שילוח מ - Wlodawa, Wlodawa, Lublin, פולין ל - Sobibor, מחנה השמדה, פולין ב- 13/05/1943

Włodawa is a town in eastern Poland. On the eve of World War II, it was home to 5,650 Jews. According to the testimony of local resident Ephraim Tilip, Włodawa was occupied by the German army in mid-September 1939, following repeated mass bombing at the start of the war. The Germans were temporarily driven out by the Red Army, which controlled the town for a few days, and some local Jews joined the Soviets during their withdrawal, crossing over into Soviet-controlled territory. The town's remaining Jews were subjected to persecutions from the very beginning of German rule. Their businesses were looted shortly after the onset of the occupation, before being expropriated altogether in the spring of 1940. The Jews had to pay contributions to the Nazis, and were marked with a yellow star of David on the white armband. A Jewish Council (Judenrat) was established in October 1939 and ordered to register all the able-bodied Jews who were fit for forced labor.^[1]   

Włodawa became part of the Chełm County (Kreis) within the Lublin District (Distrikt) of the General Government (Generalgouvernement), a newly established entity administered separately by Nazi Germany. The Jews were concentrated in a certain area of the town as early as 1939, but no official ghetto seems to have been established there. In addition to the Jewish Council, a small group of Jewish men (Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst) was formed and required to carry out the orders of the Germans.^[2]

According to Jewish Social Self-Help reports, in 1941 there were 5,586 Jews in the town.^[3] On April 29, 1942, a transport of some 1,000 Austrian Jews arrived in Włodawa, and these arrivals joined the local Jews on the transports from Włodawa to Sobibor.^[4] The first deportation Aktion in Włodawa was carried out at the end of the Shavuoth holiday, on May 23-24, 1942, when, according to different reports, 500-1500 elderly, disabled, and physically weak Jews were deported to the Sobibor extermination camp.^[5] The second deportation was the "children's Aktion," during which some 100-500 children were deported to Sobibor.^[6] The largest single deportation of Jews from Włodawa took place on October 24, 1942, when the majority of the local Jewish population, together with the other Jews who had been concentrated in the town, were deported to Sobibor and murdered....