In October 1942, the city of Zamość in the Lublin District was officially declared "free of Jews," most of its Jewish population having been deported to the transit ghetto in Izbica, in the Krasnystaw County, and to the Belzec (Bełżec) and Sobibor (Sobibór) death camps.[1]
Nevertheless, a few hundred Jewish men and women, and even a few children, remained in the city. Some of them were in hiding, but most were incarcerated in forced labor camps in the area.[2]
One of the largest of these camps belonged to the Bauleitung der Luftwaffe, the German Air Force Construction Office, and it was part of the Luftwaffe complex of labor camps in the Zamość area.[3] The camp was located in the city of Zamość, at the intersection of Peowiaków (formerly Obwodowa) and Lwowska Streets, in the area known as the "Planty". An SS officer named Walter Reupert was the camp commandant.[4]...