October 8, 1939
Nazis Establish the Piotrków Ghetto
Historical context
On this day, October 8, 1939, German authorities ordered a ghetto in Piotrków Trybunalski, the first ghetto in occupied Poland.
Archive record
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- Date
- October 8, 1939
- Verified sources
- 2
- Archive threads
- 5
On this day, the German commander of Piotrków Trybunalski ordered the city’s Jews into a ghetto. Yad Vashem records it as the first ghetto in occupied Poland. German forces had taken the city on 5 September 1939. About 18,000 Jews lived there before the occupation, and refugees from nearby towns were forced in as well.
Yad Vashem records that the ghetto was liquidated from 13 to 21 October 1942. About 20,000 Jews were deported to Treblinka. About 2,000 people with work cards were left in the city.
Research trail
Sources and further reading
- Piotrkow Trybunalski · Yad Vashem · The Holocaust View source
- Establishment of Ghettos · YIVO Institute for Jewish Research · YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe View source
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