Transport from Tarnogrod, Ghetto, Poland to Tarnogrod, Murder Site on 05/1942

Tarnogród is a town in Biłgoraj County, Lublin Province, in southeast Poland, about 106 kilometers south of the city of Lublin.^[1] In August 1939, its 5,016 inhabitants included 2,515 Jews, who constituted 50 percent of the population.^[2]

The Germans occupied Tarnogród on September 15, 1939,^[3] before withdrawing some ten days later^[4] in the face of the advancing Soviet forces. On October 6, upon the conclusion of the German–Soviet border negotiations, the Red Army withdrew. The next day, Saturday morning, October 7, German troops retook the town.^[5]

The Germans appointed a local collaborationist administration, with Poles and Ukrainians recruited into the police. At the end of 1939 or in early 1940, the German authorities ordered the establishment of a Judenrat (Jewish Council) in Tarnogród, which was headed by Hersh Blutman, the prewar Jewish community leader.^[6] The Judenrat was tasked with providing Jews to be sent for forced labor.^[7] In April 1941, a German Gendarmerie unit was stationed in Tarnogród, under the command of Michael (Karl) Gerhard.^[8]...