In 1939, the city of Zamość, located about 85 kilometers southeast of Lublin, was home to 10,000-12,000 Jews.[1] Czech and German Jewish deportees from the Theresienstadt Ghetto and Dortmund arrived in Zamość at the end of April and in the first days of May 1942.[2] By October that year, after deportations to the Bełżec and Sobibór death camps and to the Majdanek concentration camp, there were some 4,000 Jews left in the Zamość Ghetto.[3]
The ghetto was liquidated on October 16-22, 1942, with the deportation of almost all the remaining Jews to the transit ghetto in Izbica.[4] The German authorities allowed only a few groups of workers to remain in the city: some had to clear out the property left behind by the Jewish inhabitants, while others were forced to perform various tasks for the Wehrmacht and the German war effort. Still others, who had managed to hide and avoid the deportation, either turned themselves in, or were eventually caught and held in Zamość.
One group of male laborers, numbering between 41 and 100, worked in a carpentry workshop that belonged to Zygmunt Siebser [Zipser], and performed various tasks for the German authorities.[5] They were housed in a building on Perec Street.[6] One of these craftsmen was Dawid Begleibter. According to his testimony, this group was deported to Majdanek in November or December 1942.[7]...