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In the
first half of October 1942, the Gestapo was given secret orders to
liquidate the ghettos in Bialystok and other localities in the
district. Because military and economic leaders were afraid to
paralyze munitions industries in the area, the decree was made
conditional on its impact on these industries. Thus, the population
of the Bialystok Ghetto was to be reduced and all other Jews in the
district were to be evacuated in the manner stipulated in the
original order. On November 2, 1942, with the help of the local
Gendarmerie, all ghettos in the district were suddenly encircled and
quarantined. Within a few days, the Germans assembled the Jews in
town squares, loaded them on wagons, and transported them to five
concentration points and thence to the extermination camps.
Concurrently, control of the Bialystok Ghetto was removed from
civilian auspices and handed to the SS.
Between
November 1942 and February 1943, approximately 100,000 Jews in the
Bialystok district, including some 10,000 from Bialystok proper,
were sent to the Treblinka and Auschwitz death camps. The final
liquidation of the Bialystok Ghetto took place in August 1943, when
the remaining 30,000 Jews there were sent to extermination. It was
then, too, that the Bialystok Ghetto uprising erupted. |
