Baranów Sandomierski | Subcarpathia

1. Date and place of execution: 04.1940, 07.1943, 02.1944;

2. The type of execution/ shooting, hanging or other types: shooting

3. Data concerning the executed victims: about 66 people (Jews and 4 Poles) were shot by the Gestapo and the SS of Mielec and buried in the Catholic cemeteries (4 graves: two of 2 corpses and two individual) and Jewish (three mass graves, 20 corpses in each mass grave); [Court Inquiries about executions and mass graves in districts, provinces, camps and ghettos; Baranów village, Tarnobrzeg county, Subcarpathian voivodship]

Baranów Sandomierski is a small town in the Subcarpathian Voivodship, Tarnobrzeg County, southern Poland. Historically, it belongs to the province of Lesser Poland. Jews lived in Baranów from the 14th century onwards. During the 15th and 16th centuries, their houses were concentrated near the market square. During the second half of the 18th century, a synagogue was built in the town. During the last decade of the 19th century, there were 1,491 Jews in Baranów, representing more than 60% of the total population. Their main occupations involved different types of commerce and handicraft, such as shoemaking, tailoring and many others. Several Jewish families earned their living from agriculture, mainly garden plots or small fields.

In 1921, 745 Jews lived in Baranów Sandomierski (41.5% of the total population). Most of these Jews were quite poor, except for a few wealthier families, and completely unprepared for the coming of war. According to Yahad witness Janina, born in 1934, the Jews mainly lived on the market square and the adjacent streets. Janina recalled: “The Jews were very talented merchants, they ran almost all the shops in town. The relations between Jewish and non-Jewish inhabitants of the town were good.” On the eve of the war, about 1,200 Jews lived in Baranów.

When the war began, Baranów was initially occupied by the Wehrmacht, who directly subjected a certain number of the Jews to forced labor: Jewish men had to repair roads, women were forced to clean and do laundry. A certain Numerik (with distant German origins) became one of the town leaders, along with the mayor. The Polish (Blue) Police became responsible of maintaining order in the town, with periodic visits from SS men. From that moment, Jews were regularly persecuted, beaten and humiliated, and their belongings and money were stolen. From the spring of 1940, German occupiers continued to use the local Jews as slave laborers, mainly for road building, which was carried out by “Omler,” a German company. The synagogue and the Jewish cemetery were destroyed (the gravestones were used to construct or repair the roads). When the war against the Soviet Union broke out on June 22, 1941, 180 Jews were sent to various forced labor camps (Biesiadka, Dęba, Huta Komorowska). 

A ghetto was established in Baranów on June 30, 1942, assembled part of the marketplace and the adjacent streets. The Nazis gathered about 1,400 people there. Some of them were still employed to build roads, whereas others were deported to the labor camp in Huta Komorowska. The extermination of the city’s Jews began most probably on July 20, 1942. The day before the beginning of the Aktion, 40 Jews from Tarnobrzeg arrived on foot at the Baranów Sandomierski ghetto. According to YIU’s witness Janina, born in 1934, they were placed in a two-storey building located in the center of the marketplace which is a local town hall today. When the Aktion started, the Jews received the order to gather at the local marketplace on Monday morning. There, the Germans proceeded to the selection. According to different sources, between 60 and 100 elderly people and children were taken in carts to the Jewish cemetery and shot by the Germans. Janina recalled that they were all put on carts and transported to the execution site by local farmers, requisitioned by the Germans. Before the shooting, the Jews were forced to dig mass graves for themselves, which were filled in by requisitioned Poles after the execution. The rest of the Jews marched to the station and then put on cattle wagons that already contained Jews from Rozwadów and Łańcut. The train took two days to reach Dębica. After a selection, when the elderly people were shot, a part of the Jews from the convoy was sent to different labor camps and Dębica ghetto, while the rest was deported to the Belzec extermination camp.

The available archival sources mention several shootings of Jews in Baranów Sandomierski: a hundred Jews executed in the Jewish cemetery during the liquidation of the ghetto, then 12 Jews on April 10, 1943, who worked in a local factory, then 48 others who could no longer work. In the yizkor book Sefer Yizkor Barnov, a list of 162 names of the heads of Jewish families from Baranów Sandomierski who perished during the Holocaust can be found. The list is not exhaustive, as it was created from the memories of the survivors. In addition, we believe that many Jews from surrounding villages, such as Wola, Skopanie, Przykop, Knapy, Krasiczyn, Dąbrowica or Dymitrów shared the same fate as the Jews from Baranów Sandomierski.

Go to the Jewishgen Kehilalink webpage