Transport from Swierze, Chelm, Lublin, Poland to Sobibor, Extermination Camp, Poland on 09/1942

Świerże is a townlet in the administrative district of the municipality [gmina] of Dorohusk, in the Chełm County of the Lublin District. It lies some 20 kilometers northeast of Chełm. Before World War II, the townlet was the seat of the Świerże Gmina. At that time, it was home to 294 Jews.^[1] Their numbers grew over the interwar period, and, on the eve of the war, there were some 800 Jews in the townlet.^[2]

The Wehrmacht occupied the area in September 1939, after a brief interlude of Soviet rule. A considerable number of local Jews had left with the Red Army, crossing over into the USSR and leaving behind some 480 Jews from their community.^[3] Shortly after the onset of the German occupation, a Judenrat was established in Świerże, chaired by Moshe Perelstein.^[4]

In December 1940, eighty Jews from Kraków arrived in the town.^[5]...