In 1939, on the eve of World War II, Chełm (Cholm), the capital of the Chełm County of the Lublin District, some seventy kilometers southeast of Lublin, was home to 15,000-18,000 Jews.[1]
After heavy bombardments by the German Luftwaffe from September 9, 1939 onwards, Soviet troops entered the city on September 25, 1939, and they remained there until October 7. Some 2,000-3,000 Jews left the city with the Red Army. The Germans occupied Chełm two days later, on October 9, 1939, subjecting the remaining Jewish residents to robbery, destruction of all houses of worship, and physical torture.[2] On December 1, 1939, some 1,800 Jewish men were brutally expelled from the city and forced on a death march to Hrubieszów.[3] The Jews who had been left were marked with a yellow Star of David. Their economic situation rapidly deteriorated because of the restrictions imposed by the occupiers (e.g., a prohibition on buying from Christians).[4]
Around December 1939, a Judenrat, headed by Marek (Mordechaj) Fraenkel and Izaak Kerszenblatt, was established in Chełm, along with a 150-strong Jewish police force.[5] According to a Jewish Self-Help (JSS) report from the period January 1—May 31, 1940, there were 11,300 Jews in the city.[6] On January 12, 1940, the SS broke into the local psychiatric hospital and murdered all 400 patients, about a dozen of whom were Jews.[7] A few thousand local Jewish residents were required to work in thirteen forced labor camps set up in the Chełm area, mostly under the auspices of the German Water Management (Wasserwirtschaftsverwaltung). These laborers had to work long hours in very tough conditions, leaving the city and returning to it every day. Several thousand Jews worked for the Germans in these water works camps.[8]...