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DEPORTATIONS

A JEWISH CZECH GIRL

DEPORTATION
A JEWISH CZECH GIRL on her way to Terezin, 1941. Photographer, Jan Lukas, took photos of the tragic situation that the Jewish Czechoslovakian residents found themselves in. He bonded with the Vogel family, and eventually took this photo with their permission.

A LONG COLUMN OF JEWS MARCHES THROUGH THE STREETS OF PABIANICE

A LONG COLUMN OF JEWS MARCHES THROUGH THE STREETS OF PABIANICE, a long column of Jews marches through the streets of Pabianice during a deportation action. Despite the harsh living conditions in the ghetto, there was a small theatre staging plays and vaudeville shows. The former Jewish school housed a Jewish-only hospital. On May 16-18, 1942, the liquidation of the ghetto took place. On May 16, the SS and SA encircled Warszawska and Zamkowa Streets, which were inside the ghetto. Jewish citizens were led along these streets. The weak, the ill, and those who did not agree to leave their homes were killed instantly. The living were kept in a stadium on Zamkowa Street. The area was encircled with a high fence.

A ONE WAY DEPORTATION TRAIN TO DEATH

A ONE-WAY DEPORTATION TRAIN TO DEATH, the Holocaust left deep marks on Slovakia. In 1942 and 1944, more than 70,000 Jews were deported from what was then the territory of Slovakia. The majority of them perished in concentration camps.

A pencil sketch by unknown inmate

A pencil sketch by unknown inmate showing a transport of Jews, guarded by armed German soldiers. by inmates at the Szolayski house in Krakow, Poland. (Bartosz Bartyzel/Auschwitz Museum)

All the Jewish families

ALL THE JEWISH FAMILIES of Cluj are rounded up. One mother manages to hand over her child to a Christian neighbor. © Benjamin Grünfeld.

ARREST IN GRODEK

ARREST IN GRODEK, Polish refugees at Croydon Airport being deported back to Poland by British police in March 1939.

AUTUMN TRANSPORTS

AUTUMN TRANSPORTS from the Ghetto Terezín in 1944 and reminiscences of two human fates.

Benjamin Grünfeld

Benjamin Grünfeld, Selection at the Buna/Monowitz concentration camp. © Benjamin Grünfeld.

BOARDING FOR AUSCHWITZ

BOARDING FOR AUSCHWITZ, Westerbork, Netherlands, Jews boarding a deportation train to Auschwitz.

BRATISLAVA DEPORTATION

BRATISLAVA DEPORTATION, at the beginning of 1942, just before the deportations of Jews from Slovakia to the death camps in Poland began, some 8,400 Jews remained in Bratislava. In March 1942, a hunt for Jewish youths was conducted. Hundreds of young men and boys were arrested and sent to the camp of Sered, from where they were deported to Majdanek. Some 380 young Jewish women from Bratislava and adjacent towns were sent to the temporary camp of Patronka, erected in an abandoned factory on the outskirts of Bratislava; the camp was, at this time, a holding place for hundreds of young women from western Slovakia who had been arrested. On the night of 28 March 1942, some 1,000 young women from the camp were marched to a remote railway station, crammed into freight cars and sent to Auschwitz. A few dozen escaped the deportation but were recaptured; they were deported to Auschwitz on the 2nd of April. The Slovaks paid Germany to take the Jewish population away and this was all done by Slovak guards, with little German help.

BRZEZANY JEWS BEING DEPORTED

BRZEZANY JEWS BEING DEPORTED, bridge over the river. Prior to World War II the Jewish population in Berezhany was approximately 4,000. In 1941 at the end of Soviet occupation 12,000 Jews were living in Berezhany, most of them refugees fleeing the horrors of the Nazi war machine in Europe. During the Holocaust, on Oct. 1, 1941, 500–700 Jews were executed by the Germans in the nearby quarries. On Dec. 18, another 1,200, listed as poor by the Judenrat, were shot in the forest. On Yom Kippur 1942 (Sept. 21), 1,000–1,500 were deported to Belzec and hundreds murdered in the streets and in their homes. On Hanukkah (Dec. 4–5) hundreds more were sent to Belzec and on June 12, 1943, the last 1,700 Jews of the ghetto and labor camp were liquidated, with only a few individuals escaping. Less than 100 Berezhany Jews survived the war.

Column of Jews

COLUMN OF JEWS with a Jewish star in front of a freight car, deportation, Holocaust, mural by street artist Lacuna, 40 Grad Urban Art Festival 2019, Dusseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, Europe Credit: Album / ImageBroker / Karl F. SchÃ¶fmann

CZECH JEWS ARE DEPORTED FROM BAUSCHOVITZ TO THERESIENSTADT GHETTO

CZECH JEWS ARE DEPORTED FROM AUSCHWITZ TO THERESIENSTADT GHETTO. Czech Jews are deported from Bauschovitz to Theresienstadt ghetto. Czechoslovakia, between 1941 and 1943. Credits: Jewish Museum of Prague. In November 1941, RSHA chief Reinhard Heydrich ordered the creation of a camp-ghetto at Theresienstadt, 37.5 miles (60 km) north of Prague. Between 1941 and late 1944, the German authorities, assisted by local Czech gendarmerie, deported 73,603 Jews from Prague, Brno, Ostrava, Olomouc, and other towns of the Protectorate to Theresienstadt. Most stayed only briefly in Theresienstadt, which served as a transit camp for Protectorate Jews. SS and police personnel deported the vast majority to killing sites in the Baltic States and transit camp-ghettos in District Lublin in occupied Poland in 1941–1942 and, from 1942 on, to Auschwitz. Of 82,309 Jews deported from the Protectorate, the Germans and their collaborators killed approximately 71,000 in the Holocaust. The occupation authorities and their Czech collaborators killed another 7,000 Protectorate Jews in Bohemia and Moravia. By 1945, some 14,000 Protectorate Jews remained alive in the Czech lands.

DEPORTATION

DEPORTATION, Jews carrying their possessions during deportation to the Chelmno extermination camp. Most of the people seen here had previously been deported to Lodz from central Europe. Lodz, Poland, between January and April 1942.

DEPORTATION DESTINATION BELZEC EXTERMINATION CAMP

DEPORTATION, DESTINATION BELZEC EXTERMINATION CAMP, To carry out the mass murder of Europe's Jews, the SS established killing centers devoted exclusively or primarily to the destruction of human beings in gas chambers. Belzec was among these killing centers. It was one of three killing centers linked to Operation Reinhard, the SS plan to murder almost two million Jews living in the German-administered territory of occupied Poland called the General Government.

DEPORTATION OF HUNGARIAN JEWS

DEPORTATION OF HUNGARIAN JEWS, Hungarian gendarmerie escorting them. In 1941, the legislation passed the third Jewish Law, which is known in Hungarian history as the racist ("race-protecting") law. One could go on listing the laws (and decrees) issued against citizens of Hungary described as Jews. Yet, for all their discriminatory quality, these acts did not mean cramming people into cattle-cars and deporting them. According to the documents so far discovered, the German-type "settlement" of the Jewish question in Hungary was raised between the Third Reich and Hungary for the first time in 1942.7 It is true, however, recent research indicate that Nazi Germany put considerable pressure on Hungary as early as during the summer and fall of 1940, to adopt some race-protection laws, in return for territorial expansion. The government of Miklós Kállay (1942-1944) as well as Horthy himself flatly refused the German demands. Until the spring of 1944 the position of hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews can be described as relatively safe - this despite the fact that the Jewish Laws made their lives difficult. Jewish men were forced to serve as laborers in the armed forces. Tens of thousands of these men died on the Russian front along with Hungarian soldiers; and more than 18,000 Jews, qualified as aliens were deported to Kamenets-Podolsky in the Ukraine, in the summer of 1941, where they were massacred by the German SS, Hungarian soldiers, and Ukrainian militia. During the War, approximately 15-20,000 Jews from abroad found refuge in Hungary. During 1942 and 1943, these Jews - as we know from the depositions of a number of Polish and Slovak refugees - were amazed by the nearly undisturbed life of the Jews in Hungary. They were particularly impressed by the fact that the traffic near the synagogues on Yom Kippur was directed by white gloved policemen in dress uniform. In March 1944, Hungary had the largest Jewish community, around 800 thousand people including converts. This was the largest grouping of Jews anywhere in German-controlled Europe. Still, hardly ten days after the German occupation, Edmund Veesenmayer, the plenipotentiary representative of the Reich, summed up favorably the results of the harmonious cooperation between the German and the Hungarian authorities. He reported home that, "considering the conditions here, this development /i.e. promulgation of the first anti-Jewish decrees/ can be said to be very fast." March 19th. Very exciting day. ... our German brothers are allegedly coming. There was something in the air. People were sent home from the movies, but the soccer game was held."9 These are the words Lieutenant General Kálmán Shvoy wrote into his diary (in Szeged). In many places, the population believed that the Germans were just marching through the country and at one place, in Kaposvár, Jewish housewives offered cake to the German soldiers. Directly after the German occupation, a number of gendarmerie posts sent the higher authorities reports to the effect that German soldiers were breaking into, and plundering, houses of Israelite families. Although there was no open investigation in these cases, the German military headquarters were notified. They replied saying: "The case will not go unpunished; strict orders have been issued to German soldiers to refrain from taking any material objects, and anyone not returning these objects to where they have been taken from, will be severely punished." More than one persecuted person returning to Hungary from deportation after the war recalled that the German military had behaved decently toward the Jewish population, whereas the Gestapo had been very cruel.

DEPORTATION OF JEWISH CHILDREN FROM THE LODZ GHETTOS

DEPORTATION OF JEWISH CHILDREN FROM THE LODZ GHETTO, deportation of Jewish children from the Lodz ghetto in German-occupied Poland during the "Gehsperre" Aktion, September 1942. US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Jacob Igra.

DEPORTATION OF JEWS BY BULGARIAN

DEPORTATION OF JEWS BY BULGARIAN authorities. Lom, Bulgaria, March 1943.

DEPORTATION OF JEWS FROM DRANCY TO AUSCHWITZ

DEPORTATION OF JEWS, FROM DRANCY TO AUSCHWITZ, on 20 August 1941, Drancy became an assembly camp for Jews, after the arrival of the first internees arrested for racial motives. By 24 August, 4.232 Jewish men between the ages of 15 to 50, arrested during a roundup in Paris, were delivered to the camp, which, between November 1941 and July 1942, also served as a hostage reserve for the Military Commander in Occupied France. When attacks against the occupier or its collaborators occurred, the Nazis took hostages among the Jews in Drancy and had them shot. The first transport for Auschwitz-Birkenau left on 22 June 1942. Between 22 June 1942 and 17 August 1944, 62 transports left Drancy.

Deportation of Jews from Krakow

DEPORTATION OF JEWS FROM KRAKOW

DEPORTATION OF JEWS

DEPORTATION OF JEWS during the Marseille roundup, 23 January 1943.

DEPORTATION OF JEWS FROM RZESZOW GHETTO 1942

DEPORTATION OF JEWS FROM RZESZOW GHETTO 1942, on the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, there were according to estimates some 14,000 Jews living in the city. The Germans bombarded Rzeszow on September 9, 1939, and the following day on September 10, 1939, occupied the city. As the German forces drew closer, many Jews tried to flee to the east, but most were turned back. The Germans ordered a census, including a special listing of the city's Jews. Many were put to forced labor, such as office and street cleaning and bridge repairs, and other forms of menial labor. During this work the Jews were often beaten, and the beards and side locks of the Orthodox Jews were torn off their faces. Within the first month, the interiors of the synagogues were vandalized, and their contents desecrated. The apartments of the wealthy Jews were taken over by German officers. The Jewish hospital was turned into a military installation.

DEPORTATION OF JEWS FROM SKOPLJE

DEPORTATION OF JEWS FROM SKOPLJE, The French Vichy government revokes civil rights of French Jews in North Africa. Jun 22, 1941. In April 1941, Macedonia was annexed to Bulgaria, and Macedonia’s Jews were subjected to discriminatory Bulgarian legislation. In September 1942, the Jews were forced to identify their homes and places of business, and all Jews aged ten and over were made to wear a Star of David on their left breast. Already in late 1941, negotiations between the Germans and the Bulgarians had begun regarding the deportation of the Bulgarian Jews to the death camps. On February 1943, Bulgaria signed an agreement with Germany to deport 20,000 Jews from its territories, including all the Jews of Macedonia and northern Thrace, and Jews from Bulgaria itself. On 11 March 1943, in a well-planned operation, 7,341 Macedonian Jews were caught and imprisoned in a provisional transit camp established in the government tobacco warehouses in Skopje. Over three days, 22, 25 and 29 March 1943, 7,144 of these Jews were deported to the Treblinka death camp. Only 200 Macedonian Jews survived the war.

DEPORTATION OF WLOCLAVEK JEWS TO CHELMNO

DEPORTATION OF WLOCLAVEK JEWS TO CHELMNO, a group of Jewish residents of the Lublin ghetto stand in line to board a cattle car. Approximately 10,000 Jews lived in Wloclawek before the war. Yiddish and Hebrew culture flourished with libraries, newspapers, a theater, a choir, an amateur orchestra, and sports clubs. On September 14, 1939, the German army entered the city, and aided by local sympathizers, began looting Jewish property, shooting Jews, and burning synagogues. At the end of 1939, many Jews were sent to the ghettos of other cities, and the remaining Jews in Wloclawek were moved into a ghetto in October 1940. On 24-27 of April 1942, the ghetto was liquidated when the remaining Jews, mostly the elderly, women and children were sent to their death in Chelmno.

DEPORTATION TO AUSCHWITZ

DEPORTATION TO AUSCHWITZ, Jews from Subcarpathian Rus undergo a selection on the ramp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. In 1939, census records showed that 80,000 Jews lived in the autonomous province of Ruthenia. Jews made up approximately 14% of the prewar population, however this population was concentrated in the larger towns, especially Mukachevo, where they constituted 43% of the prewar population. After the German occupation of Hungary (19 March 1944) the pro-Nazi policies of the Hungarian government resulted in emigration and deportation of Hungarian-speaking Jews, and other groups living in the territory were decimated by war. During the Holocaust, 17 main ghettos were set up in cities in Carpathian Ruthenia, from which all Jews were taken to Auschwitz for extermination. Ruthenian ghettos were set up in May 1944 and liquidated by June 1944. Most of the Jews of Transcarpathia were killed, though a number survived, either because they were hidden by their neighbors, or were forced into labor battalions, which often guaranteed food and shelter.

DEPORTATION TO BELZEC

DEPORTATION TO BELZEC, Deportation of Jews from Zamość to Bełżec death camp in April 1942. In 1931, the Jewish population in Zamosc was 10,265. Polish mobs attacked Jews prior to the German occupation of the city on October 7, 1939. In April 1941, the Jews were confined to a ghetto. Deportations began on April 11, 1942, when about 3,000 Jews were sent to the Belzec death camp. Deportations continued until the final liquidation of the ghetto on October 16, 1942.

Deportation to Death

DEPORTATION TO TREBLINKA

DEPORTATION TO TREBLINKA, condemned Jewish families board a Holocaust train to Treblinka during liquidation of the ghetto in Siedice. Jewish women and children are transported by horse-drawn wagon during a deportation action in the Siedlce ghetto. During the liquidation of the ghetto on August 22-24, 1942, 10,000 Jews were deported to the Treblinka killing center.

DEPORTATIONS FROM LODZ TO CHELMNO

DEPORTATIONS FROM LODZ TO CHELMNO, Jewish deportees from the Lodz ghetto who are being taken to the Chelmno death camp, are transferred from a closed passenger train to a train of open cars at the Kolo train station. German authorities begin the deportation of Jews from the Lodz ghetto to the Chelmno killing center. Between December 1941 and March 1943 and again in June–July 1944, at least 167,000 Jews and approximately 4,300 Roma (Gypsies) are killed at Chelmno. The majority of victims are Jews deported from the Lodz ghetto and other smaller ghettos in the surrounding region. The Jews of Lodz formed the second largest Jewish community in prewar Poland, after Warsaw.

DEPORTATIONS OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY

DEPORTATIONS OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY of Ioannina by the Nazis on March 25, 1944.

Deported to the camp from Paris

Deported to the camp from Paris in 1943, Olère was forced into the Sonderkommando - a unit which collected corpses after gassing.

EUROPEAN ROMA AND SINTI

EUROPEAN ROMA AND SINTI in Asperg, Nazi Germany, are rounded up for deportation by Nazi German authorities on 22 May 1940.

FINAL SOLUTION IN OCCUPIED FRANCE

FINAL SOLUTION IN OCCUPIED FRANCE, Jews arrive at the Drancy transit camp by bus. France, 1942–44. Between 1933 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its allies established more than 44,000 camps and other incarceration sites (including ghettos). The perpetrators used these locations for a range of purposes, including forced labor, detention of people deemed to be “enemies of the state,” and mass murder. Millions of people suffered and died or were killed. Among these sites was the Drancy transit camp in France.

GREEK JEWS

GREEK JEWS, Jews are expelled from their homes from northern Greece (from the territory that annexes to Bulgaria).

JEWS WERE DELIVERED

JEWS WERE DELIVERED by train to Koło, then to nearby Powiercie, and in overcrowded lorries to the camp. They were forced to abandon their bundles along the way. In this photo, loading of victims sent from the Łódź Ghetto.

Helga Weissova

HELGA WEISSOVA (b. 1929), Transport Leaving Terezin, 1943. Artwork title in Czech: Odchazejici Transport. Watercolor and ink on paper, signed “hw” on the bottom left. People walk past the Hamburg barracks to the train that will deliver them to Auschwitz. Others witness their deportation—and say goodbye.

JEWS ARRESTED

JEWS ARRESTED after the suppressed uprising in the Warsaw ghetto leave for a transport to Treblinka, 19. April - 16. April 1943. (Photo: National Archive, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives.)

JEWS BOARD TRAINS BOUND FOR TREBLINKA

JEWS BOARD TRAINS BOUND FOR TREBLINKA, During the liquidation of the ghettos starting in 1942, the trains were used to transport the condemned populations to death camps. Between July and September 1942, German SS and police units, supported by non-German auxiliaries, deported approximately 300,000 Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka II killing center. German SS and police personnel used violence to force Jews to march from their homes or places of work to the Umschlagplatz (concentration point) and forced them to board freight cars bound for Malkinia, on the Warsaw-Bialystok rail line. When the trains arrived in Malkinia, they were diverted along a special rail spur to Treblinka.

Jews deported from Hungary

JEWS DEPORTED FROM HUNGARY exit a German boxcar onto a crowded railway platform at Auschwitz concentration camp, Poland, in 1944. Hulton Archive/Getty Images

JOANINA, GREECE DEPORTATION OF JEWS

JOANINA, GREECE DEPORTATION OF JEWS, March 24, 1944: Ancient Community Rounded Up for Deportation, Extermination. On 25.3.1944, under the direction of Order Police Major H a f r a n e k and with the cooperation of the squad, the military police, the Order Police and the GFP 621 (Joannina Branch), the Jews of Joannina were evacuated. The Greek police was also called to assist [in the evacuation]. At 3:00 a.m. on March 25, the squad closed off the ghettos. At 5 a.m. the head of the Jewish community was informed that all Jews, along with their family members, would have to come to two designated assembly points within the next three hours. Each family was allowed to take along 50 kg of luggage. The Greek Gendarmerie and the Security Police [Sicherheitspolizei], as well as members of the Jewish Council, notified the Hebrews. At the same time, it was announced that any Jew not present at the assembly point by 8:00 would be shot. By 7:45 all quarters had been cleared, and the Jews had appeared at the assembly square. Heavy forces of the German Order Police supervised the clearing of the ghettos. Posters in the Greek language threatening that there would be immediate shooting in any instance of looting were pasted on most of the houses. The Aktion proceeded without incident. At 8:00, the transports could be started. The lorries had already been stationed on the access roads to the assembly points. The loading took place under the supervision of the Field Gendarmerie and the German Order Police; furthermore, every co-driver was made responsible for counting and bringing over the Jews to his vehicle. At 10:00, the loading of all the Hebrews had been concluded, and the convoy of about 80 lorries began to move in the direction of Trikkala. The Aktion can be regarded as completely successful, since 95% of the registered Jews were deported. The cooperation of the departments involved, including that of the Greek police, was exemplary. The Greek population, which had in the meantime taken notice of the campaign, assembled in the streets of the city. With subdued joy visible on their faces, they observed the departure of the Hebrews from their city. Only rarely did a Greek condescend to wave good-bye to a member of the Jewish race. It was clear that this race was equally unpopular with the old as with the young. There was no expression of sympathy with their destiny or disapproval of the Aktion. According to various incoming reports, the deportation of the Jews has greatly satisfied the population. Support for the Germans has risen following this Aktion. Since the belongings that were left behind, as well as food supplies, were allocated to the Greek authorities for the purpose of registration and administration, the sting has been taken out of the EAM [National Liberation Front] propaganda. From EDES-circles [Greek Democratic Organization], one hears only total approval. It is generally believed that the committee administrating Jewish property should include a German observer in order to prevent inconsistencies or irregularities in the distribution of the property. Generally, a drop in prices on the black market is expected, because the bulk of the purchasers in the rural population consisted largely of Jews.

Last Jews

Last Jews in the Last Months of the German Reich.

LIQUIDATION OF THE BIALYSTOK GHETTO

LIQUIDATION OF THE BIALYSTOK GHETTO, on 16 August 1943, 300 fighters of the Anti-Fascist Fighting Organization staged a revolt in the Białystok Ghetto, in what would end up being the second-largest act of armed resistance of Jews against the Nazis. Białystok, a city near the present-day border of Poland and Belarus came under Nazi occupation in June 1941. Within the first few weeks of Nazi Germany’s occupation, the Einsatzgruppen and local police groups rounded up and killed approximately 6,000 Jews, and subsequently forced approximately 50,000 Jews from the city and nearby areas into the city’s ghetto.

JEWS FROM THE KOVNO GHETTO

JEWS FROM THE KOVNO GHETTO being deported the Koramei concentration camp in Estonia. Among those pictured on the truck are Moishe Fishel, Chana, Jankel, Esther and Chaim Miszelski and Eli, Sima and Boris Rochelson. Courtesy of The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

LOADING the cars to Belzec.

LODZ, POLAND, DEPORTATION

LODZ, POLAND, DEPORTATION from the ghetto in the summer of 1944.

MASS DEPORTATIONS TO CONCENTRATION CAMPS

MASS DEPORTATIONS TO CONCENTRATION CAMPS, a roundup of Jews.

On 16 October 1941

On 16 October 1941 the Friedmann family were deported from Prague to Poland, where they were incarcerated in the Łódź Ghetto. While in the ghetto, Friedmann continued to draw, depicting the inhumane conditions inside. This drawing, recollecting that period, was produced by Friedmann in 1964, and shows a Gestapo officer questioning Jews on their remaining belongings, before he beat them.