Conditions in the ghetto were poor, and a prohibition against Jews bringing food into the ghetto was brutally enforced by the Polish auxiliary police. In one instance, the Polish auxiliaries beat to death three Jews smuggling food and their corpses were then strung to the ghetto gates by the Germans. Epidemics of dysentery and typhus broke out in the winter of 1941. All infected died. A communal kitchen was set up serving about a thousand meals a day. There were no Jewish schools. Factories for ammunition, soap, leather, boots, and grease were established; some of them on the initiative of the Judenrat. They made products for the Germans such as shoes, garments and furs. On 1 November 1942 the Ghetto was surrounded by the German gendarmerie and the following morning evacuation was ordered. Most of the Jews, 8,000–10,000 were taken to a transit camp in Zambrów and than to the extermination camp in Auschwitz. The remaining ones, went to the Kiełbasin Sammellagger, south of Grodno, and to Wołkowysk camps as well as to Białystok. Only a few succeeded in escaping. They found refuge with the Catholic Polish families. Dr. Hefner from Judenrat took his own life. Last inmates of the Łomża Ghetto stayed in the Zambrow barracks until 14 to 18 January 1943, when they were sent to Auschwitz.