Type of place

Information about the crime

On September 22, 2021, we carried out a site inspection of a Jewish war grave in the forest in Tomaszów Lubelski. The grave is located in the Tomaszów Lubelski Forest Inspectorate and is marked with a cross. According to our interlocutor, Wojciech D., the bodies of several dozen Jews murdered in March 1942 were buried there.

Wojciech D: “As my father-in-law said, it was probably March 1942. The Germans had almost cleared the district, because there were no more Jews in the town. He and his brother-in-law belonged to the Home Army. “Świerk” was his pseudonym. He even became a sergeant later. They were sitting in a lodge, on our property, several dozen meters from the road. Suddenly the dog started barking. I still remember that the dog was called Maciek. It was jumping on me with its teeth when I was visiting my future wife. My mother-in-law looked through the window: The Germans are coming! They went to see – indeed. They were cleaning the Mausers, their legal Home Army weapons. They opened the window and threw these Mausers through the window into the snow. They waited trembling. They thought someone had betrayed them, but they saw a group of about thirty Jews at different ages. There were young people, old women and men. There were especially many women who wailed loudly and cried. There were also children. About thirty people in total. And two officers who were escorting these Jews. They entered the house, didn’t look at the dog, and somehow they didn’t shoot it. They told them, my father-in-law and his brother-in-law, both to take shovels and go with them. They were so scared that their hands were shaking, but they already knew they would not kill them because of that weapon. They took shovels from their houses. They walked at the end of the column. There were five or six military policemen. They were walking towards the forest. Apparently they have already designated a place. This is where the grave is located. The forest inspectorate commemorated this place with a cross. They went there and the Germans ordered them to dig. The grave was very shallow. There was sand, so it was easy to dig. There was a bit of snow on the top, but the ground was not completely frozen. This layer of snow had warmed it somehow. He said that they dug only up to their knees. They started with the oldest men, because they could resist. They knelt at the edge of that pit, and these two men [Mr D.’s father-in-law and his brother-in-law] stood behind the executors. They put the barrel to their neck, shot them and kicked them down the pit. And they were frightened because they thought that after killing the Jews, they would shoot them. But they just ordered them to spread the bodies evenly. Later, the Germans smoked cigarettes and waited until they covered the bodies with dirt. (Tomaszów Lubelski, September 22, 2021)

Contact and cooperation

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

Bibliography

IPN BU 2448/598

IPN BU 2448/596

IPN Gk 195/19

IPN Lu 501/69 b. OKBZH in Lublin, Survey of killing sites and crimes, Tomaszów Lubelski county.

Recording of the Zapomniane Foundation (audio file), Wojciech D., keywords: Jewish grave in Tomaszów Lubelski; exp. Agnieszka Nieradko and Ewa Koper, Tomaszów Lubelski, September 22, 2021

We have collected the materials about this village thanks to the funding provided by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance as part of the project “The rural Holocaust. Collecting and safeguarding the never recorded testimonies 100 forgotten Jewish graves 2021-2022” and also thanks to the support of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Warsaw.