Transport from Niedrzwica Duza, Lublin, Lublin, Poland to Belzyce, Ghetto, Poland on 09/10/1942

Niedrzwica Kościelna, or Mała (i.e., Minor), and Niedrzwica Duża, or Wielka (i.e., Major), are two neighboring villages in eastern Poland. According to the Polish census of 1921, there were sixty-five Jews in Niedrzwica Duża, and no Jews in Niedrzwica Mała.^[1] However, according to Franciszek Markiewicz, a resident of Bychawa (a larger town in the area), on the eve of WWII there were Jewish residents in all the villages in the vicinity of Bychawa, Niedrzwica Duża, and Niedrzwica Kościelna. Each village was home to at least one Jewish family – and, in some cases, to several. In Markiewicz's view, the non-Jewish population of Niedrzwica Kościelna was hostile to the Jews.^[2] Following the German invasion of Poland and the outbreak of World War II, the region fell under Nazi control and became part of the Lublin County (Kreis) of the Lublin District (Distrikt) of the General Government (Generalgouvernement) – Nazi-occupied central Poland, which was not officially annexed to the Reich.

The train station in Niedrzwica Duża was used to deport Jews to the Treblinka death camp, and a German Gendarmerie station was set up the village. Its gendarmes played an active role in individual and group murders of both local and non-local Jews, as attested by Polish residents of the area during the investigation of Nazi crimes in Poland in 1967. Thus, the local Józef W. was ordered by the Germans to bury the bodies of murder victims on many occasions. He recalled having buried at least 130 people. He singled out Tomke, Rejch, and Pudel as three exceptionally ruthless policemen.^[3]

In her memoirs, Nina Cohen (née Weinstock) relates how, in 1940, her immediate and extended family – including her mother, herself, and her aunt Esther with her two children – moved from Lublin to Niedrzwica Mała, to live with her aunt Mania Weinryb and her family. In the spring of 1942, a German officer and his wife evicted the Weinryb and Weinstock families from their home and forced them to move into a storehouse. This was a precursor to the upcoming deportation. In October 1942, the Jews of Niedrzwica Mała were deported.^[4]...