Transport from Wlodawa, Ghetto, Poland to Sobibor, Extermination Camp, Poland on 24/10/1942

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 1939, following repeated mass bombing at the start of the war. The Red Army then entered the town for a few days and but then ceded the town to the Germans. Some local Jews joined the Soviets upon withdrawal crossing over into Soviet-controlled territory. The town's remaining 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 "band of shame." 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. 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. Nitschke and Schönborn were responsible for carrying out the deportations of the Jewish population of Włodawa and the nearby villages to the Sobibor death camp. There was also a Gendarmerie post in the town.^[3]

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.^[4]...