Lodz, Lodz, Poland to Krakow, Krakow, Krakow, Poland on 12/12/1939

Within five days—from December 12 to 16, 1939—a massive deportation wave left Łódź, bound for the General Government (Generalgouvernement, the zone of Nazi-occupied central Poland not formally annexed to the Reich), to the districts of Kraków and Lublin. On December 12, two trains, Psn 4135 and Psn 4137, took Jews to Kraków (Krakau); on December 13, Psn 4139 left for Krosno and Psn 4141 for Dębica; on December 14, Psn 4169 travelled to Rzeszów (Reichshof) and Psn 4171 left for Jasło; on December 15, Psn 4191 traveled to Lublin; and on December 16, 4201 departed for Lublin and Psn 4199 to Lubratów.^[1] Thousands of Jews were thus deported to the General Government. The deportees had been caught in Łódź during raids, or were taken from the Radogoszcz (Radegast) detention camp, to which they had been deported earlier from other places in the Wartheland.^[2] Due to the sparse sources available, it is not possible to track each of the transports separately.

On December 12, the Gestapo demanded of Chaim Rumkowski, head of the Judenrat (Jewish council) of the city of Łódź, that he choose the streets from which Jewish residents should be evicted; he refused. It was on that day, as Dawid Sierakowiak (b. 1924) from Łódź noted in his diary two days later, that the mass arrests began.^[3] On December 12, two trains took Jews to Kraków (Krakau); on December 13, another day of transports, the Judenrat announced that the Jews must leave Łódź within the next four days.^[4]

On December 14–15, the Germans carried out large-scale raids with subsequent deportations. They began on some of the streets in the Bałuty area, which would later become part of the Łódź ghetto. The ghetto’s erection had been ordered secretly four days earlier, on December 10, 1939, by Friedrich Uebelhoer, Regierungspräsident (administrative district president) in Kalisch (Kalisz).^[5] The raids began at 8:20 P.M. and ended the next day, December 15, at 4:00 A.M. They were carried out by 650 Schupo (Schutzpolizei, regular uniformed police force) men and eighty members of the NSKK (Nationalsozialistisches Kraftfahrkorps, National Socialist  Motor Corps), who seized 7,000 Jews. Most were taken from their homes, but some were also taken from the streets.^[6] The next day they captured another 2,000 Jews, many of whom lived on the main street, Piotrkowska.^[7] According to historian Michael Alberti, the presence of high-ranking Nazi officials in Łódź at the time, among them Heinrich Himmler and Arthur Greiser, must have contributed to the pogrom-like conditions of the roundups, in which Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans) also took part.^[8]...