Transport from Lodz, Ghetto, Poland to Chelmno, Extermination Camp, Poland on 04/05/1944

On February 14, 1944, the German authorities resolved that the Jewish population remaining in the ghetto would be “reduced”—or rather, murdered—in the Chełmno extermination camp. The Chełmno camp was therefore reactivated and the Kulmhoff Sonderkommando returned there in April 1944. The camp structures had been blown up in April 1943, and therefore had to be rebuilt—and thus the Germans were in need of a Jewish workforce. The German authorities demanded that the Jewish administration of the Łódź ghetto provide workers. A total of some 200 Jewish men were taken to Chełmno in at least four transports: on May 4, May 17, May 27, and June 14, 1944. The men were forced to prepare the camp for mass extermination, which began on June 23, 1944. The news about upcoming deportations reached the ghetto in February 1944, and rumor had it that the deportations would be for extermination rather than labor. However, the transports that left the ghetto on March 3 and 10 reached ammunition factories in Częstochowa and Skarżysko Kamienna. By the end of the month, conditions in Częstochowa were reported to be relatively good —causing some of the ghetto’s Jews to volunteer for the upcoming transports. ...