Wave of Deportation from Lodz(Gypsy Camp), Ghetto, Poland to Chelmno, Extermination Camp, Poland on 27/12/1941

Although we do not know exactly when the Roma were first deported from the Gypsy camp in the Lodz ghetto to their deaths, the evidence we have shows that the urgent need to prevent the spread of a typhus epidemic (typhus exanthematicus) led to the deportations of Roma from the “Zigeunerlager” (Gypsy camp) in the Łódź ghetto.^[1]

On December 5, 1941, Reichsstatthalter Arthur Greiser, the governor of the Wartheland, issued an order to deport all Roma who contracted the disease.^[2] The deportation was executed by Sonderkommando (SK) Lange and by the ghetto branch of the KRIPO Litzmannstadt.^[3] Our research finds that the deportations began on December 4 or 5, 1941^[4]. Several invoices for truck rentals, forwarded by the German ghetto administration (Gettoverwaltung - GV) to the Jewish ghetto administration for defrayal support the existence of these early transports.

However, in spite of the deportations, the typhus epidemic continued to rage, killing not only the Roma, but German police officers, including the “Gypsy camp” commander, SS-Oberscharführer Eugen Jansen. Following his death on December 23, 1941, Greiser probably decided to dispose of all the Roma. The historian Antoni Galinski stated that this, “most likely, was the underlying reason for the immediate decision to completely liquidate the inmates in the camp.”^[5] Two more deportation waves of several transports occurred between December 17 and December 24,^[6] as substantiated by additional invoices for truck rentals and other documents....