FIGURES AND OTHER DATA OF JEWS
EVACUATED FROM PRUZHANY GHETTO
Data provided by Avraham Harsahlom (Fridberg)
1. Liquidation of Pruzhany ghetto by evacuation of the Jews from Pruzhany to Auschwitz in four transports:
| Train No. |
Leaving Linova Railway Station | Arriving in Auschwitz | People in the train | Children up to 10 years | Entered Auschwitz camp | Sent directly to the gas chambers | ||
|
adults |
men |
women |
||||||
| Pj99 |
29.01.43 |
30.01.43 |
2612 |
518 |
602 |
327 |
275 |
2010 |
| Pj101 |
30.01.43 |
31.01.43 |
2450 |
457 |
281 |
249 |
32 |
2169 |
| Pj103 |
31.01.43 |
31.01.43 |
2834 |
750 |
483 |
303 |
180 |
2351 |
| Pj104 |
01.02.43 |
02.02.43 |
1265 |
95 |
399 |
294 |
105 |
866 |
|
|
|
|
9161 |
1820 |
1765 |
1173 |
592 |
7396 |
2. Numbers given to men and to women
| Train No. | Numbers given to men | Numbers given to women |
| Pj99 | 97825-98151 | 32604, 32884-33157 |
| Pj101 | 98516-98764 | 33326-33357 |
| Pj103 | 98778-99087, 99110-99112 | 33358-33537 |
| Pj104 | 99211-99504 | 33928-34032 |
The Jews were brought to the train station in peasants’ sleds. The ghetto was evacuated on 29, 30, 31 January and 1 February 1943. The numbers refer to the persons that arrived to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Probably there were escapes from the train on the way. The freight train was accompanied by SS-men, but they were not many, so that it was possible to escape when the train stopped. The problem was where to go to. According the the records which have been found, 50% of the children in the transports were younger than 4 years old, the other 50% between 4-10.
It took the transports about 24 hours to reach Auschwitz and most transports were scheduled to arrive at night.
At that time - end of January, beginning of February 1943 - the gas chambers were not yet finished. People were gassed in two buildings which served as gas chambers: the “white house” and the “red house”. The corpses were burnt in open pits nearby. This area close to Birkenau concentration camp is today fenced and marked with a wooden Star of David and a wooden cross in white colour.
At the time before the evacuation about 10,000 Jews lived in Pruzany ghetto, Jews of Pruzany and the nearby region, and Jews from other towns, that had been brought to Pruzany, mainly from Bialystok.
The percentage of adults in the transports who entered the camp for slave labour changed and there is no explanation: 23% in the first transport, 11% in the second, 17% in the third and 32% in the fourth. Perhaps it varied with the number of children in the transports, and according to the need of work force in the camp that day.
There are no numbers how many Pruzany Jews survived the Holocaust and were still alive after the war.
Total 1775 - 1183 men and 592 women - entered the camp and the estimation is that one third remained alive in the camps at the end of the war.
About 400,000 persons entered the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp for slave labour and got numbers of different series. The Pruzany Jews made
up about 0.45 %.