Ossowa | Lublin

Destruction of Jews in Ossowa

3 Sitio(s) de ejecución

Tipo de lugar antes:

The camp area (1,2), Field (3)

Memoriales:

No

Período de ocupación:

1939-1944

Número de víctimas:

Around 100

Witnesses interviewed:

1

Entrevista del testigo

Józef M., born in 1929: “One day, while grazing cows by the river, I sat around a campfire with some other boys. Nearby, Jewish prisoners were working, and a Ukrainian guard was sitting with us. Suddenly, he got up, called one of the Jews over, and began beating him mercilessly. The Ukrainian guards often beat the prisoners to death. […] A young Jewish girl named Sonia approached the camp, but the camp commandant, Wendt, caught her, abused her, and held her captive in his house. The next day, likely a Sunday, the guards spent their time brutally beating the prisoners. Sonia hid behind a straw bale, watching in terror. When Wendt spotted her, he struck her violently on the head. […] When the camp was liquidated in October 1942, a dozen German officers arrived. They loaded the prisoners onto carts provided by the sołtys [village chief] and left. However, two gendarmes remained behind with 17 sick prisoners. These prisoners were lined up and executed. The shots from an automatic weapon rang out in rapid succession. I saw smoke rising from the machine guns.” [Testimony N°YIU911P, interviewed in Ossowa, on August 22, 2018]

Nota histórica

Ossowa is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Wohyń, within Radzyń Podlaski County in eastern Poland. It lies 8 km (5 mi) northeast of Wohyń, 16 km (10 mi) east of Radzyń Podlaski, and 65 km (40 mi) north of the regional capital, Lublin.

According to a local witness, three Jewish families lived in the village before the war. All the village children, both Jewish and Polish, attended the same school in Przegaliny, 5 km away, where about seven Jewish families resided. A larger Jewish community lived in Komarówka Podlaska, 7 km away.

Holocausto por balas en cifras

After a brief occupation by Soviet forces in September 1939, Ossowa was invaded by German troops in October of the same year. Shortly afterward, the new administration was established, with a gendarmerie post set up in the nearby village of Komarówka Podlaska.

From 1940 onward, Radzyń County, including Ossowa, became a site for large-scale land reclamation projects ordered by the German administration in the General Government. These projects aimed to regulate water conditions and relied on the forced labor of Jewish prisoners confined in so-called Judenlagers (or Julags), which functioned as water management camps.

One such camp was established in Ossowa in July 1940. In total, around 1,200 Jews passed through the camp between July 1940 and October 1942. At any given time, approximately 300 to 400 Jewish prisoners were held there, subjected to brutal treatment and forced labor, including the regulation of the Białka River and the digging of drainage ditches. During the camp’s first year, 350 Jewish prisoners were brought from Międzyrzec. In the following years, prisoners arrived from various other locations, including Komarówka Podlaska. By May 1942, a total of 407 Jews from Radzyń County were forced to work in Ossowa, including 40 from Czemierniki, 158 from Kock, 180 from Parczew, 5 from Serokomla, and 24 from Wohyń.

A local witness interviewed by Yahad - In Unum, who lived near the camp, provided insight into its layout and the brutal treatment inflicted upon the prisoners. The camp was established on farmland, with the residential house serving as the commandant’s quarters. A wooden granary was repurposed as a food storage facility, while a brick shed was converted into the camp kitchen. The area was enclosed by barbed wire and guarded by a German commandant along with Ukrainian auxiliaries. Jewish prisoners were housed in a double barn fitted with wooden bunk beds, where they endured overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. Beyond the harsh living environment, they suffered from severe food shortages, rampant illness, and grueling forced labor. As a result, dozens perished. The bodies of the deceased were buried in numerous graves scattered across the camp’s grounds.

One such grave was identified by a Yahad team, based on the testimony of a local witness, as the resting place of the camp’s first victim. His body was later exhumed by local Jews and reburied in the Jewish cemetery in Międzyrzec. Another grave, also identified by the Yahad team, belongs to a Jewish woman who was captured by the camp guards, raped, and then shot. Her body was buried by the residents of Ossowa in an area between two local fields.

Pueblos cercanos

• Komarówka Podlaska
• Międzyrzec

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