Transport from Bojanowo, Rawicz, Poznan, Poland to Leszno, Leszno, Poznan, Poland on 13/12/1939

Bojanowo (Schmückert) is a townlet in Rawicz County, western Poland, which, under German rule, belonged to Landkreis Rawitsch (a county, sometimes also called Schmückert Land). In 1938, it had 2,994 citizens. Of these, 86.9 percent were Poles and 12.5 percent ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche). The former independent Jewish community (Synagogengemeinde Bojanowo) had declined in the interwar period due to migration and, in 1933, officially became part of the Jewish community in Leszno (Lissa). In September 1939, only six families, with a total of seventeen members, remained as registered Jewish residents.

The townlet also accommodated a home for elderly Jews from the vicinity, established in 1900 by Jewish philanthropist Moritz Rohr through his foundation, Jüdische Altersversorgunsanstalt Moritz Rohrsche Stiftung. Around thirty elderly Jews (in addition to the townlet’s seventeen Jewish residents) still lived in the facility at the onset of the war. Another Jewish care facility, the Institute for Deaf and Blind Children—also part of the foundation —was moved to Warsaw before the war. ...