Transport from Skryhiczyn, Hrubieszow, Lublin, Poland to Sobibor, Extermination Camp, Poland on 02/06/1942

Situated within the Dubienka municipality (gmina) during the war, Skryhiczyn was a village with an adjacent farm and agricultural enterprise (folwark), located in eastern Poland 25 kilometers north of Hrubieszów, the county (Polish: powiat) capital.

In 1921, the local Jewish population stood at 215 – twenty-seven Jews resided in the village itself and 188 on the grounds of the agricultural enterprise (folwark) - out of a total population of 851.^[1] Most of the Jews worked in agriculture, though there were also a number of well-established Jewish land and forest owners including the Rottenberg,  Halperin,  Horowicz,  Kaminer, and  Szydłowski families.

Following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, and then a few interim days of Soviet control, Skryhiczyn was incorporated into the German-ruled territories, within Hrubieszów County (German: Kreis) in the Lublin District (Distrikt), part of the General Government established by the Nazi regime. According to an anonymous account in the Oneg Shabbat underground archive compiled in the Warsaw ghetto (the Ringelblum Archive), the Germans’ occupation of the village was accompanied by a pogrom against the Jews. The Jewish-owned folwark sawmill was expropriated, Jewish property was stolen, and most of the male members of the Halperin family were murdered.^[2] Following the pogrom, there was a period of quiet when the remaining Jews went on with their daily life....