Lodz Ghetto Deportations and Statistics

Contents

*Note: "Warthegau" (or "Wartheland") refers to the section of Poland annexed by the Reich during World War II, and included the entire Poznan province, most of the Lodz province, five Pomeranian districts, and one county of the Warsaw province; see map.

Table A: Liquidation of Jewish Population in the Lodz Ghetto, 1942-1944 [1]

Date Number of Victims Place of Deportation / Extermination
16-29 January 1942 10,003 Death camp in Chelmno
22 February -2 April 1942 34,073 Death camp in Chelmno
4-15 May 1942 10,914 Death camp in Chelmno
3-12 September 1942 15,681 Death camp in Chelmno
23 June - 14 July 1944 7,196 Death camp in Chelmno
9-29 August 1944 65 - 67,000* Auschwitz-Birkenau
August 1944 500 Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg and Ravensbrück
Total

143,000-145,000** 

 
*About 72,000 persons were transported to Auschwitz at that time. From that number approximately 5,000 to 7,000 survived, most due to interruption of their incarceration in Nazi camps by liberating armies; according to some estimates, up to 15,000 Lodz Jews survived the Holocaust.

**Several thousand Jews from the Lodz ghetto died or were murdered in various labor camps.

Table B: Number of Deceased in the Lodz Ghetto, 1940-1944 [1]

Year Number of People in the Ghetto Deaths in the Ghetto
1940 160,320 8,475 (41 shot)
1941 145,992 11,456 (52 shot)
1942 103,034 18,046 (43 shot)
1943 84,226 4,573 (27 shot)
1944 (until August) 72,551 2,778 (17 shot)
Total   approx. 43,000*
*This number represents the approximate number of burials in the Ghetto Field at the Lodz cemetery

Table C: Towns in the Warthegau from which Jews were deported into the Lodz Ghetto (German name in parentheses) [3]

Belchatow Kozminek Sieradz (Schieratz)
Brzesc Kujawski Kutno Sompolno
Brzeziny (Löwenstadt, Loewenstadt) Lask Sulmierzyce
Chelmno (Kulm, Kulmhof) Leczyca Turek
Chodecz Lodz (Litzmannstadt) Warta
Dobra Lubraniec Widawa
Glowno Ozorkow Wielun (Welungen)
Kalisz (Kalisch) Pabianice Wieruszow
Klodawa Poddebice Wloclawek (Leslau, Alt Lesle)
Kolo Poznan (Posen) Zdunska Wola
Kowal Praszka Zelow
    Zgierz

Table D: Jews Deported to the Lodz Ghetto from Western Europe in 1941 [3]

Country Point of Origin Date of Arrival Number of Deportees
Austria Vienna 16 October - 3 November 4,999*
Germany Berlin 18 October - 2 November (?) 4,055
Germany Emden 25 October (arrived with one of the Berlin transports) 122
Germany Frankfurt am Main 22 October 1,186
Germany Cologne 23 October 2,014
Germany Hamburg 26 October 1,063
Germany Düsseldorf 26 October (?) 1,005
Czechoslovakia Prague 19 October 4,999**
Luxembourg

Luxembourg

18 October 512
Total     approx. 19,722
*Only 34 Jews deported from Vienna to Lodz were still alive when the Nazi concentrations camps were liberated. See also the searchable Database of Austrian Victims of the Holocaust (includes Viennese Jews deported to the Lodz/Litzmannstadt Ghetto)

**Of this number, approximately 276 Czech Jews survived the Lodz ghetto and Nazi concentration camps.

Table E: Timeline of Deaths and Deportations in the Lodz Ghetto [1], [2]

Date Action
October 18, 1939 100 Jews (intellectuals) driven out of Lodz's Astoria cafe; most murdered. [3]
November 9, 1939 German terror against Jews and Poles escalates after Lodz annexed to the Reich on November 9; several thousand Jews and Poles arrested.
November 11, 1939 Jewish Kehillah premises surrounded; nearly all members arrested and sent to the Radogoszcz camp/prison [4]; of 30 members, 6 were released, the rest were tortured and shot in the Lagiewniki Woods.
December 12, 1939 By this date, 71,000 Lodz Jews had been expelled or migrated to the Soviet Union and General Gouvernement (Krakow, and other cities) in the first months of Nazi occupation. In Lodz, over 10,000 Jews, including most of the Jewish intelligentsia, were deported in December 1939. For weeks the deportees were kept at assembly points, and had to supply their own means of subsistence, though they had been deprived of all their valuables.
March 1, 1940 "Bloody Thursday"; several Jews slain as the Nazis drive the Jewish population of Lodz into the designated ghetto area.
June 12, 1940 Statistics by this date: 160,320 Jews are enclosed in the ghetto, of which 153,840 were former inhabitants of Lodz and 6,471 were from other parts of the Warthegau due to war migration.
September 26 -  October 9, 1941 3,082 Jews from Wloclawek (Leslau) and vicinity are deported to the Lodz ghetto. [5]
October 17 - November 4, 1941 19,722 Jews are deported to the Lodz ghetto from Austria, Czechoslovakia, Luxembourg, and Germany (see Table D).
November 5-9, 1941 5,007 Roma (Gypsies) are deported to the Gypsy camp within the Lodz ghetto from the Austrian-Hungarian border (Burgenland).
December 7, 1941 - August 28, 1942 A total of 17,826 Jews from provincial ghettos in the Warthegau are deported to the Lodz ghetto: Wloclawek, Glowno, Ozorkow, Strykow, Lask, Pabianice, Wielun, Sieradz, Zdunska Wola (this number includes those deported from  May to August 23, 1942; see below).
January 16, 1942 - May 15, 1942 Large-scale genocide begins: 57,064 Jews from the Lodz ghetto (including 10,943 from Western Europe) are deported to the death camp at Chelmno (see Table A).
January 16, 1942 Gypsy camp in the Lodz ghetto liquidated and inhabitants deported to death camp at Chelmno.
February 21, 1942 A public execution by hanging occurs (Max Hertz of Cologne).
May - August 23, 1942 14,440 "selected" Jews are deported to the ghetto from liquidated ghettos in  Wloclawek, Glowno, Ozorkow, Strykow, Lask, Pabianice, Wielun, Sieradz, Zdunska Wola.
September 3-12, 1942 15,681 children (age 10 and under) and elderly (over age 65) are deported to the death camp at Chelmno.
September 7, 1942 Public execution occurs: 17 Jews deported to the Lodz ghetto from Pabianice in August, 1942.
October 1942 - May 1944 No major deportations from the Lodz ghetto.
June 23-July 14, 1944 Deportations to death camp at Chelmno resumed: 10 transports with 7,196 people. 
July 15, 1944 Deportations to the death damp at Chelmno halted.
July 31, 1944 Beginning of the liquidation of the Lodz ghetto; the Judenrat is disbanded and the Chronicle being written in the ghetto ends.
August 7-9, 1944 Round-up begun for final liquidation of the Lodz ghetto; beginning of deportations to Auschwitz.
August 23, 1944 Last transport from Lodz ghetto to Auschwitz; 700 Jews remain in the ghetto as a clean-up detail and 200 avoid deportation by hiding in the ghetto.
January 20, 1945 877 Jewish survivors in the ghetto are liberated by the Russian army.

In total, more than 200,000 Jews from the Warthegau and Western Europe passed through the Lodz ghetto.

Sources

1. Baranowski, Julian. The Lodz Ghetto, 1940-1944; Lodzkie Getto, 1940-1944; Vademecum. Lodz: Archiwum Panstwowe w Lodzi & Bilbo, 1999.

2. Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 1990.

3. Dobroszycki, Lucjan, ed. The Chronicle of the Lodz Ghetto, 1941-1944. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984.

4. Wiesenthal, Simon. Every Day Remembrance Day: A Chronicle of Jewish Martyrdom. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1987.

5. Jewish History of Poland: Holocaust Period, from Heritage Films

6. Yad Vashem Timeline of the Holocaust.

Compiled by Shirley Rotbein Flaum
 

PLEASE REFER ALL INQUIRIES TO THE LODZ AREA RESEARCH GROUP MAILING LIST
WEBSITE PROBLEMS ONLY SHOULD BE REFERRED TO THE WEBMASTER.

Hosted by JewishGen, Inc.
Copyright © 1999-2003 Shirley Rotbein Flaum, ©2004-2015 Roni Seibel Liebowitz. All rights reserved.
Lodz ShtetLinks site founded by Shirley Rotbein Flaum (webmaster 1999-2004)