Transport from Lodz, Ghetto, Poland to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 26/08/1944

By Saturday, August 26, 1944, the Łódź ghetto seemed deserted. Jakub Poznański wrote down his impressions in his diary: “On Saturday night [August 26], I went out. The ghetto looks unreal. The streets seem to have died. Here and there, one meets someone trying to make his or her way to the Provisions Department. Such people are either registered [in a work department] or [are not registered and] do not receive anything [to eat].”

The daily transports of thousands of Jews to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp complex, which, according to our research, began on August 4, left most of the houses empty. By then, that is, by August 26, the Judenrat’s statistical department had already stopped recording changes in the number of ghetto inhabitants or tabulating the number of those deported. Consequently, no full and precise record exists concerning the transport that left the Łódź ghetto for the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp complex on August 26, 1944....