Kinderheim Children from Warszawa to Piotrków Ghetto - description of the deportations in 1942 to Treblinka death camp and of few escapes prior to "Actions".

Dawid Szmul - Stanislaw Janaszewicz and his daughter Paulina's story. The photo was taken in 1946 at Visingsö in Sweden.

Salo Fiszgrund and his daughter Hania Fiszgrund´s story. The photo was taken in 1946 at Zakopane in Poland.

At a very certain point, before the Gross Action in Piotrków in October 1942, several parents decide to try to save their children by leaving the Piotrków Ghetto. The parents knew what Action meant and also knew the fate of Warszawa Jews where the Gross Action started in July 1942 and ended in mid-September. They knew what the deportations to the East, like the one in Warszawa, were. Also the Jewish community in Piotrków Trybunalski understood that the same fate awaited Piotrków ghetto Jews, sooner och later. However, when at the beginning of October Jews from the surrounding towns were deported to the Piotrków Trybunalski Ghetto it was understood that something will happen in the very near future. Also, the Judenrat learned that the Germans planned on keeping only 3 000 Jewish laborers in the Piotrków industries. Some Jews started to prepare the hiding places within the ghetto territory, and few succeeded to obtain forged identification papers as non-Jews, which was a prerequisite to moving out of the ghetto to other places, pretending to be Polish.

When on the 12th of October 1942, Ukrainian special units arrived in Piotrków Trybunalski it was clear that the deportation action soon will take place. At the same time, the factory directors ordered their workers to move to the factory's areas together with their families and belongings.

On the 15th of October, the deportation began. The residents of the ghetto were ordered to gather at the square next to the Franciscan monastery. The sick and disabled were loaded onto carts and driven to the deportation square. The SS performed a selection on the Jews gathered in the square. Jews with work permits were allowed to remain in the ghetto. When the first transport was loaded into the cattle wagons the rest of the Jews were allowed to return to the ghetto. This process was repeated for 5 days (?)

Of the 25,000 Jews in the ghetto, between 18,000 and 22,000 Jews were deported, in a series of three or four transports. The deportation process lasted for a full week, and the Germans did not allow the Jews to take with them the possessions which they had packed. The Germans included members of the Judenrat in the last transport, along with rabbis and other persons of note. All the deportees were sent to Treblinka, where they were murdered.

After the deportation, only 2,000 to 2,400 Jews holding work permits remained in the city, along with several members of the Judenrat and Jews who had hidden with Poles or in hiding places that they had prepared in advance.

To leave the ghetto they needed, however,  false documents, issued to Polish Roman Catholics, and also the children have to learn to pretend to be Polish.

Earlier, numerous Jewish families had gone through the experience of trying to hide their children, mainly girls, in Catholic families. However, numerous Jewish children hidden in Polish families were expelled back to ghettos

Sala Frenkel

The Swedish document from SUK - Statens utlänningskommission concerning the familly of Sala Frenkel, 8 year old when WWII started do show clearly the timeline of the Holocaust. Sala had four older sisters born 1917-1929. All of them were during the Action in Piotrków transported to Treblinka death camp and murdered there. Her mother and father, according to the SUK and DP-2 information were shot in Piotrków 1942, most likely prioror or during the deportation.

• Dawid Szmul (Stanislaw) Janaszewicz and his daughter Paulina's story
• Salo Fiszgrund and his daughter Hania Fiszgrund´s story. 
• Family Rubinlicht from Warszawa.
• Anetka Niechcicka
• Sala Frenkel