Wave of Deportation from Zamosc, Ghetto, Poland to Izbica, Krasnystaw, Lublin, Poland on 18/10/1942

The city of Zamość, located about 85 kilometers southeast of Lublin, was occupied by the Germans on September 13, 1939. Two weeks later the Red Army entered the city, and on October 20 the Germans reoccupied it.^[1] Under their authority, it became the capital of Zamość County in the Lublin District, which was within the territory of the General Government (Generalgouvernement) – Nazi-occupied central Poland.

The Jewish population, which was between 10,000 to 12,000 in 1939,^[2] was reduced by a few thousand who left with the retreating Red Army.^[3] As part of the Nazi policy of "cleansing" German or German-occupied territories of Jews,^[4] deportees arrived in Zamość.^[5]

In January 1940, the occupiers appointed a Judenrat (a Jewish Council) with Mieczysław Garfinkel as its chairman. From May 1, 1941, all Jews had to move to the suburb of Nowa Osada (New Town), where living conditions were significantly worse. Those who did not move in time – a few hundred men, women and children – were deported to the nearby town of Komarów, and later to Krasnobród.^[6]...