The civilians arrested were in most cases chosen at random from among passers-by or inhabitants of city quarters surrounded by German forces prior to the action.

For men in their 20s and 30s, the only reliable defense against being taken away by the Nazis was the possession of an identity card (called Ausweis) certifying that the holder was employed by a Nazi-German company or a government agency locally (for example, by the city utilities or the railways).

On 19 September 1942, nearly 3,000 men and women, who had been caught in massive round-ups all over Warsaw during the previous two days, were transported by train-loads to slave labour in Nazi-Germany.

In historical terms, the razzia roundup was used in French colonial context for Muslim raids particularly to plunder and capture slaves from Western and Central Africa, also known as rezzou when practiced by the Tuareg.

(See also: Barbary slave trade) The word was adopted from ġaziya of Algerian Arabic vernacular and later became a figurative name for any act of pillage, with its verb form razzier.

[5] In 1940, one roundup was used by Home Army secret agent Witold Pilecki to gain entry into the Auschwitz camp set up at about that time for Polish prisoners.

[6] There he organised Związek Organizacji Wojskowej (ZOW, the Military Organization Association), and in November 1940 sent its first report about the camp and the genocide being committed there to Home Army headquarters in Warsaw.

[13] In 1943 it was published by the Polish resistance's underground presses in the book Posłuchajcie ludzie... (Listen, folks), one of the bibuła publications of the Komisja Propagandy (Propaganda Commission) of the Armia Krajowa (Home Army).