גל גירוש מ - Piaski, גטו, פולין ל - Majdanek, מחנה, פולין ב- 24/10/1942

The town of Piaski, some 23 kilometers southeast of Lublin, was home to 4,165 Jews on the eve of World War II.^[1] The Wehrmacht occupied the town in October 1939, after a brief interlude of Soviet rule.^[2] Under Nazi control, Piaski was assigned to the Lublin County (Kreis Lublin-Land) of the Lublin District of the General Government (Generalgouvernement) – German-occupied central Poland, which had not been annexed to the Reich. On October 4, 1939, Emil Ziegenmeyer was appointed Kreishauptmann (county chief) of the Lublin County.^[3]

Shortly afterward, the German authorities ordered the establishment of a Judenrat (Jewish Council) in the town, with Mendel Polisecki as its chairman.^[4] Other known members of this body were Yosel Rosenblat, Yosel Ashman, and Moshe Drayblat.^[5] On January 1, 1940, the Wehrmacht left Piaski, and the German Gendarmerie became responsible for maintaining the occupation regime in the town.^[6]

In early 1940, the Germans set up the Piaski Ghetto in the area of the town's Jewish quarter.^[7] Piaski subsequently became one of the main transit ghettos [Durchgangsgetto] of the Lublin District. Established at the beginning of Aktion Reinhard, the transit ghettoes were located along the railway lines leading to the death camps of Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka. Their primary purpose was to serve as assembly points for Jews being deported into the Lublin District from Germany, Austria, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and Slovakia. Polish Jews from the surrounding towns and villages were concentrated in these ghettoes, as well.^[8] Several transports arrived in Piaski over the years. The first of these was a transport of 565 deportees from Stettin [Szczecin] on February 16, 1940.^[9] The local Jewish community organized relief for them, since "they had nothing except for the clothes on their backs."^[10] By June 1941, the boundaries of the ghetto had already been reduced. It consisted of two parts, straddling Lubelska Street, and was fenced in.^[11] On September 9, 1941, by order of Ziegenmeyer, the Piaski Ghetto was declared a closed ghetto.^[12] On February 6, 1942, the German authorities announced that there were some 5,000 Jews in Piaski, while the ghetto could accommodate only 3,600 people.^[13]...