Szczeglacin | Masovian Voivodeship

"My former business partner, Rubin Rozenberg, was in the labor camp in Szczeglacin. There were still 800 Jews there; they had continued to work even after the liquidation of the Sokołów ghetto. Around October 22, 1942, I received a letter from Rubin Rozenberg from the camp in Szczeglacin, in which he inquired about my intentions. I replied by letter that if I managed to find a hiding place, I would send for him. I entrusted this letter to an acquaintance, a Pole named Władek, the son of a local citizen. I also gave him 300 złoty for Rubin and asked him to bring me a reply. Barely half an hour later, a woman who had just returned from a shop near the commune building came to me and exclaimed, ’Mr. Kopyto, many taxis, many cars with Germans went in the direction of Szczeglacin!’ I immediately felt that something terrible was about to happen. After some time, Władek returned, the one to whom I had given the letter for Rubin Rozenberg. He told me he had barely managed to hand the letter over at the camp gate when the Germans arrived in taxis and attacked the Jews in Szczeglacin. Władek, hearing groans and shots, hid under a large pine tree in the grove and observed everything. It was between 9:00 and 9:30 AM. He saw them beating Jews with poles and forcing them to dig pits. Then he saw the Germans leave. Desperate to know what had happened, he rode his bicycle in the direction of the pits. He saw that the earth was moving, but he no longer saw the Jews. This all transpired around October 22, 1942. I later learned from other Poles that Szczeglacin had been ’finished off.’ There were 800 Jews there, mostly from Sokołów. Upon learning this, I was utterly beside myself." [Testimony of Josek Kopyto, born in 1897; AŻIH, 301/4085, Josek Kopyto, Przeżycia w Sokołowie Podlaskim i okolicach, 24 III 1947, s. 13, 14.]

Szczeglacin is a village located in the administrative district of Gmina Korczew, within Siedlce County, Masovian Voivodeship, in east-central Poland. It lies approximately 3 km (2 mi) west of Korczew, 30 km (19 mi) northeast of Siedlce, and 109 km (68 mi) east of Warsaw.

While not much is known about Szczeglacin’s pre-war Jewish community, witness testimonies offer valuable glimpses into their lives. According to the 1921 census, 191 Jews resided in the broader Korczew municipality. In Szczeglacin itself, witnesses recall at least three Jewish families living alongside Catholic inhabitants before the war. These families were primarily involved in trade, buying and selling corn, and some even sold fish to local residents. Specific individuals remembered include Heim, who operated a paint shop, and Josef and Wolf, known for lending money to the less fortunate. Wealthier Jewish families from nearby towns would also visit Szczeglacin to purchase geese.

More significant Jewish communities thrived in neighboring towns: Drohiczyn, located about 15-20 km from Szczeglacin, was home to 1,521 Jews in 1921. This community largely sustained itself through crafts and trade. Their market stalls offered goods made by Jewish artisans, primarily serving farmers from surrounding villages who visited the district capital. Monthly fairs were also a regular occurrence, and Jews in Drohiczyn even owned hotels. More numerous Jewish communities also existed in Mordy, approximately 20-25 km from Szczeglacin. On the eve of the Second World War, the Jewish community of about 1,750 residents comprised roughly half of the town’s population. Sokołów Podlaski, also about 20-25 km away, was home to nearly 6,000 Jews on the eve of the war, marking it as a significant center of Jewish life in the region.

After the September Campaign in 1939, the Korczew Municipality, including its localities like Szczeglacin (approximately 3 km away), fell under German control and became part of the General Government of the Third Reich.

The majority of Jews residing in the Korczew Municipality before the war were killed locally during the Shoah. Some managed to escape to Soviet territory across the Bug River or found refuge in forests or with Polish families.

In 1940, the Germans established a "Julag," or Judenlager (Jewish labor camp), in Szczeglacin. Most of the Jewish laborers held there came from the consolidated Sokołów-Węgrów district ghettos. Beginning in the autumn of 1941, Jews from Sokołów Podlaski were also deported to labor camps in the Korczew area, including Szczeglacin and Nowy Bartków, where several hundred individuals from nearby towns and villages were confined.

By September 1941, the Szczeglacin camp housed 150 laborers, 85 of whom originated from the Sokołów ghetto. They were soon joined by many others from Mordy, Korczew, and other localities. German labor offices, known as the Arbeitsamt, routinely compelled the Jewish Councils, or Judenrat, to designate a specific quota of men for the camp. Among more affluent Jews, it was a widespread practice to offer bribes to the Judenrat to evade these assignments.

A significant shift occurred during ghetto liquidations. For a time, the previously dreaded labor camps were seen by some as a potential refuge—a last glimmer of hope for survival. As a result, after the final liquidation of the Sokołów ghetto on September 22, 1942, Szczeglacin continued to hold several hundred Jewish workers, with numbers varying according to sources between 400 and 800.

The forced labor in the camp involved water management and the reclamation of agricultural land, including regulating the small Kołodziejka River, which flows into the Bug River nearby. Conditions in the camp were brutal. At least one hundred Jewish individuals died due to exhaustion or at the hands of their guards and tormentors. They were buried in mass graves, but today, no local residents can precisely indicate their locations.

Although various sources indicate different dates for the camp’s liquidation, researchers largely agree that October 22, 1942, is the most likely date on which the Germans liquidated the Szczeglacin forced labor camp. At that time, its Jewish workers were murdered along with their families and buried in at least two mass graves located near the camp.

According to Ludwik W., born in 1930, an eyewitness interviewed by Yahad - In Unum in 2015, the liquidation of the Szczeglacin camp took place in the autumn. From the barracks, the Jewish prisoners were led in single file to two deep, circular pits, which they had dug themselves about thirty meters away. At each pit, two Germans armed with heavy clubs stood. As each person approached, they were struck on the head and fell into the pit. Once all the people had been beaten, a machine gun fired into the pits. Then, a white substance, probably chlorine or lime, was spread over the bodies before the pits were covered with earth. The perpetrators then swiftly departed towards Drohiczyn.

In the spring, probably in 1944 according to eyewitness accounts, the Germans returned to the site to exhume the victims’ remains and erase all traces of the crime.

The killing site is located just beyond the village’s last buildings. Part of this area is now a cultivated field, and no trace of the execution remains. The site is not commemorated.

Shaindla Lender, Golda Hochberg, and Perl Morgenstern, all from Sokołów Podlaski, miraculously survived the liquidation of the Szczeglacin forced labor camp by securing Polish work papers from Kazimierz Miłobedzki, who was later recognized as "Righteous Among the Nations" by Yad Vashem for his efforts in helping Jews.