Transport from Tarnogrod, Ghetto, Poland to Belzec, Extermination Camp, Poland on 02/11/1942

Tarnogród is a town located in Biłgoraj County, Lublin Province in southeast Poland.^[1] In August 1939, its 5,016 residents included 2,515 Jews, constituting 50 percent of the population.^[2]

On September 15, 1939, the Germans occupied Tarnogród.^[3] About ten days later,^[4] they withdrew from the town, surrendering it to the advancing Soviet forces. On October 6, after the completion of the German-Soviet border negotiations, the Red Army soldiers withdrew to eastern Poland. The next day, Saturday morning, October 7, the Germans regained control of the town.^[5]

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