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3 Killing site(s)
Wladyslaw W., born in 1927: There was a folwark (estate) in Żulinki where a Jewish father and his two sons from Komarówka took refuge in a large estate barn after escaping from the ghetto. The father’s name was Rajs, and before the war, he was a cattle trader. Somehow, the Komarówka gendarmes discovered their hiding place. There were 17 gendarmes stationed in Komarówka—15 Germans and 2 Ukrainians. At dawn, while it was still dark, the gendarmes arrived, surrounded the stable, and shouted in German for the hidden men to come out. A wooded area was nearby. The father and his two sons were forced to follow a cart, carrying shovels in their hands. They were ordered to dig a pit. As soon as the pit was completed, a series of shots rang out. The father and his younger son immediately fell into the pit, but the older son, despite being shot multiple times, remained standing, resisting. No one knows how many bullets it took before he finally collapsed. Then, the cart drivers were ordered to fill in the pit. [Testimony N°YIU912P, interviewed in Komarówka Podlaska, on August 23,2018]
“At the start of the occupation, more than 600 Jews lived in Komarówka. […] I personally witnessed a man known as Franek z psem (“Franek with the dog”)—Franz Bauer, a gendarme from Międzyrzec—shoot eight people in the street for no apparent reason. I also recall an encounter between Franek and a young Jewish woman who owned a store. I did not understand their conversation, but after a brief exchange, he took a step back and shot her directly in the chest. As she fell, I saw him unbutton her jacket and pull out a wad of banknotes—pierced by the bullet that had just killed her. The Nazis frequently took Jewish residents to the Jewish cemetery, where they executed them with shots to the back of the head. I know this because my yard was located right at the entrance to the cemetery. The remaining Jewish population was forced to bury the corpses. In total, around 100 people were executed in Komarówka this way.” [Testimony of Piotr Kapczuk, resident of Komarówka, collected on November 21, 1969; DS 131/67, pp. 701-702.].
“Some Jews were assigned to work on farms, where they were employed for an indefinite period, while others worked in Komarówka, performing various jobs. In the winter of 1941–1942, a large group of gendarmes from Radzyń Podlaski arrived and loaded about 20–30 Jews into their vehicles. They took them to Rudno, where they were executed. Since few Jews remained in Komarówka, the authorities established a camp or ghetto in the former oil mill, enclosing it with barbed wire. About twenty Jews were employed there, carrying out various tasks in the village of Komarówka.” [Testimony of Kazimierz Marczuk, 59 years old, resident of Komarówka, collected on November 21, 1969; DS 131/67 p.308-309].
“At the start of the occupation, more than 600 Jews lived in Komarówka. […] I personally witnessed a man known as Franek z psem (“Franek with the dog”)—Franz Bauer, a gendarme from Międzyrzec—shoot eight people in the street for no apparent reason. I also recall an encounter between Franek and a young Jewish woman who owned a store. I did not understand their conversation, but after a brief exchange, he took a step back and shot her directly in the chest. As she fell, I saw him unbutton her jacket and pull out a wad of banknotes—pierced by the bullet that had just killed her. The Nazis frequently took Jewish residents to the Jewish cemetery, where they executed them with shots to the back of the head. I know this because my yard was located right at the entrance to the cemetery. The remaining Jewish population was forced to bury the corpses. In total, around 100 people were executed in Komarówka this way.” [Testimony of Piotr Kapczuk, resident of Komarówka, collected on November 21, 1969; DS 131/67, pp. 701-702.].
“Some Jews were assigned to work on farms, where they were employed for an indefinite period, while others worked in Komarówka, performing various jobs. In the winter of 1941–1942, a large group of gendarmes from Radzyń Podlaski arrived and loaded about 20–30 Jews into their vehicles. They took them to Rudno, where they were executed. Since few Jews remained in Komarówka, the authorities established a camp or ghetto in the former oil mill, enclosing it with barbed wire. About twenty Jews were employed there, carrying out various tasks in the village of Komarówka.” [Testimony of Kazimierz Marczuk, 59 years old, resident of Komarówka, collected on November 21, 1969; DS 131/67 p.308-309].
After the German Air Force bombed Komarówka during the first weeks of the war, the Wehrmacht occupied the town in October 1939, establishing both a gendarmerie post and a Schutzpolizei (Schupo) post.
In January 1940, the German administration ordered the formation of a Jewish Council (Judenrat), and the local Jewish population was forced to wear armbands bearing the Star of David. The approximately 450 Jews living in Komarówka in September 1939 had to accommodate 476 refugees from Radzyń, who arrived in December 1939 before returning to Radzyń in April 1940. Initially, Jews were allowed to remain in their homes and run businesses, but in the spring of 1941, their businesses were seized and transferred to non-Jews. Around 200 Jewish men were subjected to forced labor, working at a Wehrmacht base, the Przegaliny estate, or the Ossowa labor camp, both located nearby. Two waves of Jewish refugees, in May 1941 and January 1942, brought Komarówka’s Jewish population to 623. Food restrictions made survival difficult, and many depended on Jewish Social Self-Help (Jüdische Soziale Selbsthilfe).
According to historical sources and Polish archives, the Jewish population of Komarówka was subjected to humiliation and isolated killings perpetrated by local gendarmes and German units from outside the town. A small SS contingent reportedly arrived in Komarówka in July 1941, terrorizing the Jewish community and executing approximately 25 people. In the winter of 1941–42, gendarmes from Radzyń rounded up 20–30 Jews and executed them in Rudno. Polish records also indicate that up to 100 Jews were murdered at Komarówka’s Jewish cemetery.
A local witness interviewed by Yahad - In Unum recounted that during the winter of 1941–42, a group of Jews was forced to bathe in a frozen pond while SS men from Międzyrzec fired shots over their heads. They were then ordered to lie on the ground in front of the church, where Polish inhabitants were forced to trample them. Several elderly Jews died as a result of this ordeal. Other isolated killings were also reported. According to the same witness, a young woman, the daughter of a man named Jankiel, was shot while grazing geese, and another Jewish woman was murdered while walking in the village with her son. Both victims were buried in the Jewish cemetery.
In late September 1942, local gendarmes and the 2nd Company of the 101st Reserve Police Battalion expelled most of Komarówka’s Jews to the Międzyrzec Podlaski ghetto, from where at least some were deported to the Treblinka death camp on October 6 and 9, 1942. After this Aktion, fewer than
25 Jews remained in Komarówka, primarily those assigned to forced labor at the nearby Wehrmacht base. They were confined to a mill south of the town, which was turned into a fenced ghetto. This small ghetto was liquidated on November 30, 1942, when gendarmes loaded the remaining Jews onto horse-drawn carts and transported them to Międzyrzec. The final liquidation of the Komarówka Podlaska ghetto occurred in April 1943, when the last remaining Jews caught in hiding were deported to the Majdanek concentration camp.
Even after the ghetto was destroyed, further killings were carried out, particularly against Jews in hiding. A Jewish man named Herszko was shot by gendarmes near his house, and his body was buried in the Jewish cemetery. Rajs and his two sons, who had been hiding on a farm in Żulinki, were forced to dig their own graves before being executed. A Jewish maid who had been working for the gendarmerie was also murdered in the forest. A dozen Jewish workers from Komarówka were killed at the Przegaliny estate and buried in a mass grave. Their bodies were later moved to a field on the edge of a forest, where they remain in a mass grave today.
During these three expulsion Aktions, some Jews managed to escape and sought refuge in bunkers in the nearby forests. However, they faced threats from antisemitic Soviet POWs and unreliable locals. On October 30, 1943, a Pole named Jan S., along with accomplices from the village of Przegaliny, murdered eight Jews in hiding to steal their valuables. Among the victims were six members of the Lerner family from Komarówka. The father, Icek Lerner, is the only known survivor from Komarówka.
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