Lublin Ghetto

   Located in eastern Poland, the district of Lublin had a population of 40,000 Jews out of a total of 120,000 on the eve of World War II. Jews participated in the resistance to the German invasion forces, but as soon as the city was seized by the Wehrmacht (German army), Jews were taken and placed in forced labor gangs. The Germans also looted Jewish possessions, including the confiscation of their apartments. By the end of November 1939, Jews were ordered to wear the yellow Star of David badge, and their movements were restricted. Lublin was also linked to the ill-fated Lublin Plan, which would have moved Jews under German occupation to the region that bordered on the Soviet Union. Before the plan was dropped, however, approximately 63 Jews from other parts of the GeneralGouvernement were deported to the area. The Lublin district was also the headquarters of the Aktion Reinhard chief, Odilo Globocnik, who was responsible for the operation of the death camps in the area, which included Majdanek, located in a Lublin suburb. In the spring of 1941, the Germans established the Lublin ghetto, but not before deporting some 10,000 Jews to the surrounding areas, where they endured horrendous living conditions. The ghetto crowding peaked at 34,000 Jews and resulted in the periodic outbreak of typhus, which was caused by starvation, overcrowding, and the lack of adequate medical supplies. The deportation to the death camps began in March 1942, and by April 1942, more than 30,000 Jews had been exterminated in Belzec. An additional 4,000 Jews were consigned to a suburb of Lublin, which was called the “little ghetto,” where the Germans engaged in frequent raids that resulted in the death of more than 2,000 Jews at Majdanek.

   We know about the detailed conditions faced by the Jews of Lublin because a small number managed to escape and made their way to the Warsaw ghetto, where they told about the brutal treatment of the Jews. The unfortunate Jews who remained in the ghetto were eventually killed by early 1944. Following Lublin’s liberation in July 1944, the city became a gathering place for survivors of the city and its vicinity as well as for Jews who had fought as partisans against the Germans and for those Jews who had taken refuge in the Soviet Union.