Transport from Brzeznica, Radomsko, Lodz, Poland to Pajeczno, Ghetto, Poland on 02/04/1942

On September 2, 1939, the German army occupied Brzeźnica, a small town on the Fisha River in Radomsko County situated some 20 kilometers southwest of Radomsk. By virtue of Hitler’s decree of October 8, 1939, the western provinces of occupied Poland were annexed to the Reich. Following the establishment of the civil administrative unit, Reichsgau Posen,[1] on October 26, 1939, the town of Brzeźnica was incorporated into Wieluń (Welungen) County and renamed Berenthal.

On the eve of World War II, the Jewish community in Brzeźnica numbered some 150 families, living among approximately 1,000 Polish families.[2] The Jews were concentrated densely in two or three streets;[3] it appears that no ghetto was established in the town.[4]

Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, the necessity of rapid transport of supplies and combat forces to the eastern front intensified the need to construct cross-country roads. Toward that end, the Germans began seizing groups of Jews and sending them to forced labor camps in the Poznań (Posen) area, such as Poggenburg, Kahlfelde, and Hasenheide.[5] They were assigned to the Autobahn[6] projects, building highways, among them the road from Frankfurt to Poznań and from Poznań to Warsaw.[7]  ...