Wave of Deportation from Warsaw, Ghetto, Poland to Krychów, Camp, Poland on 16/08/1940

On August 6, 1940, the Hauptabteilung Arbeit (Department of Labor) of the GG in Krakow convened a special meeting to discuss the deployment of Jewish slave workers. ^[1] The German authorities decided to force Jews from the Warsaw and Radom Districts to the water work camps of the Lublin District (sometimes also called “melioration camps”), since the latter district could not supply enough young Jews for all the water work camps. In the city of Warsaw, the operation was supervised by the Warsaw Arbeitsamt (Labor Office), headed by Dr. Friedrich Ziegler, while the quotas of deportees were provided by the Judenrat (Jewish Council) — specifically, by its "Department for the Supply of Labor Camps," — at the behest of the Labor Office. "Some 800 volunteers responded to the first call. People initially believed that this was indeed about work."^[2] Other Jews were forcefully seized, either in the street or from their homes, regardless of their physical condition, age, or marital status. In a report from September 23, 1940, the Jewish Social Self-Help (Jüdische Soziale Selbsthilfe, JSS) informed the Population and Welfare Department in Lublin (Bevölkerungswesen und Fürsorge, BuF) that many sick, frail, and elderly people, including some disabled individuals, had been deported without preparation and without any luggage; as a result, upon arrival in the water work camps they were sent back by the management.^[3] The laborers' salary was set at 1.50 to 2.50 Złotys per day.^[4] Accommodation and food was to be provided by the companies that supervised the work.

The Jewish volunteers had to report to the assembly point within four days after being notified about their transport.^[5] Most of these Jews were unmarried men aged 18-25. Subsequent transports also included married men, and the upper age limit was raised to thirty-five. The assembly point was the former high school for girls on 12 Kawęczyńska Street, in the Warsaw borough of Praga. Shmuel Baibus, who grew up in the city, recalls it as "a magnificent building." ^[6] He goes on to say: "They kept us there for a few days, to make sure that we didn't have typhus. And the transports would then go from there."^[7] In one of the testimonies submitted to the Ringelblum Archive, an anonymous seventeen-year-old boy testified about the so-called medical exams: "It was simply a sham. Everyone passed as suitable for work — even the sick, those with tuberculosis, the disabled, the hunchbacks; there was one mute person, too."^[8] It is not known how much luggage the Jews were allowed to take. The premises were guarded by the SS, the Gendarmerie, and the Polish Blue Police. When the groups were ready for transport, they were marched in rows of six from the former school to the Eastern Railway Station (Dworzec Wschodni) — a distance of 600 meters, with the march lasting about seven minutes — and deported in cars of the Ostbahn.

On August 16, 1940, the first transport of 734 Jews left Warsaw for the water work camps of the Lublin District. The deportees included 360 "volunteers" from the city of Warsaw itself; 299 "volunteers" from villages in its vicinity, who had been brought to the city under guard,^[9] and seventy-five Jews who had been selected from a list of names submitted to the Arbeitsamt by the Judenrat. The last transport left on December 3, 1940, carrying 100 Varsovians (with no Jews from the countryside), including nineteen "volunteers." The Ringelblum Archive counted fifteen transports during this period, with a total of 4,118 forced laborers, including 1,167 "volunteers."^[10]...