Łuków (Lukov) | Lublin Voivodeship

City: Łuków

Source of information: Local population.

The place is neglected.

Historical data: At the time of the creation of the Jewish ghetto in Łuków in 1942, Jews began to be deported to Treblinka and massively shot in the ghetto area, at the municipality building, and at the new Jewish cemetery near Domaszewska road. It was precisely here, at the end of April and the beginning of May 1943, that Jews were massively shot.

During one such action, carried out by 30 gendarmes, 500 people—men, women, and children—were shot. The Jewish police who remained alive were forced to dig mass graves and bury the murdered people. Afterwards, they were also killed. It is likely that in total, more than 1,000 Jews were killed at this location. [Information about a discovered site of a battle or martyrdom. Deposition by the Polish Scouting and Guiding Association (ZHP)—Karol Świerczewski scout troop. GK 195/VIII/14, p. 30]

Łuków is a city in eastern Poland, located about 90 km (56 mi) north-northwest of Lublin. Jews began settling in Łuków around the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries. The Jewish population lived mainly around the Market Square and on Kozia Street, where the community’s synagogue, study hall (bet midrash), and ritual bath (mikvah) were located.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Łuków’s Jewish community experienced a period of rapid economic growth. By then, Jews owned an estimated 85% of the 530 local businesses and commercial enterprises, and the city had numerous Jewish merchants’ and craftsmen’s associations as well as professional guilds — a sign of a strong and well-organized economic presence.

On the eve of the Second World War in 1939, approximately 6,000 Jews lived in Łuków, making up nearly half of the city’s total population.

Łuków was occupied by German forces on September 17, 1939. Shortly after, 70 Jews were killed in retaliation for a Polish ambush. The town was then ceded to Soviet control, but on October 4, following border negotiations, the Red Army withdrew—along with about 500 Jews who fled across the Bug River. Upon the Germans’ return, they desecrated the synagogue, looted Jewish property, and forced Jews into labor, including repairing the train station and other construction work.

In the following months and years, thousands of Jewish refugees and displaced persons arrived in Łuków. Between November and December 1939, approximately 5,000 Jews from Suwałki, Nasielsk, and Serock reached the town. In 1940, another 1,000 Jews from Mława arrived. On May 8–9, 1942, a transport of over 2,000 Jews from Slovakia arrived in Łuków. The Jewish district was transformed into a ghetto, and its area was fenced off in mid-September 1942. On the eve of its liquidation, it held nearly 11,500 people.

Throughout October and November 1942, several deportation Aktions were carried out in the Łuków ghetto by the Security Police from Radzyń, members of the Reserve Police Battalion 101, SS auxiliaries, gendarmes, and local police units.

On October 5, 1942, during the first deportation Aktion, around 4,000 Jews from Łuków—mainly women, children, and the elderly—were rounded up and sent to the Treblinka killing center. Approximately 500 others were shot on the spot. Yahad witness, Marianna K., born in 1929, was walking to school that day and saw a column of Jews being led by Germans down Międzyrzecka Street toward the train station. She recalled that there may have been several thousand people in the procession. That day left a lasting impression on her, as she also witnessed the shooting of an elderly Jewish woman who tried to escape. In the days that followed, fugitives found in hiding were either killed or deported.

After the first Aktion, the Łuków ghetto was reduced in size and turned into a transit ghetto, housing between 2,500 and 3,500 Jews from nearby towns and villages. On October 27, 1942, about 2,000 new arrivals were deported to Treblinka. Jewish fugitives and "train jumpers" were gradually captured, and some of them were imprisoned at the magistrate’s office, where isolated killings were regularly carried out. Further Aktions took place on November 5 and 7, when over 3,000 Jews—including forced laborers—were sent to Treblinka. On November 7, between 80 and 200 children under the age of six, held in the central prison, were killed in the building’s courtyard. The remaining prisoners were shot in groups in the Malcanów Forest.

After the deportation Aktions, between 3,000 and 4,000 Jewish workers remained in the "small ghetto" in Łuków, employed in Gestapo warehouses and by private firms. In December 1942, around 500 to 600 of them were killed in the Malcanów Forest. The final liquidation of the ghetto took place on May 2, 1943, when the remaining 2,000 to 3,000 Jews were deported to Treblinka.

The bodies of Jews murdered during the war were buried in mass graves at the local Jewish cemetery and in the nearby Malcanów Forest. After the German retreat, some remains were exhumed and reburied in the new Jewish cemetery on Warszawska Street, where a memorial plaque now honors the victims. Other victims still lie in mass graves in the Malcanów Forest, marked by a monument erected after the war.

Only about 150 Jews from Łuków survived the Holocaust, mostly in the USSR. They later migrated to Israel, Western Europe, and the United States of America.