The Holocaust experience in western Poland.

Pentlin, Susan Lee

We have a generalized image in our heads from movies, TV shows, novels, and survivor testimony of the Holocaust experience. We are familiar with scenes from the Umschlagplatz in the Warsaw ghetto, the "Crystal Night" pogrom in Berlin, selection at Auschwitz, the Frank family in hiding, and liberation at Mauthausen. One area of Holocaust research that has arguably been given less attention is that of Western Poland, except for the Lodz ghetto. There are two reasons to account for this: First, the area along the border with Germany was incorporated into the German Reich in October, 1939, and designated by the Germans as the Reichsgau Wartheland or the Warthegau in January, 1940, and contact with the outside world was virtually cut off; second, there are fewer Jewish survivors from this region since it was the first to experience German atrocities, and thus its Jewish population was in German hands the longest. Only 1.3% of the pre-war Jewish population of Western Poland was alive at liberation. (1)

On the night of August 31, 1939, SS officers dressed as Poles attacked the Silesian radio station at Gleiwitz just over the Polish border near Katowice. (2) The message they sent out over the radio waves, "Long live Poland," gave Germany the "excuse" to attack Poland in retaliation. Near dawn the next morning, on September 1, 1939, Germany launched attacks at various points along its shared border with Poland) Army Group South led the main attack. The Eighth and Tenth Armies started toward Warsaw, and the Fourteenth Army headed across Silesia toward Cracow. At the same time, the Third and Fourth Armies of Army Group North moved across the Polish Corridor. The Germans plan was to destroy the Polish Army west of the Vistula River. The Poles fought hard for almost a month, but on September 28, Poland had no choice but to capitulate.

On September 17, the Soviet Union had occupied the eastern area of Poland, the result of a secret agreement made between Hitler and Stalin in August, 1939, and it remained so until Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June, 1941. The central area of Poland, which included Warsaw, became the General Government under a civilian authority. German troops to the north occupied the free city of Danzig, which came together with the former Polish Corridor to form the Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussian. Further east on the Baltic, Polish territory was annexed to the Province Ostpreussen with Zichenau (Ciechanow) as the administrative head.

On October 8, 1939, Germany annexed Western Poland. The population of Western Poland would be the first to experience the brutality of the new Germany. The towns along the German border as well as Lodz and its suburbs became the Wartheland (or the Warthegau as it was sometimes known). The Wartheland, which prior to 1918 had been divided into Prussia and Congress or Russian Poland, was composed of three administrative districts: Posen or Poznan, Hohensalza or Inowroclaw and Litzmannstadt or Lodz. The Wartheland was to become the initial staging ground for the Final Solution as it would unfold over the next five years.

Western Poland had the largest concentration of ethnic Germans who were generally referred to as "Volksdeutsche." Before the end of World War I, the territory around Poznan was ruled by Prussia. In 1921, it is estimated that the German minority in the region formed 16.7% of the population. (4) The invading Germans were counting on the support of the ethnic German population. They knew that Selbstschutz or self-defense units had been formed before the attack to assist the German Army in diversionary efforts and sabotage.

Upon victory, Gauleiter and Civil Administrator Artur Greiser declared that the Wartheland would become the "drilling ground" of the National Socialist movement, an area for experimentation in National Socialism (Exerzierplatz des Nationalsozialismus), and he began to "pioneer" population control based on Nazi "racial science," soon introducing an apartheid system to the population whereby Polish citizens of German decent were considered superior to those of Polish Christian heritage and those of Jewish heritage.

Although many Poles, recalling the Germans from World War I, had not expected the cruelty and atrocities that occurred in the first days of the occupation, the western region of Poland already had gained some awareness of the new Germany and its policy against Jewish citizens and noncitizens the year before. In 1938, Poland decided to cancel the citizenship of Polish citizens who had lived abroad over five years on the last day of October, making 12,000- 15,000 Polish Jews living in Germany stateless. Four days before that was to happen, the Germans put the Jews on trains and transported them to Poland. The trains reached the Polish border at Zbasszyn, but Polish authorities would not admit the people who were aboard, and the Germans left them in the open to live in terrible conditions. In hindsight, this was also the first indication of the brutal measures Nazi Germany would take against foreign Jews.

German troops entered Polish shtetle and small towns close to the border to Germany, and German fighter planes appeared in the sky on the first day of the invasion on September 1, 1939. At the time of the invasion, there were 390,000 Jewish people living in the area that was soon to become the Wartheland. (5) "Jews ... formed a tenth of the Polish population," but, in the days of the invasion, one third of those killed by the Germans were Jewish. (6) By the time the Polish nation capitulated, several weeks later, 60,000 Polish soldiers had perished, including 6,000 Jewish soldiers. (7)

General Franciszek Alter's 25th Infantry Division of the Poznan Army retreated as the Eighth German Army swept in over the border near Oppeln on a path to Warsaw. On September 21, Heydrich designated Western Poland as territory that to become "judenrein" in a letter that has become known as the "Schnellbrief." Later, in October, Himmler further determined that the area should be "cleared of its Jewish population" as well as a majority of the Poles in the area in the time from November, 1939, to February, 1940. During this period, 100,000 Jews were determined to be expelled from the Wartheland. In fact, the Germans deported more than fifty Jewish communities by May, 1940. In some cities, the deportation was done in stages; in others, there were mass deportations. In some the area was completely cleared, and in others small numbers of Jews remained to work for the Nazis. (8) By the end of 1940, the SS had expelled 325,000 Poles and Jews from the Wartheland into the General Government and confiscated their property. Among those who had died in the process, the numbers of elderly and children were particularly high.

The Nazi goal was to Germanize the region. To achieve this, the Germans began to assimilate the territory politically, culturally, and economically (9) to prepare for German settlers to move into the properties vacated. By December, Christian and Jewish Poles were absent from the Wartheland, and settlers from the Baltic areas who had Germanic heritage had moved in to fill their places. Town and street names were Germanized, schools closed, and property expropriated. Lodz became Litzmannstadt, named for a German general who had taken the city in World War I. The city Inowroclaw was renamed Hohensalza; Ogrodowa Street became Poststrasse. The village Gnojno became Bauerngold as the policy of Germanization took hold throughout the area.

Studying the steps as events unfolded in 1938 and 1939 is a way to see how policy translates in human lives. Events during the first three months of German rule established the process that eventually led to the annihilation of the Jewish population of Eastern Europe. Approximately 20,000 Jews in 120 communities in Poland were killed in the weeks between the invasion and capitulation. (10) "As the German forces" moved across Poland, "Jews were singled out for abuse and massacre by special SS" Einsatzgruppen, which followed behind regular Wehrmacht units. (11)

The first ghetto in Poland at Piotrkow Trybunalski, south of Lodz, was closed on October 28, 1939, and others soon followed. The first labor camps were established in the Warthegau at Brezeziny, renamed Lowenstadt by the Germans and at Pabianice or Pabianitz, (12) which had 8,500-9,000 Jews when the Germans attacked Poland. By January, 1940, there were about twenty-five labor camps in the Poznan area. (13) The purpose of the camps was not only to torment and subdue the Jewish population; they also had an economic purpose. Nonetheless, by the end of August, 1943, most of these had closed.

The fates of the towns with the larger Jewish populations follow a similar pattern. Much is revealed by comparing the entries in the Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities, Yizkor books, the Virtual Shtetl and Zchor web sites, and survivor testimony. There are few memoirs from Western Poland available in English. One of the best known is The Dentist of Auschwitz, by Benjamin Jakobs, who came from Dobra, near Turek. (14) Theo Richmond published the story of his search for former residents of Konin. (15) The Uprooted: A Survivor's Autobiography is a memoir by Yehoshua Eibeshitz, who was born in Wielun, escaped the Kozminek ghetto, and was at the Kowale Panskie Kolonie. (16) Another is Abe's Story by Abe Korn, who was born in Lipno and fled to the Kutno ghetto. (17)

During the invasion, Jews in the borderland region suffered unimaginably from random killings, executions, and humiliations. Within hours, the first atrocities had occurred. In the first six weeks, 16,336 Polish civilians were murdered by the Germans, at least 5,000 of whom were Jews. (18) In Piotrokow, south of Lodz, Romek Zaks is remembered as the first Jewish victim. He was killed in a heavy aerial bombardment. Along with victims of bombardment or other war casualties, there were also planned actions against Jewish Poles as German troops crossed the border into Western Poland.

Wielufi, southwest of Lodz, was completely destroyed in the first two days of September. The Germans burned most of the town, and the population fled, although many Jews returned later. Every day saw public hangings, forced labor, executions, and beatings, (19) as well as unusual or one-of-a-kind humiliations. In a campaign to Germanize the town, Christian and Jewish Poles were expelled and replaced by Germans from the Baltic countries, from Bessarabia, and from Wollin, Germany. In some instances the motive was retaliation, but the atrocities were largely a result of ideology ingrained in the SS about the inferiority of Jews and, to a lesser degree, of Poles.

One of the first killings was recorded near the Silesian border at Bolestawiec, known as Bunzlau in German. At about 5 a.m. on September 2, SS motorcycle guards from the Leibstandart "Adolf Hitler" entered the town. About forty minutes later, a full contingent of SS troops came and pulled Jewish and Polish citizens from their homes, separating them into two groups at the market square. During this time, several Jews were killed on the spot. Then the SS began to march both groups south with the Jews under heavy guard until they reached the border. There about 400 Jews were kept out in the open with no food for several days and then allowed to return home, although many of their homes had been burned and plundered during their absence. (20)

The roads quickly became congested with the populations of towns from along the border trying to flee across the Warta River toward Sieradz ahead of the rapidly advancing Nazis. Many lost their lives on the roads as the German Luftwaffe deliberately dive-bombed and strafed the refugees, who had little place to find shelter. The Germans approached Zloczew on September 2. Over the next couple of days, 200 people lost their lives. The Wehrmacbt randomly shot and killed refugees and townspeople on the streets and in their homes. With wanton brutality as they hurled missiles and grenades, they burned large sections of the town. Of the 200 Poles killed, 150 were Jewish. Jews had numbered 2,067 or thirty-nine percent of the population at the beginning of the war.

Many of those who fled returned a few days later to find the town destroyed. The Germans concentrated those who survived into a small area of the town and, after two months, took them by truck to the railway at Sieradz and from there by cattle car to Lublin, where they lived in a ghetto in deplorable conditions. (21) From Lublin, they were later deported to Majdanek, where they perished in the gas chambers. About 1,400 were also deported to Zdunska Wola and from there to the Lodz ghetto.

On September 3, Great Britain and France declared war on Poland. On that day, 17-20 Jews were killed in Wieruszow, a town on the frontier with a population of 2,300-2,400 Jews. (22) A few hours after the Germans entered the town, the SS took them to the market square for execution. Some time later, eighty Jews, wearing traditional clothing, were loaded into railroad cars and sent to Nuremberg. The journey, which lasted a week, was filmed for propaganda use. There were signs on the cars that stated that these Jews had killed Germans. After a week, they returned home. (23)

German troops began a concentrated land offensive on September 5. Ozorkow, located southwest of Kalisz, had a Jewish community dating from 1811. The population was an outgrowth of the success of the textile industry in Lodz as the Jews in town were associated with cotton manufacturing, the town's major industry. By 1900, over half of the population was Jewish. In the first days of the war, there were street battles throughout the town. When the Germans occupied the town on September 5, they shot and killed twenty-four Jews in the streets. The synagogue and beit midrash were burned down, and Jewish men were seized for forced labor. At the end of 1939, Jewish families were evicted from their homes, and a ghetto was established. Most of the community perished at Chelmno in the spring and summer of 1942. (24)

As the Germans crossed the border into Poland, the Jews in Sieradz had abandoned the town. They began slowly to return when the Germans occupied the town on September 3. Right away, the persecutions began with Germans robbing Jewish shops and homes. On September 15, Rosh Hashanah, the Nazis killed five Jews and two non-Jewish Poles. In the following days, other Jews were murdered, eventually reaching a total of thirty-three. After the capitulation there came expulsions. Some Jews were sent to internment camps in Germany, but most to the Lublin area in the General Government. In December, 1939, about 1,200 Jews were expelled to Sandomierz in sealed cars. Younger Jewish people were sent to work camps in the Poznan area. The final expulsion occurred August 24-27, 1942, when about 200 young people were transported to the Lodz ghetto, and the rest were sent to their deaths at Chelmno. (25)

On September 7, there were seven Jewish people killed in Aleksandrow Kujawski, which had a population of about 1,000 Jews. After a few days, on September 10, the Germans burned the synagogue and destroyed the Jewish cemetery. Several days later dozens more were killed. By the end of 1939, most of the community was deported to Warsaw and other towns in the General Government. (26) The Jewish community of Zdunska Wola, later renamed Freihaus, had a population of 9,400-10,000 Jews when Germany attacked. During the siege, many Jews fled the city, but most returned later. The persecution that was suffered by the Jews began as soon as Polish authorities fled. When the Germans reached the town on September 6 and 7, fellow citizens informed on those who had wealth and goods and, at times, even joined the Germans in brutal attacks.

A day later, the Germans threw grenades at the main synagogue and then turned it into a horse stable. They shot three Jews in the first days. Some of the young, unmarried men fled to areas of Poland occupied by the Soviet Union. In December, 1939, the Germans wanted to expel 400 families from the town, but the decree was annulled in exchange for a fine of 50,000 zlotys. That spring a ghetto was set up outside of town. New non-Jewish settlers arrived from Wollin, Germany, and occupied the Jewish homes. The ghetto was liquidated in August, 1942, and 6,000-8,000 were murdered in Chelmno. At the same time, a transport of 1,000-1,200 of those who were able to work was transferred to the Lodz ghetto. (27)

Zgierz in the Lodz district had a population of about 4,800 Jews. Five people lost their lives before the German Army had even reached the city on September 7. The Germans murdered them as they were fleeing, throwing their limbs into the river. As they entered the town, they murdered another Jew and arrested a significant number, imprisoning them in a church under brutal conditions. Three days later, the plundering of Jewish property began. One Jew who resisted was buried alive. They burned Jewish sacred texts and religious objects at the market place and forced Jews to dance, wearing prayer shawls. The Germans assessed large fines on the community and, in November, they burned the main synagogue. The community came to an end in December when the Germans ordered the people to gather at the market square, where they robbed them of their last valuables before driving them out of town to Glowno in the General Government. (28)

Pabianice was one of the oldest Jewish communities in Poland. The Germans reached the city on September 8. By Rosh Hashanah, the synagogue stood in ruins, and what remained was in use as a stable. The Jews were forced from their homes in November to make room for Volksdeutsche. In February, 1940, a ghetto was established with 8,000-9,000 people. The ghetto inhabitants were stamped and divided into two groups. This was followed by the ghetto's liquidation in May, 1942. Most of the ghetto inhabitants perished at Chelmno. (29) At the same time, the Germans marched into Nieszawa, where they arrested thirty-two of the wealthiest persons, including twelve who were Jewish. The next day, the population of the city was forced to watch each of the twelve flogged. At the end of October, all of the Jews in the town were deported to the Lublin district. (30)

Kutno, whose population of 6,700 was one-quarter Jewish, was among the largest towns in Western Poland. (31) It had a military installation, so it experienced heavy shelling. Many Jews left the town and later returned. On September 9, bombing left eighteen Jews among the casualties. The synagogue and the belt midrash were used as temporary hospitals when Jewish refugees began to crowd the town. The Germans entered the town on September 15. Soon after, they carried out a house-to-house search. Hundreds of men, Jews and non-Jews, were shut in a church and a movie house for several days. One group of Jews was sent to Piatek for hard labor, and another group of seventy were sent to a prisoners- of-war camp for civilians at Leczyca.

Bearded Jews and those wearing Kapota were frequently chosen for abuse. The Germans pulled out their hair and their beards with skin attached. People praying in the belt midrash were forced to pick up horse manure with their bare hands. The great synagogue was set afire, although the interior was not destroyed until later. The Germans robbed merchandise from Jewish stores and homes after informers told them what the merchants had hidden away. Mills and factories were confiscated. By December, all males between the ages of fourteen and sixty had to work a full day twice a week for the Germans. Jewish refugees in Kutno feared expulsion as Germans moved into their properties. (32) The lack of medical supplies, food, and heating fuel led to illness and epidemics. The mortality rate grew to ten times the pre-war rate. (33)

Nearly half of the population of Belchatow to the south of Pabianice was Jewish. Many citizens fled with the approach of the Germans, but most returned. During their absence, non-Jews in the city plundered Jewish properties. Shelling destroyed many homes, stores, and factories as the Germans took the city. First, the Germans demanded that the Jewish people bury the corpses in the city and do various kinds of hard labor. They forced the Jews to parade through the city wearing prayer shawls and singing, "We Jews are war criminals." During the High Holy days, the synagogues were burned, and they ordered the community to bring the Torah scrolls to the marketplace to be thrown into a bonfire. During the first months of the occupation, 1,000 Jews left the town. Refugees, including Germans from the Baltic countries, moved into their residences. The remaining Jews were forced into a small area to live. The final phase of the Jewish community came on August 11, 1942. (34)

The Germans reached Koto, a town with a Jewish population of 4,987, on September 18. The next day the men were assembled for work repairing bridges blown up during the siege. A number of them drowned as they were forced to bring up stones from the river bottom. The next day, the Germans set fire to the synagogue and fined the community for the supposed "crime." On December 10, 1939, there were 1,139 Jews held for over a week and then expelled to Izbica Lubelska in the General Government. German settlers moved into their homes and shops. A second expulsion occurred in the fall of 1940 when 150 Jewish families were taken by cart to a country ghetto set up in two villages, Bugaj and Nowiny Brdowskie. Along with 240 Jews from Babiak, they were housed in farmers' dwellings. (35) From December 7 to 11, 1941, the Jews of Kolo remaining in the ghetto were murdered at Chetmno. (36) In Konin, near Koto, there was no ghetto established, but most of the Jews were sent to Ostrowiec Kielecki, Grodziec, Rzgow, or Zagorow. Many were murdered in the surrounding forests. After that, a work camp was established in Konin, where Jews from Gostynin and Gombin were imprisoned. (37)

During the siege, Jews in the areas of Western Poland fled into Eastern Poland, with the hope of reaching the Soviet Union. In many areas, the local Jewish population was evicted and sent into the General Government. Jews in Turek were expelled to Bochnia near Cracow in December, 1939, where they labored in German workshops such as tailoring and carpentry. The Jews at Turek were the second population group murdered at Chelmno. Germans requisitioned Jewish homes for German settlers from the east. Many came to Turek from Bessarabia. A closed ghetto was established in the spring of 1940. Young men were sent to labor camps in the Poznan and Inowrodaw areas.

The large-scale murder of Jews began in the fall of 1941 in the forests of Western Poland. On October 20, 1941, the Germans closed the Turek ghetto and moved the Jews to a poor agricultural area south of town near several large flour mills, where they established the Kowale Pafiskie Kolonie, one of the only agricultural ghettos in Europe. Eventually, the Germans brought 6,000-7,000 Jews from other small ghettos in the region to the area of about thirty-five square kilometers surrounding sixteen or seventeen villages. The Jews were told to become farmers, and tailoring and craft workshops were established. People lived in lime huts and barns or out in the open. The area was never fenced in. Locals referred to the ghetto as Czachulec after the name of the central village; the Germans called it "Die Judenkolonie Heidemuhle." The Jews in the region referred to it simply as "Die Kolonie."

In a short time, the Germans told the Jews to draw up a list of those fit for work. Three rabbis belabored what to do. Finally, they decided to follow the orders of the authorities and mark the lists "F" for fit or "U" for unfit, but to grant everyone the right to see the list. (38) In the end, the Germans ignored the list and made the life-or-death decisions on their own. (39) Some time later, 1,100 people were taken from the ghetto and shut in the church in Dobra before being deported to Chelmno, December 12-13, 1941. The last transport took place July 20-21, 1942. (40) The elderly and sick were murdered and buried in a nearby forest where their graves remain unmarked today.

For the first year, the killings in the Wartheland were random acts of cruelty. Actions that can be described as liquidations of the sick and the elderly began as early as the fall of 1940. By the second half of 1940, most of the Jewish communities that remained in the Wartheland had become closed ghettos. In September or October of 1941, experiments in efficient executions were undertaken in Konin County. Jews were driven into ditches and covered with quicklime and left to die. The first death camp, Chelmno, was laid out in early November, 1941, with staff from the T-4 euthanasia program. It began full operation in December when the Jews remaining at Kolo were murdered from December 8 to 10, followed by victims from Kowale Panskie on December 13 and 14, using mobile gas vans.

By September, 1943, all of the remaining ghettos in Western Poland were closed, except for Lodz. The Wartheland had become effectively judenrein. The people from more than fifty Jewish communities had either been deported into the General Government or murdered in the Wartheland. The Lodz ghetto carried on until August, 1944, when the last Jews were sent to Auschwitz. When the Soviets reached the city they found only about 800 Jews, the vestige of one of the most vibrant Jewish communities of Europe. By July, 1944, some 152,000 Jews had been murdered at Chelmno.

After the war, the few survivors who returned home to Western Poland were often not welcomed back to their hometowns. Yadzia Podchlebnik recalls that when she went back to her parent's home in Turek in 1945, thugs threw her out. Jakob Waldman, who wrote the first study on Chelmno, was killed by the Armia Krajowa in September, 1945. Mieta Markowska survived Auschwitz and returned to her hometown Tuliskow to get some of her possessions, where she was murdered by the A. Krajowa. (41)

(1) Israel Gutman et al. Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990).

(2) Gleiwitz is now known as Gliwice. It is located in Poland.

(3) "W. H. Auden: Blitzkrieg September 1, 1939--A New Kind of Warfare Engulfs Poland," Time, August 28, 1989; available at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,958453,00. html.

(4) See http:// www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Reichsgau-Wartheland for "Reichsgau Wartheland."

(5) Michael Palomino, "Wartheland," in Encyclopedia Judaica (1971), vol. 13, p. 753; also see http://www.geschichteinchronologie.ch/eu/PL/ EncJud_juden.in.Polen05-01-hol- Wartheland-Danzig -Zichenau-ENGL.html.

(6) Martin Gilbert, The Macmillan Atlas of the Holocaust (New York: MacMillan Publishing Co., 1982), p. 32.

(7) Ibid., p. 31.

(8) Palomino, "Wartheland," p. 753.

(9) See "Warthegau" at http://www.knowledgerush. com/kr/encyclopedia/Warthegau/.

(10) "The Holocaust in Poland," Midwest Center for Holocaust Education, Curriculum Archive; available at http://www.mchekc.org/ArchiveCurriculum/ Appendices/AppendixCPoland.pdf.

(11) Martin Gilbert, The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe during the Second World War (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1985), p. 85.

(12) Wolf Gruner, Jewish Forced Labor under the Nazis: Economic Needs and Racial Aims,

1938-1944, tr. Kathleen M. Dell'Orto (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

(13) Gilbert, Macmillan Atlas, p. 39.

(14) Benjamin Jacobs, The Dentist of Auschwitz (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 1994); available at http:// www.nizkor.org/features/dentist/.

(15) Theo Richmond, Konm: One Man's Quest for a Vanished Jewish Community (New York: Vintage Books, 1996).

(16) Yehoshua Eibeshitz, The Uprooted: A Survivor's Autobiography, tr. Elizabeth Eilenberg-Eibeshitz (Haifa: E. Eibeshitz Institute for Holocaust Studies, 2002).

(17) Abram Korn, Abe's Story: A Holocaust Memoir, ed. Joseph W. Korn, annotated Richard Voyles (Atlanta, GA: Longstreet Press, 1995).

(18) Richard Vinen, A History in Fragments: Europe in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2001), p. 200.

(19) "Wielun," tr. Corinnne Appleton, in Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities, Poland, vol. I, Lodz and Its Region, translation of Pessach Egoldberg, Danutal Dabrowska, Abraham Wein Jakubowicz, and Aharon Weiss, Pinkas hakehillot Polin: entsiklopedyah shel ha-yishuvim ha- Yehudiyim le-min hivasdam ve-ad le-ahar Sho'at Milhemet ha-olam ha-shentyah, ed. Danuta Dabrowska and Abraham Wein (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1976), pp. 94-98; available at http://www.jewishgen.org/ yizkor/pinkas_poland/poll_00094a.html (hereafter, Pinkas hakehillot Polm).

(20) Alexander B. Rossino, Hitler Strikes Poland: Blitzkrieg, Ideology, and Atrocity, Modem War Studies (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2003), pp. 157-158.

(21) Raphael Lechman (Kojuch), "During the Shoa Destruction: From Zloczew to Auschwitz," tr. Moshe Shubinsky, from Sefer Zloczew (Tel Aviv, 1971), pp. 249-253; at http://www.jewishgen.org/ yizkor/zloczew/Zlo249.html.

(22) Avraham Klevan, ed., "We Remember! Jewish Communities Destroyed in the Holocaust: Poland, 1.9.1939" (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1982); see http://www.zchor.org/hitachdut/lost.htm

(23) Shmuel Spector and Geoffrey Wigoder, eds., The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life before and during the Holocaust (New York: New York University Press; Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2001), vol. 3, p. 1445.

(24) See http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/ jsource/Holocaust/Chelmno.html.

(25) "Sieradz," tr. Corinnne Appleton, in Pinkas hakehillot Polin, pp. 263-265, at http://www. jewishgen.org/yizkor/ pinkas_poland/poll_00263.html; and "Sieradz," in Spector and Wigoder, Encyclopedia of Jewish Life, vol. 3, p. 1181.

(26) See http://polin.org.p1/cities/521/info/; also see Gilbert, Macmillan Atlas, p. 33, map 29.

(27) "Zdunska Wola," tr. Alex P. Korn, in Pinkas Hakehillot Polin, pp. 111-116, at http://www. jewishgen.org/yizkor/Pinkas_poland/po11_00111.html.

(28) "Zgierz," tr. Morris Gradel, in Pinkas hakehillot Polin, pp. 106-111, at http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/ pinkas_poland/pol1_00106.html.

(29) See http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary. org/jsouree/Holocaust/Chelmno.html.

(30) Palomino, "Wartheland," p. 753.

(31) "Photographs of Kutno taken from the "Case Files of War Criminals--Through the Lens of History: Kutno," Yad Vashem; available at http://wwwl.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/ our_collections/kutno/index.asp.

(32) "Kutno," tr. Carole Borowitz and Thia Persoff, in Pinkas hakehillot Polin, pp. 223-229, at http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/ pinkas_poland/poll_00223.html.

(33) See Aktion Reinhard Camps at http://www.deathcamps.org/occupation/ghettos.html.

(34) "Belchatow," tr. Cheryl Lipsius, ed. Jerry Libowitz, in Pmkas hakehillot Polin, pp. 70-77, at http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/ pinkas_poland/pol1_00070.html.

(35) "Babiak," tr. Morris Gradel, in Pinkas hakehillot Polin, p. 59, at http://www.jewishgen.org/ yikor/pinkas_poland/pol1_00059.html.

(36) "Kolo," tr. Corinnne Appleton, in Pinkas hakehillot Polin, p. 230, at http://www.jewishgen. org/yizkor/pinkas_poland/pol1_00230.html.

(37) "Konin," tr. Morris Gradel, in Pinkas hakehillot Polin, pp. 235-238, at http://www.jewishgen. org/yikor/pinkas_poland/pol1_00235.html.

(38) Esther Farbstein and Rachelle Emanuel. Hidden in Thunder: Perspectives on Faith, Halachah, and Leadership during the Holocaust, tr. Deborah Stem (Jerusalem: Feldheim, 2007), p. 195.

(39) Isaiah Trunk, Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe under Nazi Occupation (New York: Macmillan Co.; London: Collier-Macmillan Ltd., 1972), p. 249.

(40) Based on Krzysztof Gorezca's and Zdzislaw Lorek's unpublished fragments from "Day by Day in Kulmhof am Ner," in e-mail to author, September 9, 2005.

(41) See Moshe Rosen, "A Trip to the Valley of Death," unpublished manuscript, 2004. The Turek Organization in Israel, Sefer zikaron le-kehilat Turek ve-li-kedoshehah [Yizkor Book Turek], Tel Aviv, 1982, p. 416. Notes of author from interviews with Bronia Roslawowski, 2004-06.