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1 Execution site(s)
Stanislaw B., born in 1928: "When the Germans entered Wojsławice, the soldiers settled in the school and in the nearby barracks, but they didn’t stay there, they moved and established in Chełm. The Germans didn’t interfere in the daily life of the village, they only gave orders, which were carried out by the soltys (village head), the wójt (head of the local administration) and the Polish police. There was also a Jewish police. The Jews wore armbands with the Star of David. They had to work. If they worked in the village, they were supervised by the Jewish police. Sometimes they were sent to a labour camp, but sometimes they were sent to work for farmers in the area. My family had a lot of land and a Jewish man and woman used to work for us." [Testimony N°YIU45P, interviewed in Wojsławice, on July 17, 2011]
"The first execution took place next to the Orthodox church in a meadow situated about 50 meters from the church itself. I watched the execution with the others from behind the church. This execution was carried out by the German gendarmerie from Uchanie, and more than 40 people were killed there. I don’t know how many children were in that group. The Jews came from Wojsławice and other villages. The bodies of these Jews were buried in this meadow, and they remain there to this day. There is no memorial.
At about the same time, a week or two after the first execution, the Germans arrested about 20 Jews and shot them in the same meadow, 20 meters from where the first shooting had taken place. The bodies of these Jews were buried there and are still there." [Deposition of Bronislaw Nosek, resident of Wojsławice, compiled in 1966; IPN, OKL S 107/07/Zn]
Wojsławice is a village in eastern Poland, located in the Lublin Voivodeship, approximately 20 km (12 miles) from the county capital, Chełm.
The Jewish community in Wojsławice, established at the beginning of the 16th century, grew over time despite numerous persecutions experienced over the centuries.
In 1648, during the Cossack invasion, several Jews survived by fleeing the village. By 1664, about sixteen Jewish families lived in Wojsławice. However, the community faced another disruption in 1761, when a pogrom was carried out amid a wave of anti-reform sentiment targeting "infidels," resulting in the deaths of several Jews and the expulsion of the survivors. As a consequence, only 38 Jews remained in Wojsławice by 1778. In the years that followed, the Jewish population steadily increased, from 345 in 1827 (23% of the total population) to 841 in 1857 (54% of the total population), a figure close to the 1921 census, which recorded 835 Jews in the town.
The Jewish quarter developed in the town center, with most of the houses around the square occupied by Jewish craftsmen and merchants. The first synagogue in Wojsławice was built in the mid-17th century, followed by a new one constructed between 1890 and 1894. The Jewish community also maintained two cemeteries.
During the interwar period, the Jewish community suffered further persecution. In late 1918, Polish soldiers from General Haller’s army passed through the town, persecuting Jews and looting their property. By the early 1920s, the local economy was struggling, and the Jewish community faced significant challenges in rebuilding their businesses. Despite this, they established several mutual aid and charity organizations, as well as courses to teach various trades and crafts. Although economic hardship persisted, the community maintained four synagogues and two libraries. Jewish political and public life remained active, with several Zionist parties and youth movements founded in the town.
On the eve of the Second World War, Wojsławice was home to between 1,110 and 1,260 Jews.
In September 1939, Soviet troops first entered Wojsławice, but two weeks later, German forces took control of the town. As the Soviet army withdrew, many young Jews attempted to flee eastward, but the Germans caught up with many of them and forced them to return to their homes.
Anti-Jewish measures were swiftly introduced. By the end of 1939, the Germans had confiscated all Jewish-owned businesses and property, made it compulsory for Jews to wear a white armband with a blue Star of David, desecrated prayer houses, and converted the synagogue—first into a stable and later into a granary.
The Jews were ordered to establish a Judenrat (Jewish Council) and a Jewish police force. Although no formal ghetto was created in Wojsławice, by the end of 1940 the Judenrat was instructed to move the Jewish community to a poorer area of town, where living conditions were extremely harsh. Despite efforts by the Judenrat to set up a communal kitchen and provide minimal aid in the form of money and clothing, the Jews of Wojsławice suffered from hunger and disease, including an outbreak of typhus. Overcrowding in the Jewish area increased significantly at the end of 1941, following the resettlement of Jews from neighboring villages and the arrival of around 330 refugees from Łódź and Warsaw.
There was no permanent German gendarmerie post in Wojsławice; instead, the village was regularly inspected by gendarmes from nearby Uchanie, who persecuted the Jews, looted their shops and homes, and extorted valuables in the form of gold and other contributions.
The Germans used the Jewish population as a labor force, forcing them to work in grueling conditions, such as draining the swamps at the Żmudź labor camp or helping construct the Bełżec death camp. Jews were also used as laborers on local landowners’ farms.
At the same time, the German authorities sought to reduce the number of people deemed unable to work. In early 1942, approximately 50 to 60 elderly Jews were deported to Włodawa and then to the Sobibor death camp. On August 19, 1942, the Germans conducted another Aktion, deporting 227 Jews—including children, the elderly, and the sick—to the Borek Forest, located 23 km north of the village near the town of Chełm, a known site for the execution of Jews and prisoners of war.
On October 10, 1942, during the final phase of the liquidation of Wojsławice’s Jewish community, about 1,200 Jewish inhabitants were forced to march to Chełm and then to Włodawa, from where they were deported to Sobibor. Jews who managed to escape during the march or hide from the deportation were actively hunted in the surrounding areas. By the end of October 1942, sixty Jewish children, women, and men who had been captured by the gendarmes were gathered in a Jewish house on the market square in Wojsławice. They were then taken to a meadow near the Orthodox church. According to several witnesses leaving Catholic mass that evening, two groups of Jews, including children, women, and men, were seen standing close together beside two long pits. The shooters, identified as gendarmes from Uchanie, machine-gunned the first group of Jews, filling one of the pits, and then did the same with the second group. The following day, local Poles were requisitioned to fill the pits. According to Polish archives, other executions took place at the same site in 1943.
To commemorate the Jewish victims murdered in Wojsławice, a memorial was erected at the site of the execution in 2021.
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