1941 a conference was held in Berlin, chaired by Reinhard Heydrich, Director
of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA, Reich Main Security Office) and
attended by Friedrich Krüger, the Higher SS and Police Leader in the General
Government. Those present discussed, among other matters, the plan to
resettle to the General Government 831,000 Poles and Jews from the territories
incorporated into the Reich in order to repopulate those territories
with Volksdeutsche from Volhynia and the Baltic states. A decision was then
made to resettle 90,000 Poles and Jews from Wartheland by May 1941. Yet
eventually, the number of people resettled from that territory during that
period amounted to fewer than 20,000, including 2,140 Jews. According to the
only available data, on 9 March 1941, approximately 1,000 Jews were resettled
from Konin County to Izbica Lubelska, Józefów Lubelski and Krasnystaw.
At the meeting of the authorities of the General Government on 25 March
1941, Krüger officially announced a discontinuation of the resettlements of
Poles and Jews, justifying that decision by intensive preparations for the invasion
of the USSR. Moreover, the Germans had already begun to devise plans
for the total destruction of European Jewry.
The ultimate annihilation of the Jews in Wartheland began in October
1941, with the provincial ghettos. The first to meet that fate were the ones
in Zagórów and Grodziec in Konin County, where approximately 3,000 Jews
had still remained. They were shot in forests near Kazimierz Biskupi. After
the first executions of Jews in pits filled with quicklime, the Germans set in
operation the killing centre in Chełmno on the Ner River, by then renamed
Kulmhof. Its construction begun in November 1941. Specially constructed
lorries (Spezialwagen, Sonderwagen) served as gas chambers, using exhaust
gases. A prototype of such a lorry had been used in 1940 to kill the mentally
ill patients of the local psychiatric hospitals (“Operation T4”).⁶⁵⁸ The operation
centre was located in an old palace and the surrounding park, with a wooden
fence at its border. The operation was carried out by the same SS-men and
policemen who dealt with the above-mentioned “Operation T4.” The crew
consisted of 10–15 Gestapo functionaries from Poznań, accompanied by
658 Aktion T4, program implemented in the Third Reich in the years 1939–1944, aimed at “elimination of life not worthy of living.” It included murder of people suffering from schizophrenia and other mental illnesses and genetic defects. The number of victims is estimated up to 200,000.
