Bończa - Kolonia | Lublin

/ Antoni K.91 years old, saw the German soldiers going into the house where three Jewish families were hiding, and heard the shots and grenade blasts as the Jews were executed in Kolonia Bończa in October 1942. ©Olga Szymerowska/Yahad - In Unum Lucjan C., born in 1926, remembers the bloody pacification of Bończa by the Germans in May 1943 and the shooting of 3 Jewish families, who he identified as Jews from Horodysko, at the Potocki farm. ©Olga Szymerowska/Yahad – In Unum Antoni K. shows the Yahad team the killing site in the former estate of Count Potocki, where 3 hiding Jewish families were killed by the Germans and buried in a mass grave dug in a field behind farmhouses. ©Olga Szymerowska/Yahad - In Unum The Yahad team during an interview. ©Olga Szymerowska/Yahad - In Unum The killing and burial site of 15 Jews executed by the Germans in October1942 in Kolonia Bończa, Today it is a private property, and the place of mass grave is not commemorated. ©Olga Szymerowska/Yahad - In Unum A memorial in Wólka Boniecka to the victims of the punitive action carried out by the German army against the civilian population of Bończa and Wólka Boniecka in May 1943. ©Olga Szymerowska/Yahad - In Unum

Execution of Jews in Bończa - Kolonia

1 Killing site(s)

Kind of place before:
Field
Memorials:
No
Period of occupation:
1939-1944
Number of victims:
15

Witness interview

Zdzislaw U., born in 1928: "The Germans sometimes stayed at the estate. On this occasion, one of the seventeen Germans stationed here was killed by partisans while on guard duty. The partisans also killed two other soldiers and then threw a bomb into the building. After that, the Germans sought revenge. One Sunday, we heard gunshots and the explosion of two grenades. The Germans had killed all the Jews hidden in the saddler’s house." [Testimony N°YIU58P, interviewed in Bończa - Kolonia, on July 13, 2011]

Polish Archives

"In Boncza, Krasnystaw county, in October 1942, approximately 15 Jews from the area were shot. The bodies of the victims were buried in a field." [Minutes of the Municipal Court in Krasnystaw, dated September 25, 1945; IPN, 337 E 785]

Historical note

Bończa is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Kraśniczyn, located in Krasnystaw County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland. It lies about 5 km (3 miles) east of Kraśniczyn, 21 km (13 miles) east of Krasnystaw, and 70 km (43 miles) southeast of the regional capital, Lublin.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Bończa was a large village with a population of 633 residents in 113 houses, as recorded in 1921. The community comprised 317 Orthodox Christians, 295 Catholics, and 21 Jews.

The neighboring settlement of Bończa-Kolonia traces its origins to the interwar period, when a portion of the Bończa estate was divided into several farms. In 1921, the manor, then owned by Count Potocki, included 8 houses with 316 inhabitants, most of whom were Poles.

Historical records and testimonies collected by Yahad indicate the presence of a few Jewish families in Bończa. Like other Jewish communities in nearby villages around Kraśniczyn, the Jews from Bończa were part of the Kraśniczyn synagogue district. The district had a wooden synagogue that could accommodate about 300 people, along with a mikveh and a Jewish cemetery.

Holocaust by bullets in figures

In early September 1939, German troops briefly passed through Bończa but were quickly pushed forward by the advancing Red Army. By the end of September, the Red Army retreated, leaving the village under German control according to the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Although German troops were not permanently stationed in Bończa, German and Polish gendarmeries were established in nearby Kraśniczyn. Additionally, according to a witness interviewed by Yahad, German gendarmes regularly visited Count Potocki’s estate in Kolonia Bończa.

The witness, who spent the war on the estate, reported that during one visit by the German gendarmes, partisans killed three Germans. In retaliation, the Germans attacked the saddler’s house, where three Jewish families were hiding, and murdered them with machine-gun fire and a grenade. Polish archives record that 15 Jews were killed in this incident, which occurred in October 1942. The bodies were later transported by horse-drawn cart and buried in a nearby field. The mass grave was in a field that was subsequently plowed and sown.

Bończa was also the site of a violent German anti-partisan pacification operation. On May 8, 1943, a German gendarmerie detachment was attacked by Soviet partisans. In retaliation, the Germans surrounded Bończa and Wólka Boniecka, executing 33 men from both villages. In 1985, a monument was erected to commemorate this pacification, bearing an inscription listing the names of 18 of the murdered villagers.

Nearby villages

To support the work of Yahad-in Unum please consider making a donation

Do you have additional information regarding a village that you would like to share with Yahad ?

Please contact us at contact@yahadinunum.org
or by calling Yahad – In Unum at +33 (0) 1 53 20 13 17