שילוח מ - Cyców, גטו, פולין ל - Sobibor, מחנה השמדה, פולין ב- 01/06/1942

According to the Polish Census of 1921, the townlet of Cyców, situated between Lublin and Sobibór and belonging to Gmina Wiszniewice, was home to some 181 Jews (out of a total population of 852).^[1] Following the outbreak of World War II and the resulting influx of refugees, the local Jewish population swelled to 465 men, women, and children.^[2] With the onset of the German occupation in mid-September 1939, the townlet became part of Chełm/Cholm^[3] County (Kreis), within the Lublin District of the Generalgouvernement.^[4] In a report about an inspection tour undertaken between November 17-22, 1939 by Dr. Arthur Seyss-Inquart, the SS deputy of Dr. Hans Frank, the civilian General Governor (Generalgoverneur) of occupied Poland, Cyców is described as an ethnic German (volksdeutsch) village, while the local Jewish presence goes unmentioned. The same report states that Friedrich Schmidt, who served as SS District Governor (Distriktgouverneur) from October 26, 1939 to February 1940, described the area around Cyców as an "[…] extremely marshy area [that could] serve as a Jewish reservation, which in itself might lead to a sharp reduction in the number of Jews."^[5] In a meeting of the Jewish Social Help in Chełm in January 1942, the number of Jews living in Cyców in 1941 was given as 511.^[6] In April 1942, a Jewish ghetto was set up in the town, and it had a population of about 538.^[7]

May 5, 1942 saw the beginning of the liquidation of the ghetto, in the course of which German police forces shot Jews on the spot.^[8] We must assume that the Cyców post of the Chełm Gendarmerie, headed by Adolf Löwe,^[9] was involved in this "Aktion".^[10] On May 27, the eve of the deportation, the police carried out further mass shootings of more than 100 Jews, Roma, and Poles, this time in the adjoining village of Wólka Cycowska.^[11] Then, in early June 1942, according to historian David Silberklang and others, the first transport from Cyców—some 400-450 Jewish men, women, and children—left for Sobibor.^[12] The Jews were apparently loaded onto horse-drawn wagons or trucks, and taken to the extermination camp, some 45 km northeast, and approached the camp from the south, parallel to the railway tracks.

Dr. Werner Ansel, the county governor (Kreishauptman) of Chełm between April-November 1942, was the one responsible for the mass deportations of Jews to the extermination camp.^[13]...