Transport from Rakolupy, Chelm, Lublin, Poland to Sobibor, Extermination Camp, Poland on 22/05/1942

During World War II, the Rakołupy municipality (gmina) was located in Chełm County, within the Lublin District of the General Government (the part of occupied Poland that had not been annexed to the Reich). The village of Rakołupy, the seat of the municipality, lies some 17 kilometers south of the city of Chełm.

On the eve of the war, 490 Jews were listed as residents of the municipality.^[1]

The Wehrmacht occupied the area in September 1939, after a brief interlude of Soviet rule. Some Jewish men and women left the village with the retreating Red Army and crossed over into the USSR.^[2] According to local Jewish Social Self-Help [JSS] documentation, before February 1941 deportees from other places in Poland, including Jews from Warsaw, arrived in the gmina.^[3]  The names of some of these families were: Kiejzman, Zak, and Liszkiewicz.^[4] In September 1941, there were 398 Jewish residents in the municipality, 250 of whom were financially supported by the JSS.^[5]...