Transport from Lodz, Ghetto, Poland to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 25/08/1944

“Friday, 25. 08.1944. The atmosphere–death in the whole area around–despite the fact that there are still some 20,000 Jews in the ghetto. One can still see people, but most are the ones with an arrangement [who have registered at a work place]. We still have people to talk to. We go to the cemetery and that is the only lively place, ha ha ha!! It has been two weeks since some 300 workers have begun working there, only acquaintances and certain work friends. Out of the six people registered at my shop, two have left–Wercel and Regina Brandzel. Remained: Lederman, Zelkowicz, Grant and I with my family….There is a lot of food. There has not been as much food during the whole war…It’s a curse! There is something to eat but no-one can eat… The fact that they are sending everyone to Auschwitz is not letting me rest. What does that mean? Today they continue to deport most of those registered,” wrote Menashe Wasercug, one of the diarists of the Łódź ghetto.

Indeed, by August 25 the ghetto seemed deserted. The daily transports of thousands of Jews to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp complex, which according to our research had begun on August 4, left most of the houses empty. By this time, the Judenrat’s statistical department no longer recorded the daily population of the ghetto or the number of those deported. Consequently, no full and precise record exists about the transport that left the Łódź ghetto for Auschwitz-Birkenau on August 25, 1944....