Page 99 - Centrum Dialogu im. Marka Edelmana w Łodzi. "Fragmenty pamięci".

Wielka Szpera 5-12 września 1942 The Great Szpera, 5-12 September 1942

Dzieci urzędników, policjantów i osób protegowanych zostały ukryte i uratowane
Children of officials, police officers and protégées have been hidden and rescued

To encourage the Jewish police and guards to carry out the action conscientiously, they
were promised protection for their immediate family. Children were placed in a hospital
and isolated from the rest of the population, while the elderly and ”protégées” were placed
in isolation in Marysin. About 1,500 people were the lucky ones. […] However, while loading
onto a wagon did not yet close the way for rescue, putting the deportee into a car (these
were five-ton trucks with trailers flanked high with planks) doomed any hope of rescue.
These cars left the ghetto immediately and returned after less than an hour. One could
conclude from this that the place where the deportees were deposited was not too far
from the ghetto.

Chronicle of the Łódź Ghetto, September 1942

That night was terrible; we did not sleep a wink all night. There was a storm, it was pouring
rain all night, thunder with lightning, and here you could hear the screams and cries of
mothers and children. There are wagons full of children and older people being taken away;
it all blends together. Finally, the rain had stopped in the morning, and things had calmed
down a bit. But unfortunately, not for long, at 8 AM, German cars with German military
officers pulled up in front of the pensioners’ home at 74 Dworska Street and all old men
and old women, even under 60, were taken from there.
Heniek Fogel, Diary, 7 September 1942

99