1 Killing site(s)
Tomasz K., born in 1930: "I witnessed the shooting of 160 Jews in September or October 1943. The Jewish men were brought to the train station in Orchówek on foot, while the women, elderly, and children were transported by cart. About five to ten train wagons were waiting at the station for the victims. Those who couldn’t fit into the wagons—only men—were taken approximately 150 meters away and murdered. I was at the station and saw the first group of ten people being led to the killing site. The other Jews stood nearby, waiting their turn to be executed. The perpetrators were Ukrainian SS men in black uniforms, accompanied by a German commander. The three Ukrainian SS men carried out the shootings with machine guns. The German officer walked among the victims, and after each group was executed, he gave a signal for the next group to be brought forward. I ran away quickly, but I’m certain the train remained at the station until the shooting was completed. After the massacre, the SS men boarded the train and ordered the sołtys [village head] to arrange the burial of the victims.” [Testimony N°YIU249P, interviewed in Włodawa, on October 18, 2013]
Orchówek is a village in Włodawa County, eastern Poland, located near the border with Belarus. It lies approximately 4 km (2.5 miles) north of Włodawa and 79 km (49 miles) northeast of the regional capital, Lublin.
Historical sources indicate that Orchówek had a small Jewish population. For example, in 1864, Lejb Grinberg, a Jewish resident, was among those granted land ownership rights following agrarian reforms. The village began to develop more rapidly toward the end of the 19th century, thanks to the construction of the railroad between Chełm and Brest. A train station was established in Orchówek in 1887, further contributing to its growth.
According to local witnesses, two Jewish families lived in Orchówek before the outbreak of the Second World War. One was the Mendel family, whose father worked as a shoemaker. The other family, which had eight children, ran a local store.
While Orchówek had a small Jewish community, the center of Jewish life in the area was the nearby town of Włodawa, which had a much larger and more active Jewish population.
At the end of September 1939, the Soviet Army briefly occupied the village of Orchówek before quickly withdrawing in early October, leaving the area under German control. Although no German gendarmerie or Polish police post was established in Orchówek itself, the nearby border with the USSR—marked by the Bug River—was guarded by German soldiers, and the village was placed under a curfew. Local residents were forced to patrol the border at night.
According to a local witness interviewed by Yahad, an incident occurred in 1939 when a train carrying 14 wagons of Jewish Polish soldiers stopped in Orchówek. All of the soldiers were murdered, and their bodies were transported to Włodawa for burial, which was organized by members of the Judenrat.
During the occupation, the Włodawa-Orchówek train station became a major transit point for the deportation of Polish and foreign Jews—including Austrians and Hungarians—to the Sobibór death camp. A new station was established in 1939–1940 after the connection to the original station, located on the Soviet side of the Bug River, was severed. The railway line extended a few hundred meters toward the river, ending on a bluff in front of an abandoned bridge. According to a 1943 German timetable, trains on the Chełm–Włodawa line stopped in Sobibór eight times a day.
Local witnesses recalled seeing overcrowded freight trains transporting Jewish deportees regularly. Many of the Jews who disembarked were first sent on foot to the Włodawa ghetto, which had become the main collection point for Jews from the surrounding areas, including those from Orchówek. From there, they were taken to the Włodawa-Orchówek station and deported to Sobibór.
According to Polish archives and testimonies collected by Yahad, numerous Jews were killed during the deportation process. This included both individual killings—such as Jews trying to flee from the trains—and group executions.
One particularly tragic event took place in the autumn of 1943. A column of Jewish men was escorted on foot from Włodawa to the Włodawa-Orchówek station by Jewish police, SS officers, and Ukrainian auxiliaries. Women, children, and the elderly were transported in carts. Upon arrival, the detainees were loaded into the waiting train wagons. However, approximately 160 men remained, as there was no more room on the train.
These men were taken a short distance away, behind a station warehouse near the Catholic cemetery, and executed by Ukrainian SS under the supervision of a German commandant. Witnesses reported hearing both individual gunshots and bursts of automatic fire. One witness saw the victims’ bodies arranged in eight rows of twenty men each—fully clothed, and with no women or children among them.
That same day, the bodies of approximately 110 victims were buried by requisitioned locals in a nearby ravine, possibly identified in Polish archives as the burial site at Bug-Włodawski. The remaining 50 victims were buried in a First World War-era trench, possibly corresponding to the burial site behind the Catholic cemetery in Orchówek. Both killing and burial sites have been located by Yahad, but remain unmarked and uncommemorated.
Polish archives also mention the killing of 40 Jews in the fall of 1943. These individuals, caught crossing the station area, were shot by SS and gendarmes. Their bodies were buried in what was referred to as an animal cemetery in Orchówek. According to local accounts, the victims had been held overnight near the railway tracks; some were shot while attempting to escape through the Catholic cemetery.
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