On September 1st I, called Mirka - Why children from Piotrków Trybunalski?

Manufaktura in Piotrków Trybunalski. During WWII Bugaj Wood factory - Petrikauer Holzwerke.

On September 1st, 2021, I called Mirka. Mirka Stern. She lives in Stockholm just some hundred meters from my house. For me, September 1st is "The date", the date I always remember, the beginning of World War II (WWII). In Swedish newspapers or media, there was not a single sign of this day - date. 82 years have gone by. Mirka is not associating it either with the day that actually changed her and millions of people worldwide their entire life. Her home city, Piotrków Trybunalski was bombed during the very first days of World War II and the town was occupied by the Wehrmacht already on September 5, 1939. Also, the very first Nazi ghetto in occupied Europe was established in Piotrków on October 8, 1939. Mirka was just two years old at that time. More than 1,000 ghettos were later created mostly in Central and Eastern Europe. Now we know that ghettos were created for the purpose of isolating, exploiting, and finally, eradicating the Jewish population. Jews in smaller ghettos were often moved to bigger ghettos. In the beginning, Jews in the ghettos were not aware of what this isolation is leading to, total extermination, Shoah.

Piotrków Trybunalski was bombed during the very first days of World War II and the town was occupied by the Wehrmacht already on September 5, 1939.

The very first Nazi ghetto in occupied Europe was established in Piotrków on October 8, 1939.

I told Mirka that I just returned from Piotrków Trybunalski, her home city. She was surprised and told me as many other Kinderheim children from Bergen-Belsen deported 1944 from Piotrków that she has not a single memory of the city. Just a memory from the factory at Bugaj where she and her parents worked until December 1944. Factory at Bugaj (Petrikauer Holzwerke -wood factory- owned by Dietrich and Fischer, also known as the Bugaj), now known as Manufaktura. Many Jews were employed at the Hortensja Glassworks, which mainly produced jars and bottles, at the Kara factory, which manufactured plate glass.

I shortly described my trip and the fact that I was the only person that stepped out of the train from Warszawa. Curious train staff looked at me a bit surprised on the platform. I thanked them that they stoped already running train at Warszawa Central. They answered they thought I was stepping out from the train, not boarding. I felt a bit ashamed.

Piotrków Trybunalski railway station. When the transports left Piotrkow in the second half of July 1943, an official sign reading, 'Petrikau ist Judenrein' (Piotrkow is cleansed of Jews) was posted at the railway station. Photo 2021.

I continued my way from Piotrków railway station into the city. Without a map, I was heading to the areas I only knew from the description from the books written by real "Piotrkowers". Slowly, I knew exactly where I was. It was like developing the photos, the entire city of Piotrków was mine.

Why Piotrków, Mirka asked me again? Are you Piotrkower? I had to explain again why. I said that I am not a Piotrkower and the city could be Tomaszów Mazowiecki or any other place in Poland and I wanted to describe the fate of the children that miraculously survived the Holocaust in order to remember 1 500 000 children that were murdered during this dark era.

Actually, my way to Piotrków started far away from Piotrków, in Sweden at the North Jewish cemetery in Stockholm. It started in the year 1994 with the grave of a girl, Frymet Ajnhorn from Lodz. Frymet was just 11 when WWII started. I was asked by an Israeli scientist to find her grave. It was actually a difficult task. From the Jewish congregation, I just got information that she might be buried at the big unmarked field called section J. Yes, that was really the field. All the matzeva stones were under the grass level and the inscriptions were hardly readable. I have to dig them out. As I worked as an associate professor at the Karolinska Hospital next to the graveyard, I used my lunchtime for several weeks to find the grave of Frymet Ajnhorn. Finally, I found it in another section among graves of numerous other girls from Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary who were buried during July and August 1945. Totaly, there are over 80 graves of Holocaust victims in Stockholm and hundreds in other cities of the former inmates of concentration camps that at the end of WWII came to Sweden. The one that died did it on the White boats or shortly thereafter. Some died during the White buses mission of the Red Cross. That´s the reason I call them Holocaust victims, not the Holocaust survivors or "saved the year 1945". The main part of the former inmates that were brought to Sweden was hospitalized and rather quickly returned to life. Among the thousands of Holocaust survivors brought to Sweden were hundreds of children, thus including Mirka Stern. Several of them, like Mirka were from Piotrków Trybunalski.

Actually, the survivors that came to Sweden had no "feelings" about their sisters that didn't make it. I can partly understand that. Just partly! Many of them dedicated numerous books, lectures, and media appearances making the business of it but the graves and the memory of buried in Sweden Holocaust survivors were actively forgotten. Children that came "from the camps" to Sweden were like the main part of survivors brought to Sweden by the UNRRA White Boat mission that took place June-July 1945.

On the last day of the White Boat Mission, July 26 came to Sweden a large group of children. Besides the "Norwegian children"* there was a big group of children that were in Bergen-Belsen Kinderheim in barrack 211. Among the children in Barrack 211 that spoke Polish was a big group of children from Piotrków Trybunalski. Besides totally orphaned children, in the other end of Barrack 211 there were children with mothers or other elder relatives. It was in this part of the barrack where sisters Rachela and Estera lived together with their mother Ita. Talking with sisters where one was just 8 and the elder 18 when they were deported in 1944 from Piotrków to Ravensbrück gives a common two-voice memoir of a child and a teenager. Rachel's memories are so different from Estera´s although they were together for almost all the time since Piotrków was occupied in September 1939.   

The idea of the present book is to remember 1 500 000 Jewish children murdered during the Holocaust by showing the fate of a little group of children that survived, often as single survivors of big families. 

What happened to the Piotrków Trybunalski Jews 1939-1940.

During WWII the situation for the Jews in the Piotrkow Trybunalski was similar to that in many other big and small Polish cities. Many Jews left the city during the very first days of WWII and went east soon passing the new border between Germany and Sovjet according to a secret agreement called Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. Many of the Holocaust survivors from Piotrków survived in Sovjet Union. However, similar to many Polish Jews who spent the World War II years in the Soviet Union, after returning they left once again their homeland, this time westward, to the displaced person camps and Eretz Israel. 

Piotrków was occupied on September 5th, 1939. To start with the Judenrat was established early in October. The decision to set up Judenrats - Jewish Councils were endorsed by the German central authorities, and Heydrich sent this decision to the commanders of the Einsatzgruppen in a secret letter dated Sept. 21, 1939. The letter included the following paragraph: "In each Jewish community a council of Jewish elders is to be set up which, as far as possible, is to be composed of the remaining influential personalities and rabbis. The council is to be composed of (up to) 24 male Jews (depending upon the size of the Jewish community). It is to be made fully responsible (in the literal sense of the word) for the exact and punctual implementation of all instructions released or yet to be released.".

Map of Poland after the division of Poland in September 1939.

The Judenrat
In October 1939, a Jewish Council -Judenrat - was appointed in numerous Polish cities and among them in Piotrków Trybunalski. Like in Warszawa and Lodz Ghetto it consisted of several different departments and was also responsible for the Jewish Police. In Piotrków approximately 500 people worked in the different community services that were controlled by the Judenrat. The Jewish Police had special hats and armbands.

The Ghetto
The Jews were given 3 weeks, until October 31, 1939, to move into the impoverished and old part of the town which was located on the axis of Feuchte Gasse and Alte Warschauer Strasse. The borders of the ghetto were only marked by signposts bearing the word Ghetto, in the gothic script above a white skull and cross-bones on a blue background. The ghetto area was open, there was no fence around it.

Forced labor
On December 1, 1939, Oberburgermeister Hans Drechsel ordered through the Judenrat that 1,000 Jews had to report for forced labor every day. Forced labor involved harsh work, like draining swampy fields, digging canals and trenches, removing tons of earth, whilst working up to their knees in water all day long.

Forced identification
In 1940, all the Jews of Piotrkow over the age of 10 were required to wear like in the Warszawa ghetto, a white armband on their sleeves with a blue Star of David. Different identifications cards were issued for the workers in Kara, Hortensja, and Bugaj industries.

Deportations to the Death Camps and killings in 1942.
The result of the Wannsee Conference in January 1942 was the plan for the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” (mass killing). At the Wannsee Conference held near Berlin on 20 January 1942, new plans were outlined for the genocide of the Jews, known as the "Final Solution" to the Jewish Question. The extermination program was codenamed, Operation Reinhard. 

At the beginning of September 1942, the block of houses beginning with Starowarszawska and Garntsarska Streets was fenced in with barbed wire. 12 houses on the odd side of Starowarszawska (numbers 3 — 25). So-called “Small ghetto" was created. The photo from 2021 shows Starowarszawska and houses starting from number 13 on the left side with the increasing numbers to the right.

The mass murder of the Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators required the coordination and cooperation of governmental agencies throughout Axis-controlled Europe.
Treblinka was one of three secret extermination camps set up for Operation Reinhard; the other two were Bełżec and Sobibór.

Treblinka II was an extermination camp, built and operated in a forest 80 km northeast of Warsaw. The death camp operated between 23 July 1942 and 19 October 1943 as part of Operation Reinhard, the deadliest phase of the Final Solution. The first Jews that were murdered at the Treblinka extermination camp were from Warszawa Ghetto.

Already in early March 1942, the German administration in Piotrków ordered the ghetto to be closed by April 1, 1942, and from that date, it was sealed. Jews were not permitted to leave the ghetto, and non-Jews were not allowed to enter the ghetto.

The rumors about the Actions in Warszawa and Czestochowa Ghetto reach of course Jews of Piotrków. First, during the summer about the liquidation of Warszawa Ghetto and later about Czestochowa Ghetto. The deportations from Warszawa started on July 22nd. The deportations were from Warszawa were carried out for several months and in Czestochowa, just 80 km south from Piotrków, the Germans started to liquidate the ghetto there on 22 September 1942 (the day after Yom Kippur). for several days and this first wave of deportations was concluded on the night of October 7th. The action in Czestochowa was just after the Great Action in Warszawa Ghetto which was carried out from July 1942 until Around 40,000 victims in total from Czestochowa and 275 000 from Warszawa Ghetto were transported and murdered in Treblinka. The last day of the Great Action in Warszawa was on September 21, 1942, Yom Kippur.
Besides the rumors and information brought to the ghetto by deportees from other places, the Jewish council had an open telephone line to Warszawa Ghetto and got continuous information during the entire Gross Action” there (July 22 to September 13, 1942). During the course of this long “Action”, great unrest seized the Piotrkow Jews as they gradually became aware of the tragic truth about Treblinka, All the Jews from small cities and shtetls around the Piotrków and sudden, unexpected “Action” in Radom, the capital city of the district, on August 15, 1942, created great panic among the Piotrków Jews. Some of the people continued to live under the illusion that what had happened in Warsaw, Radom and other cities would not happen in Piotrkow. Others tried to escape but as Jews were deported to Piotrków from all the places around it there was actually no safe place to escape to besides woods around.

The Germans began preparations for the deportation from Piotrków at the beginning of September 1942, with the creation of the Small Ghetto. Before the ghetto area was just marked but not physically closed by a wall or fence. Now, the block of houses encompassing Jerozolimska, Garncarska, Zamurowa, and Starowarszawska streets was fenced in with barbed wire. It was rumored that only 3,000 'productive' Jews would remain in Piotrków for work at the three factories and some smaller production units owned by the Germans. At this time thousands of Jews were brought into the ghetto from the nearby towns and villages,. These deportation actions increased the ghetto population to some 25,000. At that time the deportations to Treblinka from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka ended and it was known what the meaning of the deportations or as it was called officially resettlement to the East. Therefore, the tension in the Piotrków ghetto reached its climax on October 13, 1942, when the horrifying news spread that the deportation 'was scheduled to begin on the following day. On October 15 main part of the Piotrkóws Jewish population and the Jews from the villages around arrived at the Treblinka death camp and were murdered in gas chambers. On October 22, 1942, 15,000 Jews from Tomaszów Mazowiecki arrived to Treblinka and were murdered on that day, among them were numerous Jews from Piotrków Trybunalski. The children from the orphanage at 27, Pilsudski Street, were deported together with the orphanage staff.

The refugees came primarily from areas in western Poland – Pomerania, Poznan and Lodz – which had been annexed to the German Reich.

Rakov forest - Holocaust by bullets after Treblinka deportations

After deportations to Treblinka there were two groups of Jews in Piotrków, legal and illegals. The legal Jews were working in the German factories and shops while illegals were in hiding. In November 1942 Germans decided to get rid of illegals. It started on 19 November 1942, 100 mainly elderly Jews were taken from the synagogue to the Rakow forest, near Piotrkow and shot. Six days later, assured by the Germans that they were needed for work and would be safe, all "illegals" were ordered to present themselves for registration. Those who did so were also taken to the synagogue, which was surrounded by Ukrainian guards who proceeded to shoot into the building. The imprisoned Jews, including many children, had no food, no water and no light. In an act of great sacrifice, Yeshayahu and Tova Weinstock gave themselves up at the synagogue in order to change places with their children, thus saving the children's lives at the expense of their own. Some captives possessing a skilled trade were returned to the ghetto as "legals". On 19 December, 42 men were taken from the synagogue to the Rakow forest, where they were ordered to dig five burial pits. Most of the men were then shot. A few escaped to the forest. That night, 520 Jews were marched to the burial pits in groups of 50 and shot there. Among them were Ben Helfgott's mother, Sara, aged 37 and his sister Luisa, aged 8. Artek Poznanski wrote:

Deportation 1943
At the end of July 1943, the Small ghetto in Piotrków Trybunalski was liquidated. Officially, only 1,720 Jews were allowed to remain in Piotrkow – 1,000 in the Bugaj factory and the remainder in the two glassworks, Kara and Hortensja. 1,500 other Jews were deported to the forced labor camps at Blizyn, Pionki, and Starachowice. The Jews who remained in Piotrków were living within the factories area.

Deportations to the Concentration Camps in 1944.
Starting, 24 November 1944, the last Jews of Piotrkowthat were working in the German-run factories, Bugat, Kara, and Hortensja were deported to a number of different concentration camps: Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen, Mauthausen, Ravensbrück, and Auschwitz, amongst others.
According to different sources on October 14th or 15th, 1942, 22,000 Jews Piotrków Ghetto
the Ausiedlung "Aktion" started in Piotrków. It lasted for eight days. The total of 22,000 of Jews was split into four train transports. The transports by cattle wagons also included Jews expelled to Piotrków from Bełchatów, Gniezno, Kalisz, Kamieńsk, Płock, Przygłów, Rozprza Sulejów, Srock, Tuszyn and Wolborz. Sometimes expelled Jew from outside Piotrków were forced directly to the cattle wagons.

Last Deportations in December 1944.

On December 2nd, 1945 Jews from Piotrków that were left after the big deportations to Treblinka death camp were assembled to be deported to camps in the West. Parents and the children were divided into two main groups. Women with daughters and men sons. They had to board different cattle wagons on the same train. After some hours of travel, the train stopped at unknown station and the train was divided into two trains; one with wagons with men and boys in the direction of Buchenwald and one in the direction of Ravensbrück with women and children.

Liberation of Piotrków Trybunalski

Piotrkow was liberated by the Red Army on 16 January 1945. Just 5 weeks after the last deportation train left the city in the direction of Buchenwald and Ravensbrück. Out of the estimated 28,000 Jews who had been imprisoned in the ghetto, only 1,600-1,700 had survived, either in the camps or in hiding.

Later when the evacuation from both Buchenwald and Ravensbrück started numerous families ended up in Bergen-Belsen. It was not a "family reunion" as the Bergen Belsen Camp was divided into several camps and sectors and the inmates were separated. So many of December deportees from Piotrków and also their children were in Bergen-Belsen. However, the inmates of Buchenwald were evacuated also to other camps, among others Theresienstadt. Theresienstadt was a hybrid concentration camp and ghetto. Jews from the Buchenwald camp that was about to be liberated by the Allies early in April 1945 arrived to Theresienstadt after surviving death marches from camps. When they entered Theresienstadt, the Buchenwald was already liberated.


Family Losses as seen from children perspective.
For the children caught up in the horrors of this period, the family was the one single factor enabling a sense of security in insecure times. However, in many cases fathers, mothers and
siblings were taken away on different occasions. During 1942 deportations entire families had usually perished. However in few cases one person, a child survived the deportation and it care was overtaken by uncles and aunts.