SIERADZ COUNTY
ZDUŃSKA WOLA
After April 1941, Warsaw ghetto, Gienia Landau, “Wspomnienia i przeżycia
wojenne” [Wartime memories and experiences]. A girl from Zduńska
Wola¹¹⁹⁸ describes her and her family’s experiences from 1 September 1939
until April 1941.
Gienia Landau
[1] Wartime memories and experiences.
That memorable Friday of 1 September 1939 did not actually differ from other
Fridays or even from other days in general. Even though everybody was agitated
and the atmosphere was tense, we did not suspect at all that it would
happen so soon and, despite everything, unexpectedly. The events that took
place during those first days are still vivid in my memory even though most
of the time it still seems to me that all that took place not two years ago but
a very, very long time ago. Everything is so ancient and distant that it seems
literally impossible that it actually took place. Be that as it may, the experiences
of those first days were certainly horrible, somehow strange and incomprehensible.
At least for me. And I had many. After Friday, each day brought new
events and experiences. Events followed in rapid succession and everything
was new, unusual, and scary. Everything contradicted the old order. So I would
like to start from the very beginning, drag these memories out from oblivion
and present them in a clear bright light. It seems that this is the first time
that I am making such a ‘survey.’ As soon as I unfold the image of those first
days in front me, the rest will perhaps follow on its own.
1198 Over 9,300 Jews lived in Zduńska Wola just before the war. The local ghetto was initially an open one, but during 1940 it was surrounded with barbed wire. It had approximately 7,500 local Jewish residents plus 800 refugees. In 1942, up to 3,000 people were additionally resettled there from nearby localities. From 24 August 1942, those deemed able to work and skilled labourers were resettled in the ghetto in Łódź, while the remaining 6,000–9,000 people were deported to Chełmno nad Nerem/Kulmhof.
