Lubartów Ghetto

Lubartów Ghetto
Transit ghetto


Jewish cemetery in Lubartów

Lubartów location north of Lublin near Majdanek
during World War II

Location of former Lubartów Ghetto in modern Poland
Coordinates 51°28′N 22°36′E / 51.467°N 22.600°ECoordinates: 51°28′N 22°36′E / 51.467°N 22.600°E
Known for The Holocaust in Poland

Lubartów Ghetto was established by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II, and existed from 1941 until October 1942. The Polish Jews of the town of Lubartów were confined within it, amounting to 3,269 people or 53.6% of the town's population according to the 1921 census.[1] Its inmates also included Jews deported from other locations in Europe. It was one of many such ghettos established in the course of the Holocaust in occupied Poland. The ghetto was dissolved when its inmates were deported to the Belzec extermination camp among other places, where they were murdered in 1942.

Background

Lubartów's Jewish community was established in the 16th Century. Most of the Jews resided near the centre of the town, where they owned most of the businesses. There were also three synagogues and two Jewish cemeteries, one of which had not been used since the 19th Century.[1]

The German army entered the town on 19 September 1939, early on in the attack. On the morning of 12 October 1939, the German army ordered all of the Jews to go to the market square where they were surrounded by machine guns. This allowed for the German army to rob and destroy all Jewish-owned homes and businesses. This lasted all day.[2]

Deportation and execution

The deportation of Jews to the nearby towns of Firlej, Ostrów Lubelski, and Kamionka, started at the beginning of November 1939. All of the Jews were told to leave. There were, though, a few who stayed to work for the German Army. They were exiled from Lubartów until September 1940.

A Judenrat – German for "Jewish council" – was set up in late 1939 for those Jews who remained. The first President, Jakub Modko Lichtenfel, did not stay at his post for long, and was soon replaced by Dawid Perec. The last Judenrat of Lubartów consisted of five members: Moshe Joel Edelman (President), Shlomo Ber Ciesler (Vice President), Izrael Ratensilber, Menashe Kosman, and Jechiel Weinberg.

The ghetto area around the two marketplaces of Lubartów were still in existence when the Jews returned from slave labour projects. A "people’s kitchen" was organised for the now poverty-stricken Jews. Deportations were also conducted into the Lubartów Ghetto. An example of this is the transport of 1,000 Jews from Ciechanów. In addition, by May 1942, some 2,421 Slovakian Jews had been deported to Lubartów.

The first deportation to a death camp aboard Holocaust trains took place on 9 April 1942, the last day of Passover. On the first day, 800 Jews who did not have work cards were ordered to go to the railway station, from which they were taken to Belzec extermination camp.[3] The last of the deportations was on the 11 October 1942. Some of these deprtees were sent to Majdanek, with the others going to the death camp in Treblinka. Jews that were found to be hiding were shot. In total, the number of Jews found after last deportation numbered 300. After a while, the Jews that were found were instead deported to the Piaski ghetto.

The members of the Judenrat, and their families, were deported to Łęczna. They were shot in November 1942, while Jews who worked for the German gendarmerie were shot on 29 January 1943. After the last deportations, the synagogues and cemeteries were destroyed. The gravestones were used in a pavement at a Wehrmacht base. At the end of the war only forty Jews had survived the mass murder, five of which had stayed in the town of Lubartów.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Lubartow Getto: 1941 - Oct. 1942 The Taube Foundation for Jewish Life and Culture.
  2. ↑ Tshubinski, Baruch (1947). Hurben Levertow. Paris. p. 7. OCLC 84481648.
  3. ↑ Gilbert, Martin (1986), The Holocaust – The Jewish Tragedy (Google Books, snippet view). William Collins Sons & Co. Limited, London.

Sources