Belzyce, Poland

A Jewish settlement existed in Belzyce during the 1560s. The community suffered greatly during the Chmielnicki massacres of 1648-49 and only regained its former economic prominence in the early 18th century. Prior to the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 there were 2,100 Jews living in the town. By 1941 a Judenrat (Jewish Council) had already been established as the number of Jews steadily increased to 4,000 due to an influx of Jewish deportees from Stettin, Lublin, and other places. While there was no formal closed ghetto, severe restrictions, including curfews, were imposed on the Jews. By the spring and summer of 1941 severe overcrowding and poor hygiene led to a typhoid epidemic among Belzyce's Jews. Another epidemic struck in October of the same year. In late 1941 some Jews of Belzyce were selected to erect the nearby Majdanek camp. In May 1942, the majority of the Belzyce's Jewish inhabitants were rounded up by Ukrainian SS-auxiliaries and deported to Majdanek or the Sobibor death camp. This was likely in order to accommodate the imminent arrival of up to 1,200 Jews who were deported to Belzyce from Thuringia and Saxony. In early October 1942, around 1,300 Jews arrived, this time from Chodel in Poland, but they were immediately sent on to the death camps. Shortly after, the SS and the Ukrainian auxiliaries surrounded Belzyce, killed the Jewish patients in the hospital, and deported hundreds of young men and women to Majdanek. Between October 9and 12 1942, 4,000 more Polish Jews arrived, bringing the number of deportees in Belzyce to more than 10,000. On October 13, 1942 all the Jews of Belzyce underwent a massive selection procedure in the town square. Most of the women, children and the elderly were sent to the Treblinka or Sobibor death camps. The rest were sent to labour camps in Belzyce and the surrounding area. The closed labour camp in Belzyce was liquidated in May 1943, when around 300 of the inmates were sent to forced labour in the Budzyn camp and the remaining 500-600 were shot dead by Oberscharführer Reinhold Feiks and the Ukrainian SS-auxiliaries.