גל גירוש מ - Sawin, מחנה, פולין ל - Sobibor, מחנה השמדה, פולין ב- 05/1942

Sawin is a village in Chełm County, Lublin Voivodeship (eastern Poland), and the seat of a Gmina (administrative district). It lies some 14 kilometers north of Chełm and 61 kilometers east of the regional capital, Lublin. At the time of World War II, Sawin was the seat of the Bukowa Gmina.^[1] The village was home to 882 Jews on the eve of the war.^[2] The Wehrmacht occupied the area in September 1939, after a brief interlude of Soviet rule. Some Jews left Sawin with the Red Army, crossing over into the USSR.^[3]

During the German occupation, a Judenrat was established in Sawin, and it was chaired by Szapsa Rojter.^[4] In 1940, all the Jewish residents of the village were confined to a ghetto, which covered the area between Brzeska, Kościelna, and Rynek Streets, and Kościelny Square. The ghetto was sealed a year later.^[5] In October 1940, a labor camp was set up on a road in the middle of the ghetto, and the inhabitants were moved there. ^[6] Beginning in May 1942, most of the Jews of Sawin were deported from that camp 33 kilometers northeast, to the Sobibor death camp.

The Sawin Labor camp was part of the network of water management camps [Wasserwirtschaftsinspektion] in the Chełm County. Its Jewish inmates worked in regulating the Lepietucha and Uherka Rivers, flattening hills, digging tunnels for the river water, irrigating, and draining swamps. This work required them to stand in muddy and wet soil for long stretches of time, in rain and sunshine. They suffered from hunger, lack of basic clothing, exhaustion, and disease. Poles from the village of Sawin were also present at the camp, doing various kinds of paid work. Thus, they witnessed what was going on inside the camp, and occasionally forged connections with its Jewish prisoners. According to Stanisław Wróblewski, a local Pole who served as a melioration technician at the camp, 10-20 Jewish camp inmates would die every day. Furthermore, the German commandants would shoot Jewish prisoners both inside and outside the camp. There were many escape attempts. The camp was initially guarded by Jewish policemen and Polish security guards.^[7]...