Type of place

Information about the crime

The largest execution of Jews in Adamów took place in autumn 1942 when approx. 150 men, women and children were killed. The execution was conducted by a SS unit stationed in Korwin: “SS-men brought Jews from other villages and gathered all the Jews from Adamów who didn’t want to leave for the ghetto in Łuków. Those Jews were chased into Marian Kurowski’s meadow […] and after being forced to undress and lie face down on the ground they were killed with a shot in the back of the head. Dead Jews were loaded on carts by those who were left alive and taken to a mass Jewish cemetery in Adamów [common graves on the Jewish cemetery.] […] There were incidents when severely wounded but still living people were put on the carts and taken to be buried.” (IPN Lu 501/53 p.70v)

This is how Czesława, a resident of Adamów (born in 1922) remembers that day: “I was born in 1922. I saw Jews being transported to the cemetery through our street. On the carts there bodies of those already killed but many were killed on the way, on our street. The street looked different, there was mud everywhere. A hundred, maybe two hundred of these Jews. They chased them and joked: ‘Down! Up! Down! Up!’ And they had to lie down in this mud, in this water. It was terrible to watch. It was autumn.” (Adamów, 26 August 2015.)

Czesława also remembers Jewish residents of Adamów: “Lejbuś lived here – a cobbler; Josek [another cobbler]; there was a Jew renting a place from old Mrs Dzida, one hut because they didn’t need more. […] There was Zysla Kisenbergen, she lived on the causeway, we went to school together.” (Adamów, 26 August 2015)

Contact and cooperation

We are still looking for information on the identity of the victims and the location of Jewish graves in Adamów. If you know something more, write to us at the following address: fundacjazapomniane@gmail.com.

Bibliography

Recording of the Zapomniane Foundation (audio file), name: Czesława [eyewitness], b. 1922, subject and keywords: Jewish graves in Adamów, interviewed by Agnieszka Nieradko, Adamów 26 August 2015.

IPN BU 2448/581, the Chief Commission for the Examination of German Crimes in Poland, lubelskie province, Łuków district.

IPN GK 163/16, Questionnaire. Executions. Graves. Lubelskie province, volume V, Questionnaires about mass executions and mass graves – lubelskie province.

IPN GK 196/322, The trial of Józef Buhler.

IPN Lu 501/53, the former Regional Commission for the Examination of German Crimes in Lublin, Questionnaire of places and facts of German crimes, Łuków district, Adamów commune.

The register of sites and crimes committed by the Germans in Poland between 1939 and 1945. Radomskie province, Warszawa 1980, p. 22.