Thank you to Kasia Smialkowski for the Polish to English translation and commentary as well as the remarkable research that she provided.
I would also like to thank Ania Shepler who helped with some of the Polish to English translation.
For photos from our journey via SmugMug, please click the photo at the bottom of the page.
From Left: Juda Leib Windman, Wolf Windman (seated), Perla (behind Wolf), Mania Szopa Windman and Luzer Israel Windman. This picture was most likely taken before the birth of Szewa in January of 1922.
Juda Leib Windman known as Leon was born on November 20, 1911 in Czestechowa, Poland to Luzer Israel Windman and Mania Szopa Windman. Leon was the oldest of four children. His brother Wolf was born on April 13, 1913; his sister Perla was born on November 20,1918 and his youngest sister was born on January 21, 1922.
Paulette Wajsman was born on October 20, 1913 to Gabriel Wajsman and Necha Berkowicz Wajsman in Radom, Poland. Paulette was the third child of eight, four boys and four girls. Her brothers were Judka (1910), Szlama (1916), Jajny (1919) and Baruck (1921). Her sisters were Ita (1911), Mirla (1924), and Hinda (1926).
Perla with two of her sisters. Perla is on the far right. The two sisters were most likely Ita and Mirla.
On the 14th of May, 1941, Jewish men between the ages of 18 and 40 were called to present themselves to the French police in Paris. They were summoned using a hand delivered green postcard, for which this wave of arrests became known as the “billet vert”. Juda Leib (Leon) Windman was one of the 3,747 men detained on that day when he went to one of the designated assembly points for a "Review of his Status" as per the instructions on the green postcard.
These green postcards were hand delivered by the French Police and read:
Mr. Windman, accompanied by a member of his family, is requested to report to 2 Rue Japy (the gymnasium) at 7 o'clock in the morning for a review of his status.
Please make sure to bring ID documents.
Anyone who does not report at the specified time on the day indicated will be subject to the severest sanctions.
The Police Chief
Leon was accompanied by his wife Perla (Wajsman) Windman and his two month old daughter Jacqueline. Perla was told to go back to their apartment and gather some provisions for Leon.
The detainees were then put on buses and driven to the gare d'Austerlitz train station, where they were immediately boarded onto four special trains bound for the internment camps of Beaune-la-Rolande and Pithiviers located in the Loiret Department (Region) near Orleans.
Leon was transported to and imprisoned at le Camp de Pithiviers.
Jews who were detained during the "Billet Vert" being taken to gare d’Austerlitz train station. (14 May 1941) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Serge Klarsfeld (Beate Klarsfeld Foundation)
Detainees during the "Billet Vert" being loaded onto train cars for deportation to Pithiviers or Beaune-la-Rolande - Paris, gare d’Austerlitz (14 May 1941), Collection Musée de la résistance Nationale – Champigny-sur-Marne"
Above are documents acquired from the French Government. I have requested information from the Memorial de la Shoah explanations as to what each of the documents are.
““5 000 Jews, recently imported from all ghettos of the world are being invited to join various concentration camps in our region. The purification of the Semite squalor has seriously begun. The Jews today are not important people, for those who didn’t know””
The Pithiviers Internment Camp, located near the French Commune of Pithiviers in the Loiret Region of France was built at the beginning of World War II to hold German prisoners but after the French surrender to the Nazis in 1940, it was used as an internment camp for Jews, especially for Jews without French citizenship. Pithiviers is located approximately fifty (50) miles south of Paris. . Six train convoys left from Pithiviers in 1942 on June 25th, July 17th and 31st, August 3rd and September 21st , transporting 6,079 Jews to Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Oświęcim, Poland. The camp of Pithivers was evacuated on October in 1943 to be transformed into a concentration camp for political prisoners.
Juda Leib Windman was imprisoned at le Camp de Pithiviers from May 14, 1941 to June 25, 1942 when he was sent by train to Auschwitz Concentration camp on Convoy #4.
A certificate documenting that Juda Leib Windman has been at Camp Pithiviers since May 14, 1941 and will be detained for an unspecified amount of time.
A visitor's pass issued by the Camp Pithiviers allowing Juda Leib's wife, Perla Weissman (Wajsman) Windman and his daughter to visit him on July 31, 1941 from 2:00PM to 4:30PM. Juda Leib (Leon) was assigned to Shack #9.
Click on Thumbnails to Enlarge
In his letters to his wife and daughter Juda Leib wrote that he will be leaving le Camp de Pithiviers for work elsewhere. After many days of preparing for his departure it was now time to leave. In his letter dated June 23, 1942 Juda Leib wrote:
“After four we were all called out in the square and we were grouped into 50’s, it is certain that we will go on cattle cars and they will be locked. Imagine this on such hot days, how we will look. They called us out and we stood in the square until 8 in the evening, and today was such a hot day. It took so long because you know French administration, when they have to process 1000 people.”
Juda Leib along with 998 were loaded onto cattle cars as part of Convoy #4, the first from Pithiviers, which left the camp on June 25, 1942. The Nazi order called for 1000 men so the assumption is that one of those selected had died prior to the loading of the train cars. What Juda Leib thought was a trek that would bring him one step closer to home was actually a journey to one of the most evil places in the history of mankind.
The Nazi order calling for the transportation of 1,000 Jews from le Camp de Pithiviers to Auschwitz.
A page from the list of men that would be on Convoy #4 leaving Pithiviers. Juda Leib is the second name from the top.
On June 27, 1942 Convoy #4 arrived in the Polish town of Oświęcim which the Nazis renamed Auschwitz. Unlike the many nameless and faceless men and women who would be taken out of the cattle cars and sent directly to the gas chambers, Juda Leib Windman was registered as a prisoner. Juda Leib was tattooed with the number 42702 upon his induction into the camp which would become his identity to the Nazis from this day forward. Stripped of everything that he loved and all of his possessions he would now be just a number in the eyes of his oppressors.
Nazi document of prisoners who were registered into Auschwitz on June 29, 1942. Juda Leib was #42702 born 11/20/1911
After being a prisoner at Auschwitz for only 73 days, Juda Leib Windman was dead. The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum has Juda Leib’s fate listed as “murdered”. Of the 999 men sent to Auschwitz on Convoy #4 from Pithiviers only 59 were surviving in 1945.
Juda Leib’s father, Luzer Israel Windman, was sent to Auschwitz on 10/25/1941 and was immediately placed in the infamous Block 11, known as the “prison within the prison”. Block 11 was used for torture and executions. Between Block 11 and Block 10 was the “Death Wall” where thousands of prisoners were lined up and shot. Though the death certificate that was issued from Auschwitz had Luzer’s cause of death listed as a brain hemorrhage it was most certainly a bullet to the head. The Nazis kept meticulous records for the people that were registered as prisoners in the camp but some details such as causes of death were manufactured.
When the Nazis realized that their defeat was inevitable and the allies would be coming to liberate the camps the Nazis tried to destroy any records of the atrocities that they were responsible for. They blew up some of the gas chambers and crematoriums. They tried to burn the paper records that would become known as the “death books”. They did not succeed in erasing the crimes that they committed. The records of my grandfather and great-grandfather were saved hence the fact that we were able to get copies of the original documents.
More than 1.1 Million men, women and children were murdered at Auschwitz for no other reason than they were not the right religion, nationality, sexual orientation, intelligence (either high or low) and many others. There are many people today that still deny that the Holocaust ever happened even with all of the evidence that is out there including the testimony of those who survived and the perpetrators of these crimes against humanity.
From the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum website
The Auschwitz death certificate for Juda Leib Windman
Daily Record of bodies cremated at Auschwitz. Juda Leib Windman #42702 is on line 4.
Perla (Paulette) Wajsman Windman, wife of Juda Leib and their daughter Jacqueline both survived the war. Perla sent her daughter to the countryside (Beaufay) to live with strangers which was arranged through a friend while she hid in Paris. The two were reunited towards the end of the war and both emigrated to the United States in 1948.
Wolf Windman, Juda Leib’s brother, was the only blood relative other than Jacqueline known to have survived the war. Wolf was instrumental in they creation of the Holocaust Memorial of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation. Juda Leib’s father, Luzer, was murdered in Auschwitz after only 4 days in the infamous Block 11. His mother and two sisters plus the child of one of his sisters perished in Treblinka.
Perla Wajsman Windman lost both of her parents, three brothers and three sisters. Only Perla and her brother Sol survived the war.
PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE WINDMAN AND WAJSMAN FAMILIES (Click on photo to enlarge, you can use the arrows on screen to move between photos, hit escape to come back to this screen)
The Journey Began on September 2, 2017
