שילוח מ - Belzyce, מחנה, פולין ל - Budzyn, מחנה, פולין ב- 08/05/1943

Bełżyce (Belzyce in German) is a town approximately 26 kilometers southwest of Lublin. According to a report by the Jewish Social Self-help (JSS) organization, Bełżyce was home to some 2,100 Jews in 1939, on the eve of World War II.^[1] After the outbreak of war, Bełżyce was occupied by Nazi Germany and assigned to the Lublin-Land County (Kreis) of the Lublin District (Distrikt) of the General Government (Generalgouvernement; the part of Nazi-occupied Poland that was not officially annexed to the Reich). 

The Kreishauptmann (county governor) of the Lublin County, who played an active role in carrying out the deportations of the local Jews to their deaths, was Emil Ziegenmeyer. He made sure that the Jewish Councils followed the orders of the German authorities.^[2] Once large numbers of Jews had been concentrated in towns and villages under his jurisdiction, he saw to it that enough of these Jews were deported to death camps, or to forced labor, in time for their vacant residences to be filled up by Jewish deportees arriving in trains from the Reich. This was the case in Bełżyce on May 11, 1942, when several hundred local Jews were deported, to be replaced by new deportees from the Reich on the next day, May 12.

Bełżyce was under the jurisdiction of the German Lublin District Gendarmerie, under the command (as of May 1, 1942) of Major – and later Lieutenant Colonel – of the Gendarmerie August Preyssl. The Gendarmerie forces of the Lublin District were divided into three Hauptmannschaften: Lublin County, Radzyn (Radzyń), and Zamosc (Zamość). The Lublin Gendarmerie Hauptmannschaft had platoons in Lublin, Chełm (Cholm), Janów (Janow) Lubelski, and Kraśnik (Krasnik). Bełżyce itself did not have a German Gendarmerie post. The closest such post was located some 14 kilometers southeast of the town, in Niedrzwica,^[3] which had a train station that served for the deportations of Jews from Bychawa, Bełżyce, and other nearby localities to the Aktion Reinhard death camps.^[4] Bełżyce, which served as one of the Judensammelorte,^[5] was the destination of an increasing number of Jewish deportees, the first of whom came from Puławy.^[6] In February 1940, an additional group of at least 245 deportees arrived from Szczecin (German: Stettin).^[7] On March 6, 1941, Albert Izrael Dombrower, head of the JSS in Bełżyce, reported to Kraków, in a phone conversation, that 100 deportees from Kraków had arrived, bringing the total number of deportees in Bełżyce to 680.^[8] According to the testimony of Roza Mittelman (born 1917), on March 10 a group of Jews in Lublin, including herself and her family, were ordered to move to Bełżyce.^[9] A total of 495 Jews from Lublin were deported to Bełżyce.^[10] The JSS reported that, by late June 1941, the Jewish population of Bełżyce had reached 3,499, including 1,199 deportees.^[11]...