שילוח מ - Krzczonow, Lublin, Lublin, פולין ל - Belzice, Lublin, Lublin, פולין ב- 09/10/1942

Krzczonów is a town in the Lublin Voivodeship [county], the seat of a gmina located 30 km from Lublin and 13 km from Bychawa. Gmina Krzczonów comprised thirty-five settlements, including those inhabited by Jews - Olzcanka, Policzyzna, Źuków, Kosarzew Dolny and others. Jews had resided in Krzczonów since at least the 18th century.^[1] In 1921, the gmina was home to 158 Jews, ninety-six of whom resided in the village of Krzczonów.^[2] In September 1939, the area was occupied by the Wehrmacht and assigned to the Lublin County [Kreis Lublin-Land] of the Lublin District, which was headed from October 4, 1939 by Kreishauptmann [County Governor] Emil Ziegenmeyer. On December 23 that year, all the Jews in the town were ordered to wear a six-pointed star on their clothes.^[3] In the autumn of 1940, the Nazis established a labor camp in Krzczonów, and some 350 Jews were forced to work there. From the autumn of 1939 until 1944, the village had a Gendarmerie prison. Eight members of the local Jewish community, along with some people brought in from nearby settlements, were shot there.^[4] According to the documents of the Jewish Social Self-Help Committee, the village was home to fifty-nine Jews in June 1941.^[5] That figure had grown to 107 by February 1942, because of the influx of deportees from elsewhere.^[6]

In April 1942, SS-Sturmbannführer Hermann Höfle, head of the "Jewish affairs" desk of the SS and Police Leader (SSPF) in the Lublin District, Odilo Globocnik, requested lists with the numbers of Jews in all the municipalities of the Lublin County, as well as information about the numbers of Jews able to work, their family members, and those unable to work. This laid the basis for the deportations to the death camps during "Operation Reinhard." The overall number of Jews in Krzczonów at that time was ninety-three, fifty-four of whom were listed as able to work.^[7] Additional lists, giving the numbers of Jews working in specific trades, were also produced around this time.^[8]

The German authorities intended to deport all the Jews from the municipalities of the Lublin County to one of the Judensammelorte [Jewish gathering sites] in the county; from there, most of these Jews were to be sent to one of the "Aktion Reinhard" death camps.^[9] The ghettoes in Piaski and in the towns of Bełżyce, Chodel, and Bychawa had all been designated as Judensammelorte.^[10] In a letter from May 19, 1942 to the District Governor's office, Ziegenmeyer suggested that the Jews gathered in the towns of the Lublin County – Bełżyce, Lubartów, Ostrów, Piaski, Bychawa, and Chodel – be the first to be deported to the death camps.^[11]...