Transport from Zamosc, Ghetto, Poland to Belzec, Extermination Camp, Poland on 11/04/1942

The city of Zamość, located about 85 kilometers southeast of Lublin, was occupied by the Germans on September 13, 1939. Two weeks later the Red Army entered the city, and on October 20 the Germans reoccupied it.^[1] Under their rule it became the capital of Zamość County in the Lublin District, which was in the territory of the General Government (Generalgouvernement) – Nazi-occupied central Poland.

The Jewish population, which had stood at between 10,000 and 12,000 in 1939,^[2] was reduced by a few thousand who left with the Red Army.^[3] However, as part of the Nazi policy of "cleansing" German or German-occupied territories of Jews,^[4] deportees arrived in Zamość.^[5]

The Germans plundered Jewish property, put Jews to work doing forced labor,^[6] and ordered all Jews above the age of 12 to wear a white armband with a blue Star of David on it.^[7] In January 1940, the occupiers appointed a Judenrat (Jewish Council) with Mieczysław Garfinkel as the chairman. From May 1, 1941, all Jews had to move to the suburb of Nowa Osada (New Town), where living conditions were significantly worse. Those who did not move on time – a few hundred men, women and children – were deported to the nearby towns of Krasnobród and Komarów.^[8]...