Wave of Deportation from Konin, Konin, Lodz, Poland to Jozefow, Bilgoraj, Lublin, Poland on 13/03/1941

Konin, a town in central Poland on the Warta River, had a Jewish population of approximately 3,000 out of a total of 13,000 inhabitants at the start of World War II. It was conquered by the German forces on September 14, 1939, the first day of Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year), and incorporated into the newly formed German province Reichsgau Posen, renamed Reichsgau Wartheland on January 29, 1940.

The first deportation of Jews from Konin took place on November 30, 1939, when about 1,000 Jews were forcibly moved to the town of Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, south of Radom in occupied Poland, in the territory of the General Government (GG).^[1] Additional deportations were implemented  in July 1940: Konin Jews together with other Jews from the county (Landkreis Konin) were concentrated in the villages of Grodziec (Grossdorf)^[2] and Rzgów (Roggen), which formed a rural ghetto; in the neighboring town of Zagórów (Zagorow); and in several even smaller villages, known as Dorfghettos (hamlet ghettos),^[3] which served as interim locations before the mass deportation of all the remaining Jews from this county into the area of the GG.

A mass deportation, which Franziska Bram-Krochowska, a witness from Konin, called the "Second Resettlement Wave" ("Zweite Aussiedlungswelle"),^[4] got underway in March 1941. Among the many transports there were at least four between March 13 and 19 to Józefów Bilgorajski, a village some 500 kilometers to the southeast, in the Lublin District of the GG....