On September 1, 1943, a deportation train carrying 224 Jews left the Łódź ghetto. Until recently its destination was unknown, but our research now confirms, without a doubt, that it travelled to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Along the way, the train stopped in various places where Jews were onboarded from different forced labor camps within the Wartheland (Warthegau).
According to survivors’ testimonies, the train contained between 1,000 to 2,000 people. In the ghetto, the transport was recorded as the 63rd worker-transport.[1]. The ghetto’s Judenrat (Jewish Council) was forced to cooperate with the Nazis, as always, and supply deportees.
On August 30, 1943, The Chronicle, recorded that the Jewish inhabitants were restless due to the coming date, September 1st, which marked one year since the Szpera (Sperre), the brutal and traumatic mass deportations to the Chełmno (Kulmhof) death camp during September 1942.[2] Rumors were spreading about sending a large number of men out of the ghetto for forced labor, as The Chronicle, recounts on August 31:...