Transport from Tomaszow Lubelski, Tomaszow Lubelski, Lublin, Poland to Belzec, Extermination Camp, Poland on 22/05/1942

Tomaszów Lubelski is a Polish town located 36 kilometers south of the county capital, Zamość. In 1931, among its 10,403 residents, there were 5,669 Jews.^[1] At the outbreak of the war in September 1939, the town was heavily bombed by the Germans. The Jewish quarter was hit especially hard with 150 to 200 killed, and many more homeless.^[2]

The town was briefly occupied by the Germans on the eve of the Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year), September 13, 1939, during which time they looted Jewish businesses and murdered a number of local Jews. They handed over the town, temporarily, to Soviet control eight days later. When the German and Soviet-occupation zones were finalized, the Soviets withdrew and the town again came under German control, and remained so until the end of the German occupation of Poland.  More than half of the local Jews seem to have fled the town with the Soviets on October 8.^[3] During the German-occupation period, Tomaszów Lubelski was a part of Zamość County (Kreis), within the Lublin District (Distrikt) of the General Government.^[4]

A survivor, Shmuel Ehrlich, testified that in December 1939, several German units carried out a mass murder. They rounded-up physical and mentally disabled people—mainly Jews and some non-Jews—and locked them in a cellar. They then forced some ten Jews to pour water 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]...