שילוח מ - Glusk, Lublin, Lublin, פולין ל - Piaski Luterskie, גטו, פולין ב- 21/10/1942

Głusk, located on the outskirts of Lublin, was occupied by the Wehrmacht on September 18, 1939. At the time, the town was home to 530 Jews.^[1] Following the provisions of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Red Army entered Głusk shortly afterward. When it retreated, some local Jewish families departed with the Soviet soldiers.^[2] The Germans reoccupied the area in October 1939. The town was administratively assigned to the Zemborzyce gmina (municipality), in the Kreis Lublin-Land (Lublin County) of the Lublin District.

Emil Ziegenmeyer was appointed the Lublin County Chief.^[3] The Lublin County had a separate civil administration, different from that of the city of Lublin. The administrative staff in Ziegenmeyer's office included Fichtner and Rodde; the secretary was Gerhard Forster, while the police department of the Lublin-Land civil administration was headed by Schoof (first names unknown, except for Forster). Ziegenmeyer and his team would determine how many people were to be deported from different localities in the county at any given time.^[4] The Population and Welfare office (Bevölkerung und Fürsorge, BuF) was also responsible for dealing with the logistics of the deportations of Jews. According to the trial testimony of Georg F., the chief inspector of the Chief's office, the local Population and Welfare section (BuF) was under the jurisdiction of the County Chief's office; although the section was officially headed by Leonhardt, it was Georg F. who ran it in practice; he, in turn, reported to the BuF in Lublin.^[5] While Głusk itself had no Gendarmerie station, there was a Gendarmerie post in Piaski, and another in Lubartów (in addition to the one in the city of Lublin).^[6] Local witnesses recalled two specific German gendarmes, who would come to Głusk from the nearby station in Lublin to carry out executions, but their names remain unknown.^[7] The Chief's office had at its disposal a commando unit of some thirty Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans). The records of postwar trials list the names of forty-nine gendarmes from the Lublin-Land unit, sixteen policemen from the 22nd SS-Police Regiment, two policemen from the 25th SS-Police Regiment, four men from the 81st SS-Police Regiment, thirteen men from the motorized Gendarmerie Battalion, two from the 3rd SS Police Cavalry unit, twenty from the Lublin SS-Cavalry Police Squadron, and fifteen from the 71st motorized Gendarmerie Platoon.^[8] In addition, the motorized 1st SS-Police Battalion was stationed in the nearby town of Lubartów.^[9] Finally, there was a Blue Police station in Głusk.^[10]

The German administration introduced a number of restrictions. From October 26, 1939, the movement of Jews in the area was limited to the place in which they were registered, and every Jew between the ages of 14-60 had to work.^[11] From December 1, 1939, all Jews were required to wear an armband.^[12] No ghetto was established in Głusk, and the local families lived in their homes until October 1942.^[13] Rabbi Simcha Bienm Szafirsztejn acted as the Head of the Judenrat of Głusk, one of whose tasks was to provide groups of people for forced labor.^[14] Thus, Jews from Głusk had to set up the barbed-wire fence in preparation for the construction of the camp in nearby Majdanek, and to work at the Belzec labor camp, setting up fortifications on the Russian border.^[15]...