In 1794, Pabianice was inhabited by 482 citizens, including 15 Jews. In that year, the Prussian government granted permission to live in the city to those Jews who already had permanent residence. The remaining Jews were forced to leave. This was in part due to the fact that Pabianice was owned by the Krakow bishops, who opposed further Jewish colonization.

In later years, this ban was not enforced. In the 19th century, as industry developed, 19 affluent members of the Jewish faith settled in the city. In 1826, local Jews set up their own religious community.

They initially settled in the area called the Old Town. After 1848, those who had proven their professional utility obtained special permission to move to the New Town. In 1860, there was an attempt to settle Jews in a designated area on Bożnicza and Tuszynska streets; however, an ukase by the Tsar on equal rights thwarted these plans.

In 1864, Pabianice witnessed the establishment of a two-classroom school for both Catholics and Jews. Of the two teachers working there, one was Jewish. 190 children attended the school, including 19 Jewish children. By the end of the 19th century, the Jewish community had opened a religious school on Kapliczna Street.

Religious services in Pabienice were initially held in private houses, and later in a rented apartment on Bóżnicza Street. In 1880, a brick synagogue was built. A cemetery was also built on Cmentarna Street.

During World War I, when the financial situation of the town’s population, especially its poorest members, deteriorated, several self-help organizations were set up in the city. Jewish philanthropists created their own organizations, including "Worker’s Thatch", which was affiliated with Poale Zion, and 
"Low-priced Jewish Cuisine", affiliated with the Jewish Beneficent Society.

In 1919, Pabianice was inhabited by 35,335 citizens, of which Jews constituted 18%. The Jews of Pabianice were actively involved in the city’s social life. They took part in the construction of the Independence Monument, and the most affluent of them – Gerson Weinstejn, Izaak Urbach and Mojżesz Pikus  – became members of the fund-raising committee for that project. The Jewish newspaper Pabiantser Tseytung was published in Pabianice.

According to the census of 1931, the city was inhabited by 8177 Jewish citizens, which constituted 17.8% of all its inhabitants. The majority of them lived in the traditional Jewish district, the Old Town, which included Bóżnicza, Kapliczna, Batorego, Stary Rynek, Garncarska, and Konopna Streets, and Piotra Skargi Street to the south.

After the German army entered the city on September 8, 1939, persecution of the Jewish community began. Here, as throughout the Łódź Voivodeship, Jews were forced to wear armbands with the star of David and the word "Jude" on them. A curfew was also introduced, which allowed Jews to travel within the city only between 8:00-17:00, though they were forbidden from moving or leaving the city. They were also forbidden from using the sidewalks, and had to walk in the street. They had to nod in greeting to each German they met on the street. In February 1940, the occupation forces established a ghetto that enclosed Sobieski, Batory, Bóźnicza, Kapliczna, Konopna, Garncarska and Kościelna Streets. A German named Szper became the ghetto commandant on behalf of the Landrat. Police surveillance was performed by two Gestapo officers, Hans Mayer and Teodor Kanwiszer. Inside the ghetto, a Council of Elders, presided over by Rubinstein, was set up. A Jewish police force also operated in the ghetto.

After the closing of the ghetto district, Polish citizens maintained contact with the Jews inside. Illegal trade with the ghetto blossomed. There was even a well-known case in which the Durajski family sold a whole cow for slaughter to a buyer in the ghetto.

The Nazis employed local Jews in several kinds of maintenance work, including the demolition of bunkers left over from the 1939 campaign and the leveling of terrain at the corner of Kapliczna and Warszawska Streets. Jews were made to sing a song during the walk to work and while they worked. It went as follows:

We Jewish greenhorns didn’t know what’s work
Golden Hitler came and taught us how to work 

Despite the harsh living conditions in the ghetto, there was a small theatre staging plays and vaudeville shows.  The former Jewish school housed a Jewish-only hospital.

On May 16-18, 1942, the liquidation of the ghetto took place. On May 16, the SS and SA  encircled Warszawska and Zamkowa Streets, which were inside the ghetto. Jewish citizens were led along these streets. The weak, the ill, and those who did not agree to leave their homes were killed instantly. The living were kept in a stadium on Zamkowa Street. The area was encircled with a high fence.

According to the Situational Report of the General Intelligence Officer Piotr Baryka of the AK district from 15th July 1942, during the spring of 1942, a health board examined all the ghetto inhabitants over 10, stamping an A or B on their chests. In May of the same year, 500 citizens were sent to work in Norway. On the Eve of Pentecost, the ghetto was encircled by the police and the SA. All the inhabitants were thrown out of their homes and sent through the city streets to the city stadium, which belonged to the Kruche & Ender company. During the march there, Poles and Germans witnessed the Jews being beaten and ill-treated. The Jews spent 3 days and 2 nights in the stadium, standing in the pouring rain, without food or rest. Several dozen were stripped naked, many were forced to perform circus tricks, while others had to applaud them. It is said that infants were forcibly taken from their mothers and buried after being left in a ditch to die. Some of the Jews with category A stamps were taken by tram to the Łódź ghetto, the rest were sent by train in the direction of Kutno and Płock. About 200 Jews were left in Pabianice, 150 of whom were transferred shortly afterward to Łódź. Other employees stayed in the ghetto area in the tailor workshop, where they were also housed. The possessions left by the Jews in abandoned flats were plundered by Germans and taken to Łódź. The author of the report acknowledged from secret German sources that people with category B stamps were melted down for soap in special factories near Płock and Chełmno by Koło[1.1]. The murder in Chełmno was confirmed by an anonymous message that was found in Pabianice during the sorting of the victims clothing.

The content is as follows:

on 2/IV 1943

This message is being written by people who have just a few hours to live. He, who reads this message will have difficulty believing it! Is it true or not?

For it is a tragic truth, because in this town are your brothers and sisters who have died in the same way! This town is Koło. 12 km from here  there is a “human slaughterhouse”. We worked there as craftsmen. We were tailors, gaiter makers and shoemakers. There were 17 of us. I can give the names of these people:

Pinkus Grun from Włocławek, Jones Lew from Brzeziny, Szama Aka from Brzeziny, Żemad Szumiraj – Włocławek, Genyp Majer – Kalisz, Wachtel Symcha – Łęczyca, Wachtel Smylek – Łęczyca, Beniek Jastrzębski, Nusbaum Aron – Skępa, Yser Strasburg – Lutomierskm, Mosiek Płosker – Kutno, Felek Płosker – Kutno, Josef Herszkowicz – Kutno, Chaskel Rorach – Łęczyca, Wolf Gutkiewicz – Łódź, Szyja Szlamowicz – Kalisz, Gecel - Turek[1.2]      

An additional account of the liquidation is provided by Zygmunt Lubonski in a written account of what he witnessed during the war. They are collectively entitled Through the crack in the stadium fence. 

Through the crack in the Kruche & Ender sports stadium fence in the direction of Zachodnia Street (Curii-Sklodowskiej), I saw a limousine arrive and police major Sudau get out, surrounded by a few high-ranking individuals from Pabianice. They climbed the embankment encircling the pitch and glanced with expressions of mastery and contempt at the Jews grouped together there. The strangely solemn silence was broken only by the shouts of the oppressors in uniforms and a second later by the screams of those being beaten. The selection was in progress. With identity papers raised over their heads, fathers were separated from their families, and mothers from their children according to previously determined categories. The groups thus created were led through a narrow passage leading to the centre of the pitch.  A few military policemen standing by the passage were scrupulously thrashing every passing person with sticks, including seniors and women. Infants were taken from their mothers and thrown into a roadside ditch.

In the evening, two groups of Jews, approximately 200 people, were escorted to the railway station. Nearby inhabitants reported that during the night, lights were frequently turned on where the Jews were gathered, and that afterwards the terrifying screams of the people being beaten could be heard. Saturday, May 16, 1942[1.1.2]. 

Another account was given by Helena Morawska, who graduated from the teacher’s seminary in Pabianice and had worked in a Jewish school in Zduńska Wola on Ogrodowa Street for a year. She spent the occupation in Pabianice. The excerpt from her recollections below dates from that period:

I had frequent contact with the ghetto in Pabianice, where I used to get dental work done at the home of Mrs. Świder, the sister of the doctor I mentioned before. Her room was one in a row, and each preceding one was occupied by a family, very often a large one. The noise and the clamor of children was so terrible that Mrs. Świder would have to silence them or would stroke their heads helplessly and ask - “when is this going to end?” Often, instead of paying for the dental services, I paid in kind, that is, if I was able to get my hands on any essential products. On Saturday evening, May 16, 1942, one of the neighbors alerted everyone in our building. We all went to the outside into the yard. There was a real downpour that evening. The spotlights created such a light in our yard that we could all see each other – and how scared we all were. We knew that the Jews from the ghetto were in the Kruche & Ender stadium. Then the lights went out, and thousands of human beings uttered a heart rending scream. It seemed to be some sort of beastly game – a constant, rhythmic repetition of the same thing– the extinguishing of the  lights and the sounds of screaming. The next day, I went to the church in the Old Town. Elderly Jews who looked half dead were being transported in carts out of the stadium. They didn’t show any reaction to what was going on around them. The carts were heading towards the station. After the war, I went to Zdunska Wola to learn of my Jewish friends’ fate. Out of a dozen or so people (two schools), only Mrs. Róża Koenigsberg-Luboszyc survived…[1.3].

Other accounts by Poles – inhabitants of Pabianice:

At the time, the whole city was shocked by this abhorrent event. For a few days, the boys from the “Kruk” team reported on a suspicious “Siedliczka” movement, that is, the police presidium on Gdanska Street. On the evening of  May 15th, SS soldiers arrived from Łódź. The outposts around the ghetto were reinforced. Then, in the early morning on May 16th, with a great uproar, the Germans began to chase the Jews out of from the ghetto. Pushed, beaten and frightened, the people were arranged in fours and led through Warszawska Street, and then along Zamkowa street to the Krusche & Ender sports stadium. It was a shocking sight. More than six thousand emaciated, weak, sallow-skinned, hollow-eyed people were chased out into the middle of the road. There were women holding small children, stumbling old men supported by their sons and daughters, sick people shuffling along. All in a deathly silence. None of those wretched, terrified people moaned or cried. Not even the small children dared to cry out, paralyzed with fear. You could only hear the guards yelling “Los! Los!” Some led dogs on leashes, barking at the people being chased.

The whole crowd, filled with fear, was locked up inside the stadium. It was raining that night. The people, who were soaked, chilled and hungry, were left on the sodden ground. Another day passed with them remaining in the open air without any food. Then another night. It wasn’t until the third day that the selection took place. Infants were killed. Old people were rounded up in one corner of the pitch. They lay half dead. Many had died of cold and hunger. A few had committed suicide. In the evening, those who had enough strength were rushed to the railway station and pushed into freight cars. They headed off into the unknown, where their fate was about to be sealed.

Although all this took place under the supervision of special police unit, with the stadium enclosed by a high fence, people from the neighboring houses watched these events with dread.” Kruk” sent a few boys with cameras hidden in sugar bags. Several photographs were taken.  After seeing them, “Baryka” again ordered “Anka” and “Sęk” to  systematically chronicle the Nazi crimes in the city and in the vicinity[1.4]

Dąbrowska’s report presented in the Jewish Historical Institute’s bulletin, concerning the liquidation of the Pabianice ghetto reads as follows:

In the spring, all the Jewish people were examined by the health board, which marked the healthy men and women with an A stamp, and children up to 10 years old, old men over 60, the ill and those who seemed to be in bad shape – with a B stamp. On the evening of  May 16, 1942, the military police went into the ghetto and ordered the Jews to leave their homes immediately, not allowing them to take anything. Under a hail of rifle butts, the Jewish people were all herded into the Krusche & Enders sports stadium. Several dozens Jews were killed along the way. They stood in the pouring rain all night and the next day. They were not allowed to move and were given no food or water. In the evening, groups “A” and “B” were ordered to split up. A freight train arrived that night at the railway station by the square. The freight cars into which people were loaded were waiting in the vicinity of the mill, some 450 meters from the stadium.  The people marked “B” were pushed into the wagons. They were beaten, mothers were separated from their children, and they were all thrown into freight cars. Many people were killed during this event, mainly children, whose heads were smashed against the cars by the Nazis. The cars were then sealed; they stayed in the station for the whole night and left for Chelmno. On May 18th, the “A” group was transported on  trams to Łódź; there were only 150 women and children saved from the “B” group, for which the relatives from the “A” group paid dearly. During the liquidation of the ghetto, approximately 150 Jewish craftsmen were selected and placed in old factory rooms at 147 Warszawska Street. They worked and lived there, and they died there, as well. The area was enclosed with barbed wire and was under constant watch by German camp guards[1.5].

Bibliography:

• Dąbrowska D., Zagłada skupisk żydowskich w Kraju Warty w okresie okupacji hitlerowskiej, „Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego” 1955, nr 13–14.
• Pabianice, [w:] Encyclopedia of Jewish Life before and during the Holocaust, t. II, red. Sh. Spector, G. Wigoder, New York 2001, s. 960.
• Peska R., Skazani na zagładę. Żydzi w Pabianicach 1794–1998, Pabianice 1998.
• Sefer Pabianice. Jizkor Buch fun der farfainikter kehile, red. A. W. Yassni, Tel Awiw 1956.