Transport from Osjakow, Ghetto, Poland to Wielun, Wielun, Lodz, Poland on 10/08/1942

Osjaków, a townlet in Wieluń (Welungen) County, lies approximately 17 kilometers northeast of Wieluń and some 130 kilometers from the Chełmno (Kulmhof) extermination camp.

In the first days of its invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Wehrmacht occupied Osjaków. In the wake of Hitler’s decree of October 8, 1939, Nazi Germany annexed the western provinces of occupied Poland and established the civil administration unit – Reichsgau Posen – on October 26, 1939. The name was changed on January 29, 1940, in Reichsgau Wartheland (Warthegau). Osjaków  as part of the newly formed Wieluń county (Landkreis Wielun),^[1] was annexed to the Reich and renamed Ostwerder.^[2]

A gendarmerie headquarters (Gendarmerie-Abteilung) was established at the same time—headed, in Osjaków, by Lieutenant Schramm. This headquarters was the center from which the Germans persecuted the whole Jewish population (as well as Christians) both in Osjaków and in the surrounding towns, townlets, and villages.^[3] The gendarmerie units in Konopnica Radoszewice and Skrzynno were subordinate to the central headquarters in Osjaków.^[4]...