1 Killing site(s)
Stanisław O., born 1922: "A few days after the executions, I went out to the field. I saw a Jewish man running, with Gendarme Z., an officer, shooting at him. At first, I kept walking, not fully grasping what was happening. But as bullets started flying, I realized the danger and saw the man desperately trying to escape. I quickly turned back toward the village, afraid I might get hit too. I shouted for him to follow me, but he ran into a pine thicket, moving from one cluster of trees to another. Later, people said he kept running, but the gendarme spotted him through binoculars and eventually shot him." (Testimony N°YIU541P, interviewed in Sobienie Biskupie, on October 3, 2015)
"I arrived in Sobienie-Jeziory in the early months of 1941. [...] At that time, from what I heard, the German gendarmes at the Sobienie-Jeziory station shot around 30 children of Jewish origin, who had been caught outside the ghetto. The children roamed the villages, buying food, collecting it in the fields or begging for food from the peasants next to the village." [Deposition of Abram Gwiazda, Jewish, born 1914 in Warsaw, plumber. B162-6821 p.7]
Sobienie-Jeziory is a village in central Poland, located in Otwock County within the Masovian Voivodeship. It lies approximately 42 kilometers (26 miles) southeast of Warsaw and 21 kilometers (13 miles) south of Otwock. By the 19th century, the village’s Jewish community had established a school, a synagogue, and a cemetery, with the oldest surviving gravestone dating back to 1868. In 1921, the Jewish population numbered 1,439, making up over 76% of the village’s total population at the time.
German troops entered Sobienie-Jeziory on September 10, 1939, establishing a new administration and a Gendarmerie post. A Judenrat (Jewish Council) was also formed. By February 1941, the village housed approximately 2,250 Jews, including refugees from nearby towns like Falenica, Otwock, and Góra Kalwaria. In September 1941, a ghetto was created, and by the winter of that year, the Jewish population had grown to around 3,680, with some estimates suggesting as many as 6,000 residents. By early September 1942, this number may have reached 8,000, with the ghetto covering approximately 75% of the town.
Overcrowding, lack of food, and unsanitary conditions led to widespread hunger and a typhus outbreak by 1942. Reports suggest that between 15 to 20 people died daily, although post-war records estimate between 4 to 15 deaths per day. Strict policies prohibited Jews from leaving the ghetto, and those caught outside were frequently executed by German gendarmes. In early 1941, around 30 Jewish children were shot near the station while searching for food. More executions followed throughout the year, including the killing of over 25 Jews from Otwock who were found hiding near Sobienie-Jeziory. At the end of 1941, four men and three women were shot in the Jewish cemetery. Additional executions took place in early 1942, resulting in the deaths of five Jews, including two women. In August 1942, between 40 and 50 Jews, including a pregnant woman, were killed for being outside the ghetto.
A sand quarry in Radwanków Królewskie, located 750 meters from the center of Sobienie-Jeziory, became a killing site. Archival sources suggest that 15 to 20 groups of Jews, each consisting of 5 to 20 individuals, were shot at this location. A local witness interviewed by Yahad confirmed these killings, including the execution of 10 Jewish men by a German gendarme, as well as smaller groups of victims. The exact dates of these shootings remain unknown. The quarry, originally used for sand extraction before the war, became a burial site for the bodies of the victims.
Before or after the ghetto’s liquidation, a Jewish man attempting to escape west toward the Vistula River was also shot by a German gendarme, according to the same local witness.
The liquidation of the ghetto took place on September 27, 1942. At dawn, SS units and gendarmes surrounded the area and forced all Jews to gather in the main square. Those who resisted were shot in their homes. After being assembled, the Jews were made to surrender their money and valuables. The elderly and sick were loaded onto carts, while others were marched to the train station in Pilawa. Those unable to keep pace were shot along the way, with their bodies left on the road. At the Pilawa station, the Jews were loaded onto trains bound for Treblinka.
Even after the ghetto’s liquidation, isolated shootings of Jews found in hiding continued until the end of the German occupation. Only around 20 Jews from Sobienie-Jeziory survived the war. The local Jewish cemetery was desecrated under orders from the gendarmes, with headstones removed and repurposed for construction projects at the Gendarmerie post.
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