Warsaw Umschlagplatz

It was from this place, just outside the ghetto that Nazis in July 1942 began to deport the ghetto Jews to Treblinka extermination camp, about 100 kilometres northeast of Warsaw. Umschlagplatz was part of the Gdansk station but the Nazis shielded and built a wall around it. The Nazis ordered the Jewish council of the ghetto to organize the deportations and to fulfill the daily quota of deportees. The Jewish council president in the ghetto, Adam Czerniakow, refused to participate in the deportations and committed suicide on 23 July, 1942. Next to the umschlagplatz was a hospital that served as a assembly square for the Jews who were to be deported. Between July 23, and September 12, 1942, about 300,000 Jews were deported from the ghetto, of whom about 265,000 ended up in Treblinka where they were murdered. Deportations resumed on a smaller scale in January 1943.