שילוח מ - Sobianowice, Lublin, Lublin, פולין ל - אתר רצח, פולין ב- 04/1942

The village of Sobianowice in the gmina (commune or municipality) of Wólka lies about ten kilometers northeast of Lublin. According to the 1921 census, the village was home to nineteen Jews – eleven in the manor, which belonged to a Pole named Kazimierz Rojowski, and eight in the village itself.^[1] In October 1939, under the German occupation, the municipality became part of the Lublin County (Lublin-Land) of the Lublin District, and Emil Ziegenmeyer was appointed the Lublin County Governor.^[2] While Sobianowice itself had no Gendarmerie station, there was a Gendarmerie posts in Piaski, in Lubartow and in the city of Lublin.^[3] The Governor's office had at its disposal a commando unit of some thirty Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans). The records of a postwar trial 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 SS-Polizei-Reiterschwadron Lublin, and fifteen from the 71st motorized Gendarmerie Platoon.^[4] In addition, the motorized SS-Police Battalion 1 was stationed in the nearby town of Lubartów.^[5] There was also a Blue Police [Polish Police] station in the nearby village of Wólka.

According to local witnesses, a few Jewish families, approximately eighteen people in all, lived in the village during World War II.^[6] The Betman family owned a mill. Some Jewish families – especially those of artisans (e.g., tailors and shoemakers) – stayed with Polish peasants (Bronisław Nowicki, Józef Zatorski, Aleksander Pawłowski, and Władysław Szymański), working for them.^[7] Some of these families had come from Lublin in 1941; the family of Jankiel Szmulewicz moved to the village in May that year, as well as Ela-Ber Duzman and Beniamin Betman.^[8]

There was no ghetto in Sobianowice, and we have found no record of a Judenrat, either in the village, or in the gmina as a whole....