Transport from Wlodawa, Wlodawa, Lublin, Poland to Sobibor, Extermination Camp, Poland on 23/05/1942

Włodawa is a town in eastern Poland. On the eve of World War II, it was home to 5,650 Jews. According to the testimony of local resident Ephraim Tilip, Włodawa was occupied by the German army in mid-September 1939Red Army then entered the town for a few days. However, once the border between the German- and the Soviet-controlled zones of occupied Poland had been finalized, the Red Army withdrew behind the Bug River. As elsewhere in these frontier areas, some of the local Jews used this opportunity to cross over into Soviet-controlled territory. The Germans re-occupied the town and remained in charge until the arrival of the Red Army in 1944. The local Jews were subjected to persecutions from the very beginning of German rule. Their businesses were looted shortly after the onset of the occupation, before being expropriated altogether in the spring of 1940. The Jews had to pay contributions to the Nazis, and were marked with a yellow star of David on the white armband. A Jewish Council (Judenrat) was established in October 1939 and ordered to register all the able-bodied Jews who were fit for forced labor.^[1]   

Włodawa became part of the Chełm County (Kreis) within the Lublin District (Distrikt) of the General Government (Generalgouvernement), a newly established entity administered separately by Nazi Germany, and not annexed to the Reich.  The county governor (Kreishauptman) responsible for the mass deportations of the Jews to the extermination camps was Dr. Werner Ansel (April–November 1942).^[2] The town had a Border Police post (Grenzpolizeiposten), which, from late 1939, was under the command of SS-Untersturmführer Richard Nitschke and his deputy (from January 15, 1942), SS- Oberscharführer Hubert Schönborn. They were responsible for the town and the surrounding area, up to the village of Sobibór, 11 kilometers (7 miles) to the south. 

The Jews were concentrated in a certain area of the town as early as 1939, but no official ghetto seems to have been established there. In addition to the Jewish Council, a small group of Jewish men (Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst) was formed and required to carry out the orders of the Germans.^[3]...