שילוח מ - Ostrow Lubelski, גטו, פולין ל - Lubartow, Lubartow, Lublin, פולין ב- 09/10/1942

Ostrów Lubelski is a town located about 37 kilometers northeast of Lublin. On the eve of World War II, it was home to 2,110 Jews.^[1] The Germans occupied Ostrów in October 1939. Some local Jewish residents left the town for the Soviet Union. At this point, Ostrów became part of the Radzyń County of the Lublin District, under Kreishauptmann Hennig von Winterfeld.

From the outset, the Jewish community experienced the brutality of the occupation: According to testimonies, German policemen would show up in the town every few days for what they called a “Jewish day,” destroying the Jews’ property, burning their books, humiliating and torturing them.^[2] The town had a Blue Police station, but no German Gendarmerie post. Witnesses recalled two German gendarmes who would often come from Radzyń or Lubartów: Hans Lemke, commonly known as “Cygan,” and Arm (first name unknown).^[3] According to the findings of the District Committee for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes, some 1,000 Jews were murdered in the town of Ostrów for various “transgressions” between October 1939 and October 1942.^[4]

It seems that von Winterfeld initially aimed to turn Ostrów into a collection point for Jewish deportees in the Radzyń County.^[5] Hence, deported Jews began to arrive in the town as early as November 5, 1939, when the first group of about 1,000 deportees came from Lubartów.^[6] On December 15 that year, 495 Jewish deportees arrived from Poznań, among them the residents of a retirement home.^[7] Gertrud Brandt, a relative of the renowned psychologist and philosopher Erich Fromm, also arrived with that transport, and she described the reality of the deportees in her letters.^[8] From January 1940, the Judenrat kept a register of the names of all the Jewish inhabitants of Ostrów, at the request of the town’s administration.^[9]...