שילוח מ - Krasniczyn, Krasnystaw, Lublin, פולין ל - Sobibor, מחנה השמדה, פולין ב- 12/05/1942

Kraśniczyn is a village in eastern Poland. In 1921, it was home to 540 Jews, who made up almost 90% of the total population, which stood at 610.^[1] The Wehrmacht occupied the area in September 1939, after a brief interlude of Soviet rule, and Kraśniczyn remained under German control until its liberation by the Red Army in 1944. During the Nazi occupation, the village was administratively part of the Krasnystaw County (Kreis) of the Lublin District of the General Government (the part of German-occupied Poland that had not been officially annexed to the Reich).^[2]

During "Operation Reinhard" (the annihilation of the Jews in the General Government, supervised by SS-Brigadefuehrer Odilo Globocnik, with the assistance of his deputy Hermann Höfle and the rest of their staff ), Kraśniczyn served as a transit point for Jews slated for deportation to the Sobibor and Belzec death camps.^[3] By the time of the first deportation to Belzec in April 1942, Kraśniczyn had already received incoming transports: In December 1939, some 1,900 Jews from Łódź were deported to various locations in the Krasnystaw County, including Kraśniczyn;^[4] on March 13, 1942, 500 Jews redirected from the Theresienstadt (Terezín) Ghetto arrived in Kraśniczyn, adding to the influx of deportees.^[5] In April 1942, the Germans deported some 556-600, mostly local, Jews.^[6]

In the lead-up to the subsequent deportations, Kraśniczyn continued to absorb incoming transports. According to the Jewish Social Self-help (JSS) reports from the county office in Krasnystaw dated May 1 and May 8, 1942, some 150 Jews still remained in the ghetto after April 12. In addition, a group of 200-250 Jews – some originally from Breslau^[7] – arrived in Kraśniczyn from Izbica at an unknown date in April that year. Moreover, on April 28, 955 deportees arrived in Kraśniczyn with a transport from Wuerzburg (Germany), and on May 3 a second large transport, with 770-1000 Jews, arrived from Koblenz (Germany). As a result, the number of Jewish inmates in Kraśniczyn swelled to about 2,125-2,355.^[8]...