German occuaption period city map of the Polish city of Pabianitz. Foldable map.Size 58 cm. X 98 cm . Stadtplan von Pabianitz. Before World War II, Pabianice had a substantial Jewish population, comprising about a quarter of all residents of the town. Jews had been living in the town since the 1700s. Following the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland, which started World War II in September 1939, the town was under German occupation. As part of the Intelligenzaktion, in late 1939, the Germans carried out mass arrests of local Polish intelligentsia, who were initially imprisoned in a local transit camp and the nearby Radogoszcz concentration camp, and then either deported to other concentration camps or mostly murdered in nearby forests. Local Polish teachers and activists were murdered by the Germans during large massacres in the nearby Łagiewniki forest (within today's city limits of Łodź) in November and December 1939. The Germans also expelled around 1,000 Poles from the town in December 1939. Under German occupation nearly the entire Jewish population was murdered. Some were murdered in the town, several thousand were sent to the Chełmno extermination camp where they were immediately gassed, and others were expelled to Łodź and to forced labour camps in the area. Only about 150 survived of the 9,000 Jews thought to be living in Pabianice at the start of the war. For more on the wartime experience see Megargee. The German occupation ended in 1945.