“Today the first transport left. Overall, 10,000 people are to be deported. The mood is awful. The tension at work is so high that we jump as every time the phone rings. Rumkowski goes from one workshop to another and speaks to workers, shouts and tells them to be calm. In the office he does the same, he is pacing and talking out loud. As if he was trying to reassure us and himself. He says if we keep working, nothing bad will happen to us. The ghetto has great financial results, the summary of last year came out well, even very well, the authorities will not want to get rid of such a successful multimodal company that the ghetto is. Our currency is labor. Labor, labor, labor. Therefore, it was necessary to expel the redundant element.”
Etka Daum
In the first period of the liquidation of the ghetto in Łódź, Jews were deported to the extermination camp in Chełmno on the Ner (Kulmhof am Ner). The operation began on January 16, 1942, and until May 15, 1942 57,064 Jews from the Łódź ghetto were sent there, including 10 934 Jews from Western Europe.
In total, in the autumn of 1942, 72 745 people were murdered.
“Our company was in charge of repairing cars for the Sonderkommando SS Kulmhof and once they sent to repair a car that was used to poison people with fumes. The car was approx. 2.5 meters high, the length was about 6 meters, and width 2.5 meters. The car was black and was shaped like a box. (...) Car doors were locked and bolted. (...) The repair involved changing the package (seal) between parts of the exhaust pipe. I should explain that the exhaust pipe was not uniform over the entire length (...) but consisted of three sections, and the middle section was flexible like a hydraulic hose. The said middle section of the exhaust pipe could be connected with a section of pipe protruding from the floor of the car and the exhaust fumes were pumped inside the car, or it could be connected to the proximal section of the exhaust pipe and then the described exhaust pipe functioned as in any normal car.”
Bronisław Falborski
Our Objective is Labor
Bałuty Ghetto 1940–1944