Transport from Lodz, Ghetto, Poland to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 17/08/1944

Of about 206,000 Jews who had inhabited the Łódź (Litzmannstadt) ghetto, only 68,516 remained on August 1, 1944—40,023 women and 28,493 men, including 4,635 children.^[1] By the end of August, the ghetto had been liquidated and almost the entire remaining population had been deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and murdered.

Despite extensive research, it is not always possible to cite full and accurate transport dates for this phase of the massive deportations, which may indeed have spilled over into September. Nazi Germany’s approaching defeat and the concomitant chaos during the final months of the ghetto’s existence impacted powerfully on the records kept by both the Germans and the Jews.^[2] Even though the Judenrat’s statistical department kept records until August 21, the first deportations that month, which began more than two weeks earlier, were only listed retroactively, in the records for August 18-21. Deportations were listed for August 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 13, comprising a total of 12,400 souls.^[3] However, our research indicates that the first two transports that month left the ghetto as early as August 4 and 5, and it is unclear whether the statistical department listed different dates by mistake or intentionally.^[4]

On August 10–11 the ghetto’s west side was evacuated and it was forbidden to distribute food rations to the Jews who inhabited that area. This was the first shrinking of the ghetto in order to facilitate the roundup of Jews for deportation. Some inhabitants escaped to the east side of the ghetto in an effort to hide, others were caught and deported. There were those who saw no other option than to report for transport on their own.^[5] On August 16, Hans Biebow, chief of the Gettoverwaltung (German administration of the ghetto) was heard via a wiretap saying that “the Jews in ghetto must be evacuated (Abtransport),” though he noted that “so far there has been no shooting.”^[6] Nevertheless, deliberate violence had by now become pervasive in the ghetto.^[7] On August 17, a transport carrying an unknown number of Jews departed from Łódź to Auschwitz. The Germans reduced the size of the ghetto that day,^[8] and at least some of the deportees came from the area that was now excluded. All the deportees on August 17 were either caught or reported on their own – it is not certain whether some of them spent the night before the deportation in an assembly area....