Tarnow
On June 13, 1940, about 750 Polish political prisoners were moved from a prison in Tarnow to a Jewish ritual bathhouse to shower. They also spent the night there and early next morning, June 14, they were forced to march to the station in Tarnow. From there, the majority of them were deported to Auschwitz, the first transport of prisoners to arrive at Auschwitz. For some reason, only 728 of the prisoners were registered, what happened to the others is unknown. It may have been that some twenty were sent back to Tarnow the next day. The prisoners registered at Auschwitz were numbered 31 to 758. Numbers 1 to 30 had been given to German prisoners Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss had brought with him from Sachsenhausen earlier in that year to build the camp. The number 31 was given to Stanislaw Ryniak (1915 – 2004) and he became the first Pole registered in Auschwitz. Of the 728, 298 survived, 272 died and for 158, fate is unknown.
Current status: Preserved with monument (2013).
Address: Plac Wiezniów Oswiecimia, 33-100 Tarnów.
Get there: Car.
Follow up in books: Rees, Laurence: Auschwitz: The Nazis and the Final Solution (2005).
The Bath house is a restaurant in 2013. The first Jewish transport to Auschwitz took place on 15 February 1942. These were Jews who had been arrested by the Gestapo in Bytom and were immediately taken to the main camp where they were murdered in the gas chamber.