Transport from Uchanie, Ghetto, Poland to Sobibor, Extermination Camp, Poland on 08/06/1942

Uchanie (Yiddish: Nachan) is a town in Lublin Voivodship, Hrubieszow County, in eastern Poland, located some 88 kilometers southeast of the city of Lublin. In August 1939, on the eve of the German invasion of Poland, there were some 1,450-1,700 Jews living in Uchanie.^[1] About three weeks after the beginning of the September 1939 campaign, Uchanie was occupied by Russian troops, who had effectively arrived there ahead of the Germans.^[2] Two weeks later, after the conclusion of the German-Soviet border negotiations, the Red Army withdrew from Uchanie and retreated to the Bug river.^[3] In early October, the town was occupied by German troops.

According to the testimony of Rubin Shafran, the local ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche), who lived in a village near Uchanie and knew everyone in town, formed a militia and took over the police station (similar takeovers occurred elsewhere in the county). On a Saturday morning in May or June 1940, the SS arrived.^[4]

In early 1940, the German authorities established a Judenrat in Uchanie. Among other duties, it had to supply the Germans with a set quota of Jewish forced laborers....