Transport from Hansk, Camp, Poland to Krychów, Camp, Poland on 15/08/1943

The Krychów camp^[1] in the Kreishauptmannschaft Cholm County, 33 km southeast of the Sobibor extermination camp, was part of the network of forced labor camps managed and operated by the Wasserwirtschaftsverwaltung (Water Works Management) of the Lublin District.^[2] It became operational in the spring of 1940. The forced laborers, arriving in several deportation waves in 1940 and 1941, were used to drain the swamps in the area and rectify the flow of tributaries of the Bug River. In addition to Jews, the Krychów camp received various other groups of forced laborers, such as Sinti, Roma, and Poles. In early 1942, more and more of them were released.^[3]  With the onset of Operation Reinhard on March 17, 1942,^[4] all the remaining non-Jewish workers were supposed to be freed, and the camp be reserved for Jews.^[5] However, according to the recollections of the witness Józef Klauda, it was only on April 4 that most of the Poles detained at the Krychów camp were released.^[6]

The first known deportation from Krychów to Sobibor was carried out in mid-April 1942, as part of the so-called test runs, or experimental gassings, following the construction of three gas chambers at the still unfinished latter camp. ^[7] The Jews from Krychów were murdered under the supervision of SS-Hauptsturmführer Richard Thomalla and SS-Hauptsturmführer Franz Paul Stangl, both from the Operation Reinhard staff of SS and Police Leader Odilo Globočnik in Lublin.^[8]

Once Sobibor had become fully operational, regular transports with 200-500 deportees left Krychów for the death camp in May,^[9] then in June 1942,^[10] and subsequently on a monthly basis until December 1942. ^[11] Toward the end of that period, two large transports from Krychów – one on November 10, with 800 inmates; and the other on December 9, 1942, with 2,350 Jews – were also sent to the Sobibor extermination camp....