Transport from Zwierzyniec, Zamosc, Lublin, Poland to Belzec, Extermination Camp, Poland on 09/08/1942

Following the occupation and partition of Poland in the fall of 1939, the town of Zwierzyniec, located about 94 km southeast of Lublin, fell under the control of Nazi Germany. In 1940 it was attached to Biłgoraj County (Landkreis) of the Lublin District (Distrikt) within the newly formed administrative entity known as the General Government (Generalgouvernement, the zone of Nazi-occupied central Poland not formally annexed to the Reich). In August 1939, some 520 Jews lived in Zwierzyniec and in the neighboring village of Rudka, out of a total of 1682 inhabitants, constituting 31 percent of the overall population. This number seems to have dropped to 372 prior to the deportations in 1942 according to the JSS (Jüdische Soziale Selbsthilfe – Jewish Social Self-help) correspondence from April 1942. The first reference to a ghetto in Zwierzyniec, according to JSS records, occurs in July 1941. Zwierzyniec functioned as the hub for Jewish deportees from across Biłgoraj County, who were assembled there, in some cases overnight, and subsequently taken to the Bełżec death camp from the town’s railway station. The first mass deportation from Biłgoraj County to Bełżec was carried out on August 9, 1942, and Zwierzyniec was one of four towns affected by the Aktion, together with Biłgoraj, Tarnogród and Szczebrzeszyn. The deportees were falsely informed that they were being sent to the Ukraine. The deportation was overseen personally by Biłgoraj County commissioner (Kreishauptmann) Hans Augustin, and was carried out by SCHUPO (Schutzpolizei - uniformed regular police force) officers, the local gendarmerie and 1st and the 2nd Platoon of the 3rd Company of Reserve Police Battalion 67. A Polish witness, Stanisław Bohdanowicz, reports that on August 9, 1942, all the Jews of Zwierzyniec were ordered to pack their basic necessities in small parcels and assemble in the town square for deportation. ...