1 Killing site(s)
Witness interview Aleksander F., born in 1924: "The carts were brought in, and the Jews began to be removed from their homes. The day before, the mentally ill Jews had been gathered into a house. There were around a hundred sick Jews. The village chief requisitioned local villagers to provide carts and coachmen. The Germans entered Jewish homes to search them and the Jewish people were not allowed to take anything with them.
First, the Jews were loaded into separate carts, with a German soldier in each cart. These carts headed toward the Jewish cemetery, while the carts with the healthy Jews followed behind. This happened because the drivers didn’t know where to go. The Germans realized this and stopped the entire column of carts, before ordering the wagons carrying the non-sick Jews to head for Krasnystaw, while the wagons with the sick Jews continued toward the cemetery to be shot.
After unloading the Jews at the cemetery, the carts set off again. This took place in the afternoon, and the action lasted about an hour. At the Jewish cemetery, the grave had already been dug. The Germans shot the sick Jews very quickly. They pushed them forward and shot them. Some Jews didn’t get on the carts and fled into the fields to hide.
There was a Jewish family of four—parents, a daughter, and a son—who didn’t hide in the fields but took refuge in a barn further on. The Germans found the family in the barn and killed them in a courtyard nearby. Afterwards, the village chief ordered a cart to transport the bodies to the Jewish cemetery, where they were buried.” [Testimony N°YIU426P, interviewed in Stara Wieś, on March 24, 2015]
"In Kraśniczyn, Krasnystaw county, in May or June 1942, approximately 200 Jews were shot. The bodies of the victims were buried at the scene of the crime." [Minutes of the Municipal Court in Krasnystaw, dated September 25, 1945; IPN, 337 E 786]
Kraśniczyn is a village in Krasnystaw County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland, and the seat of Kraśniczyn County. It is located about 16 km (10 miles) southeast of Krasnystaw and 66 km (41 miles) southeast of the regional capital, Lublin.
The earliest reference to Jews in Kraśniczyn dates back to 1618, describing a community that lived on the east side of the market square and owned a synagogue. This synagogue burned down in 1734, along with the mikvah and nine houses on the market square, but it was rebuilt. In the 18th century, the Jewish community owned 14 houses, three squares, and stalls. Most members of the community worked in trade and crafts. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Jewish community of Kraśniczyn was part of the synagogue districts of Turobin, Zolkiewka, and Wojsławice, before an independent community with a wooden synagogue, mikveh, and cemetery was established in the town in 1910.
In 1790, the town had 66 Jewish inhabitants, and by 1821, Jews made up the vast majority of the 88 inhabitants of Kraśniczyn. In 1921, Kraśniczyn had 610 inhabitants, 540 of whom were Jews, making up 83% of the total population.
During the interwar period, the Kehilla of Kraśniczyn administered a brick synagogue built in 1921, a mikveh, a Jewish cemetery, and five cheders. Jews owned slaughterhouses, bakeries, grain mills, and a small furniture factory, as well as most of the local shops and artisan businesses, including tailoring and leather sewing. Jewish entrepreneurs dominated the grain, livestock, and lumber trades. The community also operated charitable and educational institutions, including the Jewish Educational Association, founded in 1921. Jewish political life was also vibrant, with representatives from the Poale Zion-Left Party, the Mizrachi movement, the Agudah, the Organization of Non-Partisan Religious Jews, the All-Jewish Labor Party, and the Zionist youth organization He-Chalutz.
Although the exact number of Jewish residents in Kraśniczyn on the eve of the war is unknown, it is estimated that the Jewish population was close to 500, representing around 80% of the village’s total population.
In early September 1939, German troops passed through Kraśniczyn but were quickly pushed forward by the Red Army, which retreated at the end of the month, leaving the village to the Germans. The Germans took control on October 5-6, 1939.
During the Nazi occupation, the village was part of the administrative region of Krasnystaw County (Kreis), and a gendarmerie post was established in Kraśniczyn.
The Nazis established a ghetto in Kraśniczyn in 1940, which was initially inhabited by the local Jewish community as well as displaced persons who had arrived from Łódź in December 1939. Another population transfer took place in May 1941, when 1,400 expellees from Krasnystaw were deported to Kraśniczyn and surrounding localities.
Starting in 1942, as part of Operation Reinhardt in the General Government, Jews from the western territories, primarily from the German Reich and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, were brought to the Lublin District. Kraśniczyn served as a transit point for Jews being deported to the Sobibor and Bełżec death camps. Between March 13 and May 3, 1942, about 2,982 Jews were deported to Kraśniczyn.
Some of the Jews assembled in Kraśniczyn were transferred to the Augustówka labor camp, located in nearby Surhów, to work on the regulation and drainage of the Wojsławka River. The Augustówka-Surhów camp was dissolved in August 1942, and its prisoners were deported to the Bełżec death camp.
To absorb the new arrivals, about 2,000 Jews from Kraśniczyn’s population were deported to Bełżec in the first deportation, which took place in April 1942. In May, another 327 Jews were gathered in front of the school building and herded to Krasnystaw, from where they were also deported to Bełżec. At the same time, a few hundred Jews who were still alive were sent to work on an estate in Bończa.
The liquidation of the ghetto took place on June 6, 1942. The Aktion involved a mass execution of 200 Jews at the local Jewish cemetery and a deportation march of 800 Jews to Izbica, followed by deportation to the Sobibor death camp.
A Yahad witness observed the execution at the cemetery from the Kraśniczyn Fire Brigade building on Srażacka Street, located about 100 meters from the cemetery. The victims were placed in front of an already-dug pit and shot with a machine gun by the Germans. One witness confirmed the involvement of the Polish auxiliary police (granatowa) in this Aktion.
On June 18, 1942, the Krasnystaw Jewish Social Self-Help reported to the Jewish Social Self-Help in Kraków that no Jews remained in Kraśniczyn. However, other executions at the cemetery continued into the spring of 1943. While Polish archives mention a mass shooting of about 200 Jews in May or June 1942 at the cemetery, other historical sources confirm that in 1943, gendarmes from Teratyn killed 5 Jews there, including 2 women. In October 1943, 23 Jews (10 men, 10 women, and 3 children) were also killed at the cemetery. Yahad witnesses confirm that a few months after the first mass killing, another shooting of about 150 Jews, including men, women, and children, took place at the Kraśniczyn Jewish cemetery.
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