Transport from Bortatycze, Zamosc, Lublin, Poland to Rotunda Zamojska, Detention Site on 02/1943

The Jewish forced labor camp in the vicinity of the villages of Wysokie, Bortatycze, and Białobrzegi, about 10 kilometers from the city of Zamość, was established in mid-1940, and it was part of the Wasserwirtschaftinspektion, the network of water drainage forced labor camps in the Lublin District.^[1] Its original purpose was drainage, amelioration, and improvement of the surrounding farmland.^[2] The Zamość branch of the Wasserwirtschaftamt (the Waterworks Department) was headed by a German engineer named Schtracke and Polish specialists, led by Pir Badagian, the local administrator of the department, supervised specific tasks.^[3] The prisoners were guarded by a Selbstschutz unit consisting of ten adolescents, aged 16-18. These were ethnic German (Volksdeutsche) colonizers from the Chełm area.^[4]

Despite an apparent hiatus in its operation in November 1940, the camp existed until early 1943, and the conditions in it improved.^[5] According to the testimony of the former inmate Abram H., a Jew from Zamość, in October 1942, at the time of the liquidation of the Zamość Ghetto, there were about 150 prisoners at the camp, including three women.^[6] They remained there until February 1943. Some of the inmates were German Jews. At the time, the inmates were forced to work as a construction brigade for the Waffen-SS. 

In February 1943, officials of the Zamość Gestapo arrived in the camp, "liquidated" it, and rounded up the inmates for a transport, according to a list of deportees they had prepared in advance. Abram H. testified: "I was able to escape the transport…, because another Jew had told me that this transport was going to be shot in Zamość. In Zamość, these 150 Jews were shot together with other Jews, who had not been in the ghetto, and buried in a pit near Zamość."^[7] Although the eyewitness did not specify the destination of the transport, it was most likely the Rotunda, the execution site of Jewish inmates of labor camps, located just outside Zamość.^[8] According to Zygmunt Klukowski, who collected the available documents and testimonies on the Rotunda, many mass shootings took place there, particularly in February 1943.^[9] Heinrich Langenkämper (also known as Langkaempner), SS Hauptsturmfuhrer und Leiter des SD (Security Police) in Zamość, was responsible for what went on in the Rotunda, and he often carried out the shootings himself.^[10]...