Transport from Ruda - Opalin, Camp, Poland to Sawin Area, forest, Murder Site, Poland on 08/1940

The Ruda Opalin forced labor camp was established in April 1940, in an area that was known at the time as the village of Ruda Opalin.^[1] The camp was located just east of the railway station, some 14 kilometers northeast of Chełm. During World War II, it belonged administratively to Gmina Świerże in the Chełm County, the Lublin District. ^[2]

The Ruda Opalin camp was established on the site of a former Polish penal camp.^[3] It was part of the network of water management camps [Wasserwirtschaftsinspektion] in the Chełm County. It was fenced off with barbed wire. Its Jewish inmates were forced to work in regulating the Uherka River, flattening hills, digging tunnels for the river water, irrigating fields, and draining swamps. This work required them to stand in muddy and wet soil for long stretches of time, and they suffered from hunger, lack of basic clothing, exhaustion, poor sanitary conditions, lice, and disease.^[4] Poles from the surrounding villages were also present at the camp, doing various kinds of paid work.^[5]   

A total of some 1,500 Jews – mostly men – passed through the camp,^[6] while at any given time there were about 500-600 Jewish forced laborers there.^[7] The inmates were housed in three barracks, with 200 laborers in each. Apparently, the camp's labor force did not consist solely of Jews from the village of Ruda Opalin (where the camp was located), or from the neighboring villages in the Gmina; rather, some of the Jews had been brought in from other settlements in Poland — e.g., Krasnik,^[8] Żółkiewka,^[9] Krakow,^[10] Warsaw,^[11] and Izbica.^[12]...