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| Until April 1942 the Piotrków Trybunalski ghetto remained open: it was not fenced in, nor was it guarded. The ghetto’s perimeters were marked by signs bearing the word Ghetto painted white, along with a black human skull. |
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| Borders until June 1941. |
German occupation authorities established the first ghetto in Poland in the city of Piotrków Trybunalski on October 8, 1939. Until April 1942 the Piotrków Trybunalski ghetto remained ‘open’: it was not fenced in, nor was it guarded. The ghetto’s perimeters were marked by signs bearing the word “ghetto”, along with a human skull, but Jews were allowed to leave the ghetto without a license, albeit only during specific hours, and only to a certain part of the city. Jews were not allowed to use main streets and parks.
Since 1939 the number of residents in the ghetto continued to rise steadily, due to an influx of Jewish refugees. At the beginning of the war the city had held some 10,000 Jews. In April 1942 the number had risen to 18,500. The refugees came primarily from areas in western Poland – Pomerania, Poznan and Lodz – which had been annexed to the German Reich. Additional refugees came from Polish territories that had been annexed to the Soviet Union and thereafter occupied in June 1941 by Germans (Operation Barbarossa). Also, the number of Jews moved from Warsaw and Cracow. These cities were, like Piotrków, cities within General Government (German: Generalgouvernement).
Numerous Jews choose Piotrków to move to for the safty reasons.
Rubinlicht and Finkler from WarszawaRubinlicht
One of the families that moved to Piotrków Trybunalski was the family of Rubinlicht from Warszawa, parents with two children. Parents worked, forced labor, at Huta Hortensja, one of two the Piotrków glass factories. Father, Pinkus Rubinlicht, like many others, was paying off whom he could to keep his family together. Judenrat members and probably Germans as well. During the Great Action in Piotrków Ghetto in October 1942 the Rubinlicht parents were relatively safe as workers of the glass factory, however, the children, Tusia and Ruta, were sent outside of the ghetto. During the Action in October 1942, the rest of their extended family in Piotrków was sent to their death in the Treblinka extermination camp.
Two years later, during, November and December 1944, the final deportations of Jews from glass factories Kara and Hortensja and wood factory Bugaj, were planned. On November 24, 1944, the first of the final transportation came. Pinkus Rubinlicht got his name on the list to go to Mauthausen in German-annexed Austria. However, he was first registered in Buchenwald on December 24, 1944. Later he was transferred to Mittelblau Dora. Mittelbau-Dora was located near Nordhausen in Thuringia, Germany. To start with it was established in the late summer of 1943 as a subcamp of Buchenwald concentration camp, supplying slave labor and later including evacuated survivors of eastern extermination camps. It is possible that Pinkus Rubinlicht that was registered as a watchmaker was involved in the manufacturing of the V-2 rocket. He perished in the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp on March 27, 1945. The cause of his death was written in German Grippe. That means the flu. However, we have to remember that the camp records of the registered inmates often use to state false causes of death. It is known that the official cause of death of the inmates that were shot was registered in many cases as cardiac arrest. Other causes often used were bilateral pneumonia and septic pharyngitis.
Pinkus Rubinlicht's wife Anna and his two daughters Ruta and Tusia were on the list of women and children to be sent during the first week of December 1944 from Piotrków Trybunalski to the concentration camp Ravensbrück in northeast Germany. On the same day when women were transported to Ravensbrück the men with boys were sent to Buchenwald concentration camp.Rubinlicht mother and her two daughters - Rubinlicht Anna, first on the right with daughters Ruta (born 1935) and Tusia (born 1939), in the middle.
Pinkus Rubinlicht's wife Anna and his two daughters Ruta and Tusia were on the list of women and children to be sent during the first week of December 1944 from Piotrków Trybunalski to the concentration camp Ravensbrück in northeast Germany. On the same day when women were transported to Ravensbrück the men with boys were sent to Buchenwald concentration camp.Rubinlicht mother and her two daughters - Rubinlicht Anna, first on the right with daughters Ruta (born 1935) and Tusia (born 1939), in the middle.
Finkler
Family Finkler were Chasidic Jews living in Warsaw. At the end of August 1939 father of the family went to Piotrków for the shiva of an relative. Thereafter he was afraid to travel back to Warsaw as there were Germans everywhere. The family became apart until 1942 (to check) when Kaja Finkler´s mother decided to send her to live with her father and his mother. The decision was motivated by the above facts and that Piotrków ghetto was regarded as a safe place. Kaja was therefore smuggled out of the Warszawa Ghetto and traveled with a Polish woman by train to Piotrków Trybunalski. Later her mother succeeded to leave Warszawa ghetto and join the rest of the family.
In October 1942 the Piotrków ghetto changed its face. It become the deportation point for the death trans to Treblinka like it was in June 1942 in the Warszawa Ghetto. During the Action in the Piotrków ghetto Finkler family were hiding and survived the October deportations. More than 22 000 Jews were deported. Approximately 2 000 Jews actually entire Jewish families were left "legally" to work at the three factories in Piotrków; 1 000 at the Bugaj wood factory, and the rest at two glass factories Kara and Hortensja.
