From Piotrków Trybunalski to Innsbruck. Short story how Dawid Janaszewicz tried to save his family during the Holocaust.

Piotrkow Trybunalski Ghetto border sign.

Two Wehrmacht officers standing at the Piotrkow Trybunalski Ghetto border sign.

German pansar vehicles in Piotrków, behind them building at Slowackiego street number 1.

The Piotrkow Trybunalski Ghetto borders

Probably in Austria where Dawid Janaszewicz together with his daughter Paulina and Litman sisters tried to survive the Holocaust as Polish Workers. On this photo from the left: Regina Litman-Rundbaken, an unknown woman (Miriam Fuks ?), Paulina Janaszewicz, Ruth Litman, and Dawid (in Austria Stanislaw) Janaszewicz.

This short story starts during the first week of September 1939 in Piotrków. During the German bombing of Piotrków Trybunalski on September 2, one of the bombs hits Dawid Janaszewicz house (at 21 Garncarska Street) and kills his wife and the youngest daughter. Janaszewicz and his elder daughter survive.

In the same building lived two sisters, Regina and Rut. Both were married. Regina's husband, Abram Rundbaken was in the Polish military service like many other Polish Jews. Whereabout Ruth's husband is not Eisenberg 

At a very certain point, before the Gross Action in October 1942, Dawid Janaszewicz decides to leave the Piotrków Ghetto. He knows what Action means and the fate of Warszawa Jews where the Gross Action started in July 1942.  With false documents, pretending to be Polish Roman Catholic, David Szmul, now Stanislaw Janaszewicz leaves the Piotrków Ghetto together with Litman sisters and his daughter Paulina heading Austria. Rywka Litman-Rundbaken was early widowed as her husband Abram Rundbaken was killed during the siege of Tobruk on December 1st, 1941. Abram Rundbaken was serving in the famous Polish Independent Carpathian Brigade. 

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

It is also important to mention that poor families or without contact with Judenrat had difficulties to be among the workers at the factories like Hortensja, Kara, and Bugaj owned or run by the Germans. When in early March 1942, the German administration in Piotrkow ordered the ghetto to be closed by April 1, 1942, numerous Jews of the Piotrkow ghetto tried to be admitted to the factories.

Rumors were spread that only 3 000 'productive Jews" would remain for work at the factories owned by the Germans. At this time thousands of Jews were brought into the ghetto from the nearby towns and villages, such as Sulejow, Srocko, Prywatne, Wolborz, Gorzkowice and others. These 'aktions' increased the ghetto population to some 25,000. The tension in the ghetto reached its climax on October 13, 1942, when the horrifying news spread that the deportation 'Aktion' was scheduled to begin on the following day.

Escaping Piotrków Trybunalski Ghetto

Rumors about deportations of the Piotrkow Jews to Treblinka reached Piotrków in late September. Paulinas father already planned to escape and arranged forged documents for Paulina, himself and Litman sisters. On October 13th, Paulina and Litman sisters leave the ghetto and travel to Austria. Paulinas father travels later, alone, and rejoin with Paulina and Litman sisters later in Landeck in Austria. It is possible that Miriam Fuks, (the fifth person on the photo from Austria, see above) also left Piotrków Ghetto with them. Anyhow, the group succeeded with forged papers to reach  Landeck in Tyrol. All of them got a work at the local weaving-mill. After some months Janaszewicz wants however to find total security for his daughter and Rywka-Regina Rundbaken that became Paulinas stepmother. They are trying to make a well-planned Sunday excursion to Switzerland. where they worked for weaving mill. They were arrested and sent to Innsbruck and there charged in the Court of Justice. At the court, the prosecutor believed their fabricated story about tourist trip into the Swiss Alps and send them back to Landeck and their previous jobs. twice during their stay in Austria.

They were arrested by the Gestapo on March 13, 1944, after posing as Christian-Polish foreign workers. They were simply denounced by other workers at the weaving-mill and arrested by Gestapo. Paulina and Litman sisters were sent to Innsbruck prison while Janaszewicz was sent to KZ Reichenau.

In the Summer of 1944, the head chef of Innsbruck prison received an SS order to prepare a transport of prisoners from the Innsbruck prison to Auschwitz. Among the listed 88 prisoners there were five Polish Jews - Paulina Janaszewicz, Regina Litman-Rundbaker, Ruth Litman-Eisenberg, Leokadia Justman, and Mirjam Fuks. The five girls turned to the prison master, Wolfgang Neuschmidt, for help. Neuschmidt called on his superior Karl Dickbauer for the girls on the grounds that they were needed for kitchen work in prison. Two police officers Erwin Lutz and  Rudi Moser that were involved in the action to save the girls persuaded their superiors to make the girls' papers disappear from the deportation papers and to use them for work in his kitchen. Police inspector Dickbauer made the girls' papers disappear. The girls were excluded the transport to Auschwitz, but remained in prison and were employed in the prison kitchen. When the dispatch order arrived, Another person that also took part in making the girls' papers disappear was criminal investigator Rudi Moser. The next deportation order arrived on January 18, 1945.  All the inmates of the Innsbruck prison were directed to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Again, Dickbauer, Moser, Dietz and Lutz were involved in the girls' escape of two girls. Leokadia Justman and Mirjam Fuks managed to escape from the prison during the night with the help of the rescue apartment as their first place of refuge. Rut Litman-Eisenberg was sent to another camp in Austria while Paulina Janaszewicz and Regina Litman-Rundbaker were sent to Bergen-Belsen.

Leokadia Janaszewicz, 

As mentioned Janaszewicz was sent to KZ Reichenau (Reichenau camp) while women were sent to Innsbruck prison.

In Reichenau camp, the Gestapo had its own barrack built with two interrogation cells, 24 double cells and four single cells, surrounded by a three-meter high barbed wire fence to accommodate the “political”. Tyrollean Jews were also brought to the Reichenau camp.

Most of the camps were SS camps but KZ Reichenau was a kind of Gestapo concentration camp. Reichenau was a transit camp for hundreds of prisoners on their way to a concentration camp, especially to Dachau but also to Auschwitz extermination camp.

Most of the camps were SS-camps but KZ Reichenau was a kind of Gestapo concentration camp. 

Most of the concentration camps were run by SS but KZ Reichenau was a kind of Gestapo concentration camp. 

When in KZ Reichenau, David Janszewicz belonged to a resistance group of Polish forced laborers. The Gestapo discovered them in March 1944. Two Jewish members of the group Jakob Justman and Dawid Janaszewicz were murdered (most probably hanged) on April 25, 1944, in the KZ Reichenau. Justman and Janaszewicz were exhumed in December 1945 and buried in the Jewish part of Innsbruck's west cemetery.

Litman sisters and Paulina Janaszewicz were imprisoned in Innsbruck prison and they were close to be send to Auschwitz. However, they were excluded from the transport, read saved, by the Austrian director of the prison. Later Paulina Janaszewicz and Regina Litman-Rundbaken were sent to Ravensbrück and later to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

After the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in April 1945, Regina and Paulina were hospitalized there, and later, in July 1945, they were included in the same group as Kinderheim children and both came to Sweden with the UNRRAs White Boat mission. Paulina, born in 1932 (or 1930), lives in Stockholm (September 2021).

Two Jewish members of the resistance group, Jakob Justmann and Dawid Janaszewicz were murdered on April 25, 1944 in the KZ Reichenau. Justman and Janaszewicz were exhumed in December 1945 and buried in the Jewish part of Innsbruck's west cemetery.

After the liberation of Bergen-Belsen in April 1945 Regina and Paulina were hospitalized there and later, in July 1945, both came to Sweden with UNRRAs White Boat mission. Paulina left Sweden for Poland. She thought that she will find relatives in her home city. No-one survived! In 1950 she returned as grown up (18 year) to Sweden. Paulina lives in Stockholm (September 2021).

Sweden 1945-1946. Paulina Janaszewicz is standing in the middle in a white dress.

Paulina Janaszewicz and Rywka-Regina Rundbaken

Sept 1, 1939 - Oct 13 1942 Piotrków and Piotrków Ghetto (Regina moved from Lodz Ghetto to Piotrkow Ghetto in December 1940)

October 1942 - March 16, 1944, Landeck 

March 16, 1944 - January 18, 1945 - Innsbruck Prison 

January 18, 1945 - April 15, 1945, Ravensbrück and thereafter Bergen Belsen concentration camp

April 15, 1945 - July 22, 1945 Bergen-Belsen Hospital

July 23-25 Lübeck Transit Center