Transport from Dzikow Stary, Lubaczow, Lwow, Poland to Jozefow (Bilgoraj), Camp, Poland on 01/08/1942

Dzików Stary (or Stary Dzików) is a village in southeastern Poland. The census of 1921 showed that there were 347 Jewish residents in Dzików Stary, comprising 15.21 percent of the total population of 2,282.^[1] The demographics for later years are harder to ascertain. Survivors from Dzików Stary provide several estimates of the Jewish population on the eve of World War II – 300 Jews,^[2] 500 Jews,^[3] 150 families.^[4]

At  the outbreak of the war, the German army briefly occupied the village. It then passed into Soviet hands, but only for a few days, until the border between German-occupied and Soviet-occupied territory was finalized.^[5] The brief Soviet presence was significant: according to the testimony of a survivor, Haim Schwartz, the majority of the local Jews left the village together with the Red Army and many of them survived the war in the Soviet Union.^[6] The village was attached by the German authorities to Biłgoraj County (Landkreis) in the Lublin District (Distrikt) within the newly formed German administrative entity of the General Government (Generalgouvernement). 

In June 1940, the Nazis established a forced labor camp in Dzików Stary, which was part of the Bełżec system of labor camps before the death camp at Bełżec became operational. Jews from other locales were deported to Dzików Stary for forced labor.^[7] According to the testimony of Sara Wiener, a survivor from the neighboring village of Moszczanica, "Jews from the entire surroundings were crammed into Dzików Stary." The inmates, she added, worked in a remote forest 5 kilometers from Dzików Stary, and as for the local Jews, after the Germans permanently occupied Dzików Stary they were sporadically drafted into forced labor, mainly in road construction.^[8]...