1 Execution site(s)
Bolesław K., born in 1932: "There were isolated shootings of Jews carried out near the Jewish cemetery in Bychawa. When Jews in hiding were captured, they were confined in the detention house before being taken to an area near the cemetery, previously used as a garbage dump, to be executed. I witnessed actions like this about four times. Jews were taken there one or two at a time. The execution was always conducted in the same manner: a German soldier shot the victims with single shots. The victims were mainly men." [Testimony N°YIU1528P, interviewed in Bychawa, on November 11, 2023]
"In the autumn of 1939 we had to wear an armband with the Star of David on our right arm. The gendarmes sometimes harassed the Jews. They would beat them up when they came across them in the street. They would go into an apartment and beat the Jews with big sticks or heavy pots. They did this especially on Friday evenings. The one who made the biggest impression on us was August P., who was stationed in Bychawa in 1940. P. tortured people in a particularly cruel way, beating them until they fainted. Another gendarme, a Volksdeutsche called Tomko, was a great nuisance to the Jews. He not only beat the Jews but also shot them. He was stationed in Bychawa from 1940 to 1942. I saw with my own eyes the bodies of our neighbours killed by Tomko. He used to drink and then shoot Jewish passers-by for no reason. When we saw Tomko approaching, we hid wherever we could. He was a real terror for the Jews of Bychawa. In 1942 the gendarmerie post was transferred to Niedrzwica, but Tomko returned to Bychawa again and again, always leaving behind a few or even a few dozen victims. I saw him, through the window, shoot a Jewish woman who ran away spitting blood. That wasn’t enough for him and he didn’t stop there, he went after her and shot her in her apartment. I saw it myself in her flat. It was Chaja Zajdler. She was still breathing after the second shot, but Tomko ordered that she be taken alive to the cemetery for burial. There were several cases like that. There was a story about an old man who was arrested in the cemetery, spitting blood and showing signs of life, and was buried like that." [Deposition of Rywka Akierman, a Jewish resident of Bychawa, compiled in Katowice, on November 19, 1947; AZIH301/3278]
Bychawa is a town situated in the Lublin Voivodeship in eastern Poland, located about 25 km southeast of the regional capital, Lublin. The first Jews settled in Bychawa in the second half of the 16th century, and the community began to grow significantly over the course of the 18th century, increasing from 116 Jewish inhabitants in 1765, to 216 in 1778. By 1787, Jews accounted for 32% of the town’s total population. By the mid-19th century, Bychawa had become an important center of Hasidism, with its own court and tzaddik. At that time, the Jews of Bychawa had a synagogue, a bathhouse, and a cemetery. Throughout the 19th century, Jews continued to make up the majority of the town’s population. According to the 1900 census, there were 2,294 Jews in Bychawa, comprising over 80% of the total population.
During the interwar period, most of the Jewish houses were located in the market square in the northwestern part of the town. The main street was lined with shops and workshops owned by Jews, who primarily earned their livelihoods through trade and artisanal work. Bychawa’s Jewish community developed significantly, with Jews playing an active role in the town’s political and social life. In 1935, 12 of the 30 members of the Bychawa town council were Jewish. The local Jewish political parties represented a broad spectrum of political ideas, including Agudat Yisrael, established in 1919 and representing Haredi Jews, the Zionist Organization founded in 1917, and the socialist Bund.
In the second half of the 1930s, the situation for the Jews in Bychawa began to deteriorate due to the worsening economic conditions and growing antisemitic sentiment, which led to an increase in emigration. On the eve of the Second World War, circa. 1,900 Jews remained in the town, making up half of the total population.
Bychawa was occupied by German troops in September 1939. By then, many Jews, particularly the younger ones, had managed to evacuate the town along with the retreating Red Army troops. Shortly afterward, a Gendarmerie post and a local police unit, consisting of ethnic Germans and Ukrainians, were established. From the earliest days of the German occupation, anti-Jewish policies were swiftly implemented. Some Jews were ordered to leave the town, while others were forced to wear armbands bearing the Star of David and subjected to forced labor. A Judenrat (Jewish Council) was set up, and large financial contributions were demanded from the Jewish community. Several Jews were executed for failing to meet these imposed quotas.
By July 1941, the Jewish population of Bychawa had grown to 2,750 due to the arrival of refugees from other cities, such as Łódź and Kraków. As all Jews, both locals and refugees, were concentrated in the area around the synagogue, this section of the town became known as the Bychawa ghetto. To survive, Jewish craftsmen continued to work secretly, trading goods with Poles from nearby villages. During the winter, ghetto prisoners were forced to clear snow from the roads. The deplorable living conditions—overcrowding, hunger, disease (including a typhus outbreak in July 1941), and isolated shootings—claimed the lives of many ghetto residents. Some skilled laborers were transferred to the labor camps near Bełżec and Majdanek.
On October 10, 1942, the SS, assisted by Ukrainian auxiliaries, rounded up the Jews of Bychawa in the town square. After being counted, many were shot by the SS, who fired into the crowd. The following day, October 11, 1942, the Bychawa ghetto was liquidated in a mass deportation Aktion. Between 2,100 and 2,600 Jews were sent to the Bełżyce ghetto, from where most were deported to the Bełżec extermination camp. Even after the ghetto’s liquidation, isolated shootings of Jews who had managed to hide continued in Bychawa. Those who were captured were imprisoned in the local jail and later taken to the Jewish cemetery to be executed by German soldiers.
A few days after the Bychawa Aktion, several hundred Jews from Bełżyce were sent back to Bychawa, where they were confined in a labor camp set up in the Bet Midrash. These Jewish workers were forced to dismantle the town’s Jewish homes. In May 1943, the labor camp was liquidated, and its 500 surviving inmates were sent to Budzyń and later to Majdanek.
Only about 50 Jews from Bychawa survived the war.
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