Transport from Tomaszow Lubelski, Tomaszow Lubelski, Lublin, Poland to Belzec, Extermination Camp, Poland on 27/10/1942

Tomaszów Lubelski is a town in southeastern Poland, located about 36 kilometers south of Zamość, the county capital during WWII. The town’s population in 1931 was 10,403, of whom 5,669 – more than half – were Jews.^[1] At the outbreak of the war, in September 1939, Tomaszów Lubelski was heavily bombed by the Germans. The Jewish quarter was hit especially hard: some 150-200 residents were killed and many more rendered homeless.^[2]

The town was briefly occupied by the Germans on the eve of the Jewish New Year (September 13, 1939), who looted and killed a number of local Jews. Eight days later, they ceded the town temporarily to Soviet control. However, when the German and Soviet occupation zones were finalized, the Soviets withdrew and the town came under German rule until the end of the war. More than half of the local Jews apparently left with the Soviet forces on October 8.^[3] During the period of the German occupation, Tomaszów lay within Zamość County (Kreis) in the Lublin District (Distrikt) of the General Government.^[4]

According to the testimony of a local resident, Shmuel Ehrlich, in December 1939 several German units seized people who were physically or mentally disabled – mainly Jews and some non-Jews – locked them in a cellar and forced about ten other Jews to fill large pails with water and pour it into the cellar for several days until the victims drowned. The bodies were removed, loaded onto a large, flat horse-drawn wagon, and buried in an unknown location.^[5]...