Nowy Redzeń | Łódź Voivodeship

Jan Ś., born in 1933: “One day, when I was looking for my father, I met three Jewish children—two boys and a girl, slightly older than me, wearing stars on their hats.” ©Emmanuelle Foussat/Yahad – In Unum Jan Ś., born in 1933: "A German Gendarme, Schumann, rode past us. The children saw him, ran, but got caught in the swamp. Schuman then took them to the Soltys." ©Emmanuelle Foussat/Yahad – In Unum Jan Ś., born in 1933: "Schumann led us into the forest that belonged to Mr. Lutomski. My father tried to intervene, but Schumann forced him to keep working. I watched as he told the children to run, then shot them in the back." ©Emmanuelle Foussat/Yahad Jan Ś., born in 1933 : "One boy was killed first, then two more died. The second boy was caught by Schumann’s dog while fleeing. The girl was among them. Two Poles buried their bodies in one pit. A monument now marks this grave." ©Emmanuelle Foussat/Yahad Jan Ś., born in 1933, led the Yahad team to the mass grave of seven Jewish children, killed in 1943 and buried in a mass grave in Lutomski Forest. ©Emmanuelle Foussat/Yahad – In Unum Jan Ś., born in 1933: "Schumann released me with a warning: never trade with Jews again. This was the only shooting I witnessed. I later heard of seven other Jews killed in Redzeń Stary killed by Polish police from Koluszki." ©Emmanuelle Foussat/Yahad – The monument in the Lutomski Forest, marking the burial site of seven Jewish children—six boys and one girl. They were killed by gendarmes from Koluszki in 1943, and their bodies were buried here at the site of their murder. ©Emmanuelle Foussat/Yahad – In The monument inscription reads: ’Here lie seven children of Polish-Jewish origin, murdered here by German gendarmes from Koluszki after escaping transport to an extermination camp in 1943.” ©Emmanuelle Foussat/Yahad – In Unum

Destruction of Jews from Koluszki ghetto in Nowy Redzeń

1 Killing site(s)

Kind of place before:
Forest
Memorials:
Yes
Period of occupation:
1939-1944
Number of victims:
7

Witness interview

Jan Ś., born in 1933: "I remember Nowy Redzeń as it was before the war. It was a very small village back then and was home to just eight families. But as our families grew, so did the village itself. My father, for example, had seven brothers, and I had four sisters.

Our village was a mix of people. Most of us were Catholic, but there were also five German families who owned their own land. Their names were Zondel, Mertin, Cutz, Stanga, and Ulmater. There was one Jewish family too—a man named Mendel who had two daughters. In the summertime, he ran a small stand where he sold different fruits.

People from nearby villages would come to Nowy Redzeń as well, selling things like children’s shoes. But when the war began, the Mendel family left, and I never heard what happened to them after that." (Witness N°858P, interviewed in Nowy Redzeń, on July 06, 2018)

Polish Archives

Redzeń Nowy, Koluszki County

1943: Seven children (6 boys and 1 girl) of Jewish nationality were shot. The murders were committed by gendarmes from Koluszki in the forest belonging to Lutomski. The victims’ bodies were buried at the execution site.

[AGK, Ankiety /2/ GK « Egzekucje » Redzeń Nowy, pow. Brzeziny, woj. Łódzkie; AGK, Ankieta OKBZH Łódź “Egzekucje” Redzeń Nowy, pow. Brzeziny, woj. Łódzkie; AGK, ASG, sygn. 20, k. 24-26; AGK, Alert ZHP]

 

Historical note

Nowy Redzeń is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Koluszki, within Łódź East County, Łódź Voivodeship, in central Poland. It lies approximately 6 km (4 miles) southeast of Koluszki and 29 km (18 miles) east of the regional capital, Łódź.

Little is known about the pre-war Jewish community of Nowy Redzeń. According to the only witness interviewed by a Yahad team, just one Jewish family—the Mendels—lived in the village before the war. The witness recalled that the family left Nowy Redzeń prior to the outbreak of the Second World War.

Nearby Koluszki, located roughly 3–4 km from Nowy Redzeń, had a more established Jewish population. According to the 1921 census, the town was home to 557 individuals who identified with the Mosaic faith, 446 of whom declared Jewish nationality.

Holocaust by bullets in figures

The Germans invaded Koluszki on September 6, 1939, bringing the town and surrounding areas, including the nearby village of Nowy Redzeń, under German occupation.

In April 1941, a ghetto was established in Koluszki. Hundreds of Jews from the surrounding region were forcibly relocated there, swelling the population from around 500 before the war to over 3,000. The Koluszki Ghetto suffered from extreme overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, and severe food shortages, leading to the deaths of many inmates. Jews found outside the ghetto boundaries were at constant risk of being shot. Gendarme Harry Schumann, stationed in Koluszki, gained particular notoriety for such killings.

The ghetto was liquidated on October 31, 1942. Its remaining residents were deported to the Treblinka extermination camp. Around 50 people are known to have escaped during the liquidation Aktion and fled to nearby rural areas, although most were later tracked down and murdered by the Germans.

According to Polish archives, in 1943, a group of seven Jewish children—six boys and one girl, aged approximately 7 to 13—was discovered in the village of Nowy Redzeń by German gendarmes from Koluszki. The children were taken to a nearby wooded area on a field belonging to A. Lutomski, where they were executed. A local resident, Jan Ś., interviewed by Yahad, witnessed the murder of three of the children—two boys and one girl—and identified the perpetrator as none other than Schumann. Two Polish villagers were later requisitioned to bury the bodies at the site.

Today, the killing and burial site is marked by a monument, which commemorates the murder of seven Jewish children in 1943 after they escaped transport to an extermination camp. The inscription includes a quote from the Book of Psalms in Hebrew:

"They shoot from ambush at the innocent; they shoot suddenly, without fear." (Psalm 64:5)

It continues:

"In this place, in 1943, the Germans murdered Jewish boys and girls who tried to escape by jumping from the train on their way to the unknown. They were rounded up and shot in this forest."

Beneath this is a prayer: "May the earth not cover their blood," and at the base, an acronym forming an imprecatory curse directed at the perpetrators: "May their names be erased and their memory vanish."

The tombstone and inscription were funded by the Israeli educational organization Schem Olam.

Gendarmerie officer Harry Schumann, responsible for numerous individual executions of both Jews and Poles across the Tomaszów Mazowiecki District, was arrested on December 12, 1945. He was sentenced to death by the District Court in Piotrków Trybunalski on June 14, 1947, and the sentence was carried out on September 9, 1947.

Nearby villages

To support the work of Yahad-in Unum please consider making a donation

Do you have additional information regarding a village that you would like to share with Yahad ?

Please contact us at contact@yahadinunum.org
or by calling Yahad – In Unum at +33 (0) 1 53 20 13 17