Transport from Bilgoraj, Ghetto, Poland to Belzec, Extermination Camp, Poland on 03/11/1942

Bilgoraj County is located in today’s Lublin Province, southeastern Poland. Bilgoraj was a typically agricultural county and its road infrastructure was poor. In 1931, the county had a Jewish population of 12, 938. When its borders changed to become Kreishauptmannschaft Bilgoraj in 1939, the population increased to around 16,000 Jews. The Jews living in Bilgoraj County were very religious. According to research, in 1939 lived 5,010 Jews in Bilgoraj town. After the Germans entered the town on September 17, 1939, they forcefully evicted many Jews from their apartments and German soldiers moved in instead. On September 27, the German army withdrew the city, and two days later the Red Army soldiers entered it. On October 5 or 6 the Soviets withdrew and the city returned to the Germans. When the Soviet forces left, about 1,500 Jews left with them, in anticipation of their persecution by the Nazis regime. At the end of 1939, the Judenrat was headed by Chaim Mordechai Hirschenhorn, who deeply cared for the Jews of Bilgoraj, visited the sick regularly and died himself of Typhus in the ghetto. Based on data gathered on the basis of documents from Joint Distribution Committee, the Jewish Social Self-Help (Żydowska Samopomoc Społeczna, ŻSS), the Central Welfare Council (Rada Główna Opiekuńcza, RGO) and local administration from the occupation period, in 1942 there were at least 2,200 Jews left in Bilgoraj, including Jews form nearby villages as well. ...