July 22, 1942

Warsaw Ghetto

The Great Deportation from the Warsaw Ghetto begins

The first quota was not due the next morning: 6,000 people had to be delivered to the rail-loading point by 16:00 that same day.

22 July 1942: an order read at the Judenrat

On 22 July 1942, SS officer Hermann Höfle went to the Jewish Council headquarters in the Warsaw Ghetto and read the deportation order to chairman Adam Czerniaków and other council representatives. The order described the operation euphemistically as 'resettlement to the East.'

It required the Jewish Council and the Jewish Order Service to deliver 6,000 people each day to the Umschlagplatz. The first quota was to reach the Stawki assembly and rail-loading area by 16:00 that same day.

84 kilometres, and what waited there

The trains ran 84 kilometres to Treblinka, where the deportees were murdered. German SS and police units directed the roundups while a captive Jewish administration and police force were made to help fill the quota under threats against themselves and their families.

By the evening of 22 July the first same-day quota had been assembled at the Umschlagplatz, and the deportation system to Treblinka was operating.

Czerniaków's last day

Czerniaków sought exemptions for groups of ghetto residents but did not stop the operation. The order had arrived on the eve of his 62nd birthday.

He died by suicide the following day, 23 July, after failing to protect the ghetto's children from deportation.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 6 sources 3 audit passes

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