Szebnie | Subcarpathia

The Szebnie concentration camp created in spring 1943 at the place of the former POW’s camp.  Besides the Jews, who were gathered from the liquidated ghettos of Jaslo, Tarnów, Rzeszów , Bochnia,  Roma and Poles were detained in the camp. All the inmates fit to work were subjected for the forced labor while others were systematically exterminated. In autumn 1943 there were about 5,000 detainees and their number gradually rose to 10,000. A few craft workshops were established within the camp. The forced laborers worked also on expansions of the camp, in farming, in gravel pit in Jasiołka, by road repairs, reloading goods on train station in Mederówka and in an oil refinery in Niegłowice. Throughout the whole time of the existence of the camp, the inmates were killed by shooting either in the nearby forest of Dobrucowa or in the cemetery of Szebnie, or deported to the Auschwitz. Thus, the first execution of Jews was conducted September 22^nd 1943, when about 700 Jews, including 400 from Tarnow, were murdered in the forest of Dobrucowa. On November 5^th 1943 2,800 Jewish inmates from the camp were deported to Aushwitz. The second mass execution during which about 500 Jews were killed occurred on November 6^th in the same forest near the village of Dobrucowa. Bodies of the victims were burned and thrown into a nearby river. Several executions were conducted in the cemetery between 1943 and 1944. In autumn of 1943, seven Jews managed to escape from the camp in Szebnie. The last Jews were transferred to Płaszów in spring 1944.