Kobylany | Lublin

/ Jan C., born in 1927, remembers very well the camp where the Jews were gathered together right before being executed in Kobylany forest and the former oil pipeline ditch © Nicolas Tkatchouk- Yahad-In Unum Bronislaw, born in 1929, remebers that the Jews hat to pass some physical tests-those who did well, were sent to the camp, those who failed, were shot .© Nicolas Tkatchouk- Yahad-In Unum Franciszek I., born in 1925, the witness of an execution, heard gunshot sounds and people crying and begging for mercy.© Nicolas Tkatchouk- Yahad-In Unum The ruins of the fort, located near one of the execution sites of the Jews in Kobylany © Nicolas Tkatchouk- Yahad-In Unum Mass execution site in Kobylany forest © Nicolas Tkatchouk- Yahad-In Unum Mass execution site in Kobylany forest © Nicolas Tkatchouk- Yahad-In Unum

Execution of Jews in Kobylany

4 Killing site(s)

Kind of place before:
Forest/Former oil pipeline ditch
Memorials:
No
Period of occupation:
1939-1944

Witness interview

Witness Jan C. recounts : “Y.U.: Do you remember if there was a camp on the site of the airport?
Witness: There was a camp, Jews were imprisoned there. There were some buildings and the Jews were imprisoned inside. When one group [of Jews] was shot, they took another one. They didn’t keep them there for a long time. They brought a group of about 100 people to these forts or somewhere else. They shot and buried them. Then, [they brought] another group, [they did it] every day. It took place from time to time.
Y.U.: Where did the Jews stay in the camp?
Witness: There were barracks where they were gathered together. None of these groups stayed there for a long time, but only for a short time, for one or two weeks. They exterminated them [the Jews] on a mass scale. “ (Witness N°5, interviewed in Kobylany, on July 24, 2010)

Polish Archives

 Court inquiries about executions and mass graves:
1. Date and place of execution: 1943 and 1944;
2. Type of execution (shooting, hanging or other): shooting;
3. Personal data of the executed victims (Polish, Jews, other nationalities): Jews;
Number of executed victims: about 700 people;
Origin of the victims: work camp in Kobylany (Malaszewicze Male); [Deposition of Karol T., the mayor of Kobylany; GK 163/12]

Historical note

 According to Jan C., a witness interviewed by Yahad-In Unum, the village was mostly inhabited by Orthodox families. Nearly 1,300 Jews lived in the nearby town of Terespol, where they represented the majority of the population. Jews from Terespol came to Kobylany regularly to trade with villagers.

Holocaust by bullets in figures

In 1936, near Kobylany, close to the village of Malaszewicze, the construction of a military airport began. The airport was one of the biggest and most important Polish airfields and that’s why it became a target of the Luftwaffe on the first day of war. During the war, Germans reconstructed and extended the airport that they had destroyed shortly before. To proceed with the reconstruction of the airport, the Nazis established a labor camp, which existed between autumn 1942 and February 1944, for Jews from Czechoslovakia and surrounding towns and villages. There were Jews from the Terespol ghetto among the camp prisoners. Frequently, the Jews who were deemed unfit for work were shot in a forest near the camp. According to the Polish archives, more than 800 Jews from the Malaszewicze labor camp were also shot in a forest near Kobylany in several mass graves. According to Jan C., born in 1924, one of the execution sites is located in Kobylany, close to the former fort. The victims were brought there by trucks and shot on the edge of a pit. The executions lasted from 1943 till 1944.

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