Transport from Tomaszow Lubelski, Tomaszow Lubelski, Lublin, Poland to Tomaszow Lubelski, Murder Site on 27/10/1942

Tomaszów Lubelski is a town in southeastern Poland, located about 36 kilometers south of Zamość, the county capital during the war. 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), and they engaged in looting 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]

The destruction of the Tomaszów community began with the deportation of the Jews aged 32 and older, about 700-800 souls, to the Cieszanów ghetto, some 37 kilometers to the southwest, on February 25, 1942.^[5] The second mass deportation was conducted on May 22, 1942 when some 800 Jews from Tomaszów, Łaszczów, Jarczów and perhaps other locations were loaded onto trucks and taken to the Belzec death camp to be murdered....