1 Killing site(s)
Halina P., born in 1922: "Prisoners were brought to the station in Pomiechówek and taken from there to the Fort, where the bunkers had been converted into prison cells. These cells were essentially underground, located in tunnels. We slept on bare concrete or straw, without beds or bedding. Everyone used whatever they had to cover themselves, usually just the clothes they arrived in. We were not given any spare clothing. Meals were served in the yard, where we ate standing up. The food was minimal—usually cabbage boiled in water. We were constantly starving." (Testimony N°YIU649P, interviewed in Smoły, on October 22, 2016)
"15,000 camp prisoners, including Poles, Jews and Russians, were killed, shot, hanged during the camp’s existence." [Court Inquiries about executions and mass graves in districts, provinces, camps and ghettos = Ankieta Sadow Grodzkich, 1945 Reel 13 File 45]
Pomiechówek, located approximately 43 km (27 miles) from Warsaw in the Mazovian Voivodeship, saw its first Jewish settlers arrive in the 19th century. By the late 19th century, the Jewish community had established a wooden house of prayer. According to the 1921 census, 202 residents of Pomiechówek—about 30% of the population—were identified as Jewish.
Among the notable establishments in the town was a bakery owned by a Jewish man named Bojmowicz. However, the Jewish community in Pomiechówek was not independent and fell under the jurisdiction of the Jewish religious community in nearby Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki, where the Jewish cemetery was located.
The exact number of Jewish residents remaining in Pomiechówek on the eve of the war is unclear. According to a witness interviewed by Yahad, most of the town’s wealthiest Jews fled to Warsaw before the German invasion.
Pomiechówek, located in Regierungsbezirk Zichenau, was one of the Polish localities directly incorporated into the Third Reich following the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939. From 1941 to 1945, the local fortress, known as Fort III, was converted into a prison and transit camp for people awaiting deportation to the General Government. The camp, spanning 100 hectares and surrounded by barbed wire, operated under the jurisdiction of the Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police) in Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki. It housed prisoners of various nationalities, including Jews from Poland and France, as well as Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, and Hungarians. Although it primarily detained men, women were also held there.
The camp initially detained Poles, including 500 individuals brought there in the spring of 1941, as recalled by a Yahad witness. These prisoners were used for forced labor, subjected to interrogations, and later released. After this, local elites from the Mazovian region were imprisoned. From July 1941 onward, the camp began to house increasing numbers of Jews, with approximately 2,000 transferred from Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki, Nowe Miasto, and other areas due to overcrowding in regional ghettos. By the end of 1943, Jews made up a significant portion of the camp’s detainees.
Conditions in the camp were among the harshest in occupied Poland. Prisoners were crammed into small, poorly ventilated underground cells that lacked light, water, and sanitation, leading to outbreaks of typhus and skin diseases. Food was scarce, and many died of starvation. Torture during interrogations was common, and a significant number of prisoners died as a result. According to a Yahad witness, medical experiments conducted on inmates further increased the mortality rate.
Executions were a daily occurrence, often immediately following trials held by the Polizeistandgericht (Gestapo Stand Court), whose rulings were carried out the same day. Prisoners were shot, hanged, or murdered in mass killings. On March 20, 1943, 14 Jewish children hiding in the forest near Pomiechówek were killed. On June 25, 1943, 169 resistance members were executed. In July 1943, approximately 500 Jewish prisoners, including children, were transported at night to nearby Janówek and murdered. Local villagers were requisitioned to supply carts for the convoy, which was guarded by armed German personnel with dogs. Stronger camp prisoners were forced to dig and fill the graves. Between 1943 and 1944, the killings intensified. In January 1944, 193 prisoners were hanged; on February 4, 1944, another 123 were executed; and on July 30, 1944, shortly before the camp’s liquidation, 281 prisoners were killed in a single Aktion.
As Soviet forces approached in the summer of 1944, the Germans sought to erase evidence of their crimes. Sixteen Jewish prisoners were forced to exhume mass graves, burn the bodies on pyres, and bury the ashes. The camp was liquidated at the end of July 1944, with some prisoners evacuated to be used as forced labor for fortifications and in efforts to conceal atrocities.
The exact number of those who perished remains uncertain, but estimates suggest that between 50,000 and 100,000 people passed through the camp during its operation and that over 15,000 died within its confines.
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