Memoria [EN] No 42 (03/2021) | Page 6

February 1940; however, surviving documentation indicates that its uniforms did not contain the above-mentioned characteristic elements at the beginning of its existence, as they appeared after the closing of the ghetto borders. Furthermore, no accounts are known of this form of assistance – travelling on a cart together with displaced persons. During the creation of the ghetto, the role of the police was to refer groups of people to meeting points and ensure the smooth flow of subsequent displaced persons. However, the argument of incompatibility of uniforms to the time shown cannot prejudge a different interpretation as to the time of the presented scene. It is conceivable that the author of the diorama did not know what the uniforms of the Law Enforcement Service looked like at its inception or did not witness the resettlements in the winter of 1940. Nevertheless, the doubts are compounded by another detail and the landscape in which the scene is set. The landscape depicted in the diorama, as mentioned above, portrays a characteristic suburban building development – wooden houses and one- and two-storey tenement houses were mainly found in the northern and north-eastern part of the ghetto – in Marysin. Furthermore, it is worth noting the direction in which the group of people shown on the diorama is travelling and its comparison with the buildings discussed above. The resettlers leave the developed area with taller two- and three-storey brick tenements and head through an area developed with wooden single-storey buildings. It may suggest that the group is heading from the central part of the ghetto through Marysin, i.e., towards Radegast Station.

Accordingly, the model may illustrate the relocations from the ghetto in early 1942. In that year, 10,003 persons were deported from the ghetto to Chełmno nad Nerem (Chełmno on the Ner) from 16 to 29 January, and another 34,073 during the second wave of deportations from 22 February to 2 April. The authors find it