Town of the Dead
The Extermination of the Jews in the Zaglembia Region

Acknowledgments

Project Coordinator

Ada Holtzman

This is a translation from:
Ir Hametim – Hashmadat Hayehudim be'ezor Zagblembie
(Town of the Dead – The Extermination of the Jews in the Zaglembia Region),
translation of a manuscript by A. Sz. Sztajn; Written by Dawid Liwer, Tel Aviv, 1946, (H, 215 pages).

Dedicated to the memory of the comrades
Dora Hercberg
Aliza Zitenfeld
Sara Kukelka
Szmuel Rozencwajg
The modest heroes who died on a foreign land on their way to Eretz Israel

Table of Contents

• Forward
  7
• A message is delivered, by the translator
  12
• The battle started, 1939
  14
• Every place and its horrors
  16
• In Bedzin again
  18
• The first community
  20
• The beginning of the Gestapo activities
  24
• The first very bad news from Lodz
  26
• New decrees
  28
• The murder of the Jewish prisoners of war
  29
• The confiscation of Jewish factories
  30
• Moniek (Mosze) Marin
  32
• The Jewish police
  34
• Help to Warsaw and Lodz
  37
• The confiscation of the houses of the Jews
  38
• The center of the Judenrat of the Jewish Communities in Eastern and Upper Silesia
  39
• The mobilization to Forced Labor
  43
• The "Shopy"
  45
• The farm
  48
• The mission of Eliezer Geler
  52
• Februrary 1941
  53
• New decrees
  54
• In prison
  58
• Gallows
  64
• The first deportation from Bedzin – Sosnowiec
  65
• June 1942
  69
• The second deportation 12 August 1942
  72
• Life continues… June 1942, July 1942
  77
• The visit of Mordechai Anilewicz and Elizer Geler, September 1942
  81
• What was happening in the Forced Labor Camps, October 1942
  84
• The song "Mamma Mamma"
  84
• Help from abroad
  96
• The assault on Szymon First
  97
• The Forced Labor Camp A. K. (Arbeitskommando), January 1944
  102
• The erection of the Ghetto
  103
• The passports of foreign countries
  105
• The last action of Marin and his end, May 1943
  113
• The third deportation, 22 June 1943
  116
• Defence
  123
• 1 July 1943
  129
• Regards from Eretz Israel
  130
• The total deportation 1 August 1943
  134
• In the Forced Labor Camp
  149
• My escape from the Forced Labor Camp
  166
• Smuggling the border, 1944
  178
• The road across the border of Slovakia – Hungary
  183
• Budapest
  186
• The date: 11 March 1944
  191
• Across the border Hungary – Romania
  196
• Arad (Romania)
  201
• Bucharest
  205
• "Kazbek" (the ship)
  210
• Index – compiled by Ada Holtzman

Yizkor Book Director: Lance Ackerfeld
Emerita Yizkor Book Project Manager: Joyce Field z"l
Contact person for this translation Ada Holtzman
This web page created by Osnat Ramaty
Updated 22 Apr 2011 by LA
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