Photographs of Jews in the Zamosc ghetto. Lublin, c.1940

Photographs of Jews in the Zamosc ghetto. Lublin, c.1940

8 photographs of Jews in the Zamosc ghetto in the Lublin province during the Holocaust, some showing Jews in armbands, children in worn clothes, a group of Jews being led to forced labor, a Jewish merchant with armband in his arm, Jews in Eastern European clothing in a carriage, and more. c. 1940.

The German army occupied Zamosc on September 14, 1939. The city of Zamosc was designated from 1942 to be part of the future German living space (Lebensraum) in the Generalgovernment. The plan was called "Aktion Zamosc" and the city was to be renamed "Himmlerstadt". On the eve of the Holocaust, the Jewish community in the city numbered about 12,000, and about 5,000 of them managed to escape to the Soviet Union at the beginning of the war. The Germans established the Judenrat in October 1939, and according to a census conducted, 4,984 Jews remained in the city, to which were added about 500 Jews brought from elsewhere in Poland. A ghetto was established in the city and all the Jews from the city, from Kumarov Osada and the surrounding area, were forced to move to it by May 1, 1941. The first large deportation took place on the eve of Passover, April 11, 1942, and about 3,000 people were deported to Belzec. About 2,000 Jews remained in the city and an additional 2,100 were deported from Czechoslovakia and Germany. Two more large deportations to Belzec and from there to Majdanek took place in April and October 1942, and by March 1943 all the others in the ghetto had been murdered. In 1947, only five Jews remained in the city. After the war, survivors of the city founded the Zamosc Movement, which commemorates the survivors regularly and at an annual memorial service on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Some of the photographs are depicted on the back in handwriting.

Photographs: 9x6 cm. general condition very good.