while not null: Europe Trip 2018

Biłgoraj is a small town in south-east Poland in Lublin voivodship. It is the hometown of the Nobel Prize winner I. B. Singer's mother. He lived there too and he wrote about the local places in his books. If you like Singer's books, this is a very interesting place to visit. Before WW2 Biłgoraj, like most Polish towns, had a large Jewish population. In 1939 60% of Biłgoraj's residents were Jews.

That part of Poland was in the Galicia region. It was very poor at the beginning of the 20th century.

Peasant family early XX century.

Russians retreating in 1915 were burning and destroying whole villages. The farming land was of poor quality. The whole county had 6 km of paved roads before WW1. The main natural resource was timber.

Market Square in 1914

Maret Square - 1920s

Tarnogradzka street (today: Kościuszki), early XX century. It's not a warm day, but this boy seems to be barefoot.

A house of a sieve making family from 1810 - now a museum.

WW2 events:

On September 8, 1939, the German air raid on Bilgoraj took place. As a result of bombing, 12 inhabitants of the town were killed and twice as many were wounded. Several bombs fell onto Lubelska St. and the Market Place— areas which were inhabited primarily by the Jewish population. Three days later, on September 11, 1939, at about ten o’clock, German soldiers set fire to the town. The fire continued all day and spread over the Market Place, Lubelska St., Przemyslowa St., Kosciuszki St., 3 Maja St., Radziecka St. and, partly, Nadstawna St. As a result the town center was destroyed, where some shops, warehouses, craftsmen’s workshops as well as the Town Hall, parish church, synagogue, Macierz Szkolna library, movie theater and two auditoriums were located.
On September 14, 1939, German air forces bombarded the town for the second time killing about 100 people. The town was seized by the German army on September 17, 1939. However, on September 28, 1939, Soviet troops entered Bilgoraj establishing the Interim Revolutionary Committee, by which the People’s Militia units were created. Those units consisted of Poles, Ukrainians and Jews.
The Red Army Units withdrew from the town on October 3, 1939, before it happened, though, the garrison commander informed the Interim Revolutionary Committee about the plan to leave the town by the Soviet troops and offered aid to the Committee members and the activist and encouraged them to leave for the Soviet Union. As a result, all of the Interim Revolutionary Committee members and their families left accompanied by approximately 1,000 Jews, who were looking for protection against Nazi persecution.
On June 15-16, 1943, during the Wehrwolf displacement and pacification action, about 800 inhabitants of Bilgoraj were displaced [Catholic Poles, all Jews were gone by then, see Holocaust in the next section]. Children, men and women were transported to the interim camp in Zwierzyniec, from where, after selection, young men and women were sent to Germany as forced laborers and the remaining 700 people were placed in the extermination camp at Majdanek. In May 1944 the Nazis established an interim camp for partisans who were seized in Janow woods and Solska Primeval Forest.
Bilgoraj was liberated from Nazi occupation on July 24, 1944.

Source: https://sztetl.org.pl/en/towns/b/1911-bilgoraj/96-local-history/67051-local-history

A transit camp for Polish civilians and partisans caught in Sturmwind I and II operations in Apr-Jul 1944.

Destroyed town. Nazi soldier guarding the transit camp. The soldier is probably German, although the Kalmykian forces took part in these operations too.

Holocaust in Biłgoraj:

After the outbreak of WWII, as a consequence of the Nazi terror policy, Jews were allowed to live only in the area encompassing 3 Maja St., Nadstawna St. and Ogrodowa St. On the left arm they had to wear a white armband with a Star of David and they were banned from entering Glowna St., where the Germans lived.
In December 1939, a Jewish Council – Judenrat- was appointed by the German occupying authorities. It consisted of five people. The first person in charge was Szymon Bin. It was the German administration authorities which decided upon the food rations for Jews.
According to the letter by Jewish Mutual Aid Social Care Committee in Bilgoraj of January 18, 1942: for a considerable length of time the Jewish residents have received 7.25 dkgs of bread a day i.e. 1.25 kg a month and 20 dkgs of sugar a month as well as irregular rations of soap (6 dkgs), one bar of toilet soap, one packet of washing powder and 1 liter of kerosene per family.The Nazis banned the Jews from dealing with craft and trade, as a result of which Jews had to do it illegally. In February of 1941, the Jewish Council was granted permission to open one grocery store for Jews. In October of 1938, the Nazis liquidated the Jewish banks and Stefczyk’s Savings and Loan Bank. In October 1939 the post office in Bilgoraj started its operation. However, the Jewish population could not use its services.
In October of 1939, a work order for Jews was issued. It included the men aged 14 – 60. Bilgoraj Jews had to cut down trees in the nearby forests, build roads in the district and at the railway station in the village of Rapy, the had to work in the Gliniska quarry as well as to carry out work during the construction of the canal on the Lada River. They started at six a.m. and finished at 5 p.m. Before work, they were forced to partake in gymnastic exercises, which were accompanied by beatings. Jews had to stand in close columns and sing a song starting with the following words: Our Smigly Rydz [Marshal of Poland] did not teach us anything, whereas our Hitler, the man of gold, taught us how to work. Bilgoraj Jews were also sent to forced labor camps in Bukowa or Dyle, where, together with Poles, they had to do land drainage works.
During the years 1941- 1944 the town was struck with an outbreak of an epidemic of typhus as well as of enteric typhus and dysentery. There was only one pharmacy in the town, however, the Jews were banned from using it. From December of 1940, the Jewish Mutual Aid Social Care Committee-Judische Soziale Selbsthilte- dealt with Jewish problems. In the middle of 1942 it was transformed into Judische Unterstutzungsstelle.
In 1941 the town faced a threat of tuberculosis, typhus and infectious skin diseases. In Bilgoraj there were neither Jewish physicians nor auxiliary personnel. That is why Polish doctors provided medical care to Jews gratuitously. In some cases the Jews could use the District Hospital. In the autumn of 1941, the German authorities established a Jewish hospital in Lubelska St. for fear of spreading the epidemic of typhus. The Jewish Mutual Aid Social Care Committee requested that doctor Jakub Meisel and doctor R. Polatschek (displaced persons from Vienna) be sent to Bilgoraj.
The Jewish Mutual Aid Social Care Committee organized care for orphans and displaced persons. This type of activity was necessary particularly during the period 1941- 1942. It was at that time that displacement actions and pogroms of Jews took on a mass character. At that time a number of Jews, who did not have any resources, came from Austria. The District Care Council and Jewish Mutual Aid Social Care Committee in Bilgoraj were subordinated to the department of care and social issues, where only German nationals and Volksdeutsche worked. The name of the department manager was Mock, who hated both Poles and Jews.
In August of 1940, the Nazis shot all Judenrat members in Bilgoraj. The reason was the refusal of the chair person, Szymon Bin and the deputy chair person, Hillel Janower, to identify a group of Jews to be sent to the extermination camp in Belzec and to establish the Jewish Police. The deportation of Jews from the town Bilgoraj and Bilgoraj district to the extermination camp in Belzec took place three times. For this reason round-ups were organized in various places of the district and as a result, 202 Jews were caught, out of whom 80 people were from Bilgoraj.
On April 6, 1941, the first displacement of the Jewish inhabitants of Bilgoraj took place. The Nazis brought about 800 persons to Goraj. They were allowed to take only the most necessary things with them – all displaced persons are banned from returning to Bilgoraj. Any actions to the contrary shall be punished. All vacated flats shall be taken over by the District Administration Office and they cannot be rented. The next displacement of the Jewish inhabitants from Bilgoraj took place on April 22, 1942. It involved mostly the poorest families in the town. Moreover, 220 people were displaced from Tarnogrod. One more action was carried out on August 8 – 9, 1942. In the transport of 1,500 people, about 800 Jews were from Biłgoraj. They were primarily women, children and the elderly.
On November 2, 1942, “Operation Reinhard” in Bilgoraj began. The person in charge was Odilo Globocnik – police and SS chief for the Lublin district. The town was surrounded by special Scupo units, which were composed chiefly of Nazis as well as Latvian, Croatian, Lithuanian and Ukrainian fascists. All the Jews were gathered in the vicinity of the Market Place and from there they were taken to “Deutsche Haus”, where the gathered persons were searched by the Nazis. Some Jews, while walking in columns, were shot by the escort police. The bodies of the murdered persons were lying along the whole length of 3 Maja St. During the next stage of the operation the Jews were gathered in the barracks in 3 Maja St. In the evening the Jews of Tarnogrod and Krzeszow were brought to Bilgoraj. On the next day all the Jews were removed from the barracks and were ordered to stand in a column, 8 filed in each row. Acts of cruelty took place there - some people were shot, some were bayoneted; babies were killed with rifle cleaning brushes. A lot of people died during the march from Bilgoraj to Zwierzyniec, from where they were transported by train to the extermination camp in Belzec.
On November 4, 1942, the Nazis killed the Jews who were patients in the District Hospital in Bilgoraj. After the Gestapo arrived at the hospital, they ordered to carry out of the building several seriously ill people. They were put on the carts and then taken outside the hospital premises. All of them were murdered and their bodies were buried at the site of their execution. By the end of 1942, the Nazis did their best to round-up all the Jews, who were in hiding. At that time about 300 people were caught and shot. The execution took place on the premises of the Jewish cemetery in M. Konopnicka Street.
On January 15, 1943, the Nazis dissolved the ghetto, which was established in June of 1940. During the occupation period the Nazis murdered about 4,000 of Bilgoraj Jews.
Many Poles risked their lives and the lives of their families in order to hide the Jews or give them some help. To give an example: Pawel and Wiktoria Trzcinski hid Chaskiel Kandel and Dawid Szlafrok as well as their families. They paid for their efforts with their lives. On February 17, 1943, the Nazis took the Kandel and Szlafrok families out of their hiding and shot them. The Trzcinskis were arrested. After the gehenna of tortures at the Gestapo station, Pawel and Wiktoria Trzcinski were executed on March 2, 1943, leaving behind their young daughter, Gabriela.
Jan Mikulski, a forest officer, had more luck. He managed to conceal the hiding of five Jews till the end of the war.
On March 1, 1943, according to German records, the Bilgoraj population reached a total of 4,547 inhabitants, out of whom 4,258 were Polish, 212 Ukrainian, 66 German and 11 of other nationalities. Not a single Jew was mentioned by the Nazi authorities.