Transport from Lodz, Ghetto, Poland to Chelmno, Extermination Camp, Poland on 17/05/1944

On May 17, 1944, at 11:30 A.M., Marek Kligier, administrative director of the Special Department (Sonderabteilung) of the Ordnungsdienst (Jewish Police), received an order from the Łódź ghetto Gestapo: fifty men were needed for a deportation to take place that day, and must be provided by 3:00 P.M. The men were supposedly needed for work outside the ghetto, but the transport’s real destination was the Chełmno (Kulmhof) extermination camp. They would be forced to prepare the installations for the impending mass deportations of Jews from Łódź. The Ghetto Chronicle noted on that day: “At about 1:00 P.M., some fifty people were caught in roundups in the Central Prison, at two demolition sites, and from one of the work departments, during work. They were taken to Bałucki Square, and they were transported from there out of the ghetto in a truck.” ...