שילוח מ - Lubartow, גטו, פולין ל - Belzec, מחנה השמדה, פולין ב- 09/04/1942

Before World War II, the town of Lubartów, about 30 km north of Lublin, was home to some 3,418 Jews.^[1] The Wehrmacht entered Lubartów on September 19, 1939. Under German occupation, the town was assigned to the Lublin District of the General Government, and given the status of capital of its Lublin-Land County (Kreis Lublin-Land). Shortly afterward, most of the local Jews – except for the sick and elderly ones, as well as some Jews who worked for the German administration – were resettled to nearby villages (e.g., Ostrowie, which lay 18 km away).^[2] In September 1940, the expellees were allowed to return to Lubartów from the vicinity.^[3] At this time, the Germans had already set up an open ghetto in Lubartów, in the area around the local marketplace, which had traditionally been inhabited by Jews.^[4] According to the Jewish Social Self-Help organization (JSS), in 1940 the town was home to some 3,450 Jews, out of a total population of 7,883.^[5] On April 1, 1942, on the eve of the first deportation from Lubartów, there were 2,393 Jews in the town, including 250 deportees from Mława who had arrived on December 13, 1940.^[6]

The local Judenrat – which had been established shortly after the ghettoization of the Jews, and which would subsequently be reorganized several times – received its orders from the Lublin-Land Kreishauptmann (county chief), Dr. Emil Ziegenmeyer.^[7] Ziegenmeyer's office, the Kreishauptmannschaft (district headquarters), was housed in a school building on Lubelska Street.^[8] According to the local Jewish resident Jozef Honigsblum, all the decrees regulating the life of Jews in Lubartów came from the German civil administration.^[9] The role of Wilhelm Holzhey, the Landkomissar (subcounty executive) of Lubartów, in the deportations of Jews from the town remains unclear.^[10]

The SS and Police Leader (SS und Polizeiführer, SSPF) in the Lublin District, Odilo Globocnik, and the second commander of "Aktion Reinhard," SS-Sturmbannführer Hermann Höfle, depended on the collaboration of the civil administration in the General Government for the mass murder of the local Jews during "Aktion Reinhard." The Population and Welfare (Bevölkerungswesen und Fürsorge, BuF) Department of Lublin-Land was subordinated to Ziegenmeyer, and it reported to the BuF Lublin, headed by Richard Türk. On March 16, 1942, Höfle held a meeting with the BuF Lublin, for the purpose of coordinating the transports of Jews from Western Europe arriving in Lubartów and various other settlements along the railway lines in the Lublin District, and the transports of Polish Jews being shipped from these same settlements to the "Aktion Reinhard" death camps. According to a note from the meeting, Höfle announced that the Jews not classified able-bodied would be deported to the Belzec death camp, and that the camp could absorb 4-5 transports of about 1,000 Jews each. He added: “The Jews would cross the border, and would never again return to the General Government."^[11] On March 23, Türk coordinated the deportations with the SS and Police Leaders of the various Counties. The following day, the deportations of Jews from Western Europe into the General Government commenced – and, in parallel, the local Polish Jews began to be driven out of their homes.^[12]...