When soldiers of the Red Army withdrew from H on October 3rd, 1939, many Jews, most of them young, left the town and made their way to the Soviet occupation zone in eastern Poland.
On the entry of the Germans into H they began at once to round up Jews for slave labour, and to loot their property. The hunt for slave labour was accompanied by violence and degradation. Persecution became even more intense when Gestapo troops came to H and police units consisting of Poles and Ukrainians were formed.The Germans forced the Jews to make a “contribution” of 120,000 zloty, and when this sum was not forthcoming, a further fine of 80,000 zloty was added to it. The Gestapo made the rabbi Yochanan Twerski responsible for the failure to raise the required sum. He fled to a nearby village, but the Germans seized him there and executed him. On November 15th, 1939, the Germans announced that Jews wishing to move to the Soviet zone in eastern Poland could obtain a permit to do this against a payment of 10 zloty. Hundreds of Jews were beguiled by this offer and obtained such “permits”. However, when they neared the frontier, they were set upon by the S.S., who beat them brutally and deprived them of all their valuables.
On December 1st, 1939, all Jewish males aged 15 to 60 were ordered to assemble on the Wigun common (a cattle-grazing area). On the morrow, a thousand or so Jews turned up there. S.S. troops and a company of Ukrainians surrounded them, and under pain of death robbed them of all their money and valuables, except for 20 zloty per person. The Germans then brought in a further 1100 Jews from Chelm and forced the whole body to run at the double to the River Bug, the Soviet frontier. In the course of this “death march”, which lasted four days some 1,500 Jews from H and Chelm perished and their corpses left lying in the fields. Many drowned in the Bug, and only a handful succeeded in crossing the river. The few other Jews who survived were returned to H a few days later.
At the beginning of 1940 the Germans moved the Jews of H to a separate area in the eastern part of the town. Some 6,000 Jews - both local and refugees from surrounding townlets - were crammed into this ghetto, with several families sharing a flat. All Jews over the age of 12 were ordered to wear a white armband with a Shield of David on it. The Germans appointed a Judenrat of 12 members. Its chairman was Szmuel Brand and his deputy Joel Rabinowicz. The Judenrat was given the same tasks as in other communities - to supply the Germans with slave labour, to collect contributions and other items of property, etc. The Judenrat continued to see itself as an institution of the community and to the best of its ability helped the poor and the orphans and performed other public services. A soup kitchen was opened in the ghetto, as was a hospital with 30 beds, and medicine was given to the sick.
In August 1940, 500 Jews from Czestochowa, destined for labour camps in the Lublin district, arrived in H and the Judenrat cared for them as best it could.
The Germans set up four labour camps in the vicinity, and each day hundreds of Jews, including young boys and girls, went off to pave roads, dig ditches, build bridges, and also to work on Polish farms.
On August 13th, 1940, the Germans, aided by Polish policemen, shut 800 Jews into a local school building, and kept them there for three days without food. Some 600 of them were then sent to the labour camp at Belzec and set to work digging trenches on the Soviet border. Half of them perished from hunger and disease.
In November 1941 there arrived in H 300 Jewish deportees from Krakow, and in March 1942 some hundreds from Mielec. The Jews of H tried to help them but the means at their disposal were few. The Jews were forced to give the Polish peasants their remaining possessions in return for food.
In May 1942 there were 5,690 Jews in H. In the summer of that year the Germans informed the Judenrat that they intended to send the Jews of H to work in the Pinsk district. On June 1st and 2nd the Germans, assisted by Polish policemen, assembled 3,049 Jews in the market square, put them aboard goods wagons and sent them to their deaths in Sobibor. Forty Jews, who resisted in the market square, were shot on the spot.
A few days later, on June 7th-9th, the Germans removed hundreds of Jews from their houses. Some knew or guessed that they were to be sent to their deaths - and resisted. 180 such Jews were taken to the Jewish cemtery and murdered there. The remainder, among them Jews from Grabowiec, Uchanie, Dubienka and Bialopole, were taken to the extermination camp at Sobibor.
In command of the elimination of the Jews of H were the Gestapo Commandant Weidermann, the Commander of the Gendarmerie Henig, and the Police Officer Dymant.
The last of the Jews of H, some 2,500 in number, worked in German plants and were concentrated in a small ghetto not far from the cemetery. On October 28th, 1942, this ghetto too was closed down, and most of its inmates sent to Sobibor. Some 400 of them who showed resistance at the time of deportation were annihilated in the cemetery area. Only 600 young Jews remained. They were lodged in a labour camp and employed in cleaning up the ghetto and in destroying the cemetery. In September 1943 this labour camp was also dismantled and the inmates sent to the camp at Budzyn, near Krasnik. A handful managed to escape to the woods.
Since 1941 a pioneer training kibbutz of the “Dror” movement had existed at the sawmill in the nearby village of Werbkowice, with 40 members. Its “Mazkir” (Secretary/Leader) was Moshe Rabinowicz. In August 1942 , upon the destruction of the community of H, these youngsters decided to become partisans - but this idea was foiled, and they were all killed by the Gestapo.
A few young Jewish natives of H fought against the Germans and their allies - in the ranks of the Polish Army, in the Red Army, and as partisans. Among the Jewish underground fighters from H were Jukiel Brenner, who at the time of the German occupation lived in the district of Zaglembie, and Szlomo Brenner, a member of the underground fighters of Vilna - both of them members of Beitar. Leon Perec (Percki) and Izrael Weiss took part in the Warsaw Rising of 1944. Jakob Biszkowicz was 15 when in June 1942 he was sent to Sobibor and there joined the underground movement and took part in the revolt - under the leadership of Captain Alexander Paczowski, a prisoner from the Red Army.
HRUBIESZOW I:The cemetery is located on Ulica (Street) Krucza, Hrubieszow, Lublin province, at 23° 53° W ş50° 48° N about 30 km. SE of Zamosc and 107 km. ESE of Lublin. Alternate/former names are Hrubishov, Hrubyeshuv, Rubashov, Rebeshov, Rubischoff, Rubishov, and Rubishoyv. Present town population: 20,000 with no Jews.
· Town officials: Urzad Miasta.
· Local: Urzad Wojewodzki, Zamosc ul. Partyzantow 3; Sejmik Samorzadowy Wojewodztwa Zamojskiego at Zamosc, ul. Partyzantow 3, tel. 31-34.
· Regional: Panstwowa Sluzba Ochrony Zabytkow, Wojewodzki Konserwator Zabytkow Zamosc, ul Staszica 29, tel. 59-71.
· Interested: (1) Organization of Former Jewish Inhabitants of Hrubieszow in Israel (POB 953, 61 008 Tel. Aviv, Israel) and (2) Regional Center for the Study and Preservation of Cultural Landscape (ul. Archidiakonska 4, Lublin, Poland. Tel. 73-62-24). Organization of Former Jewish Inhabitants of Hrubieszow in Israel, Post Office Box 953, 61 008 Tel. Aviv, Israel; (2) Urzad Wojewodzki-Wydzial Geodezji, Kartograffi i. Gospodarki Gruntami, ul. Przemyslowa 4, Zamosc, Poland. Tel. 26-57; (3) Wojewodzkie Archiwum Panstwowe, 4 Przemyslowa St., Lublin, Poland.
Earliest known Jewish community dates from 1442. Jewish population 1939 (census) was 11,000 people; 7500 Jews. Brief history: September 29, 1400 in Lwow (Poland), the King Wladyslaw Jagiello made Hrubieszow an official city. 1500: Tartars ruined and devastated the town (again). 1939: The German army entered town limits on September 15. Living here were Abraham, the Hrubieszow Jew (16th Century); Arieh Perec (Porecki) (20th Century); Solomon Brand (20th Century); Binyamin Yanover (20th Century); Meiche Hoffman (20th Century); Avraham Zimmerman (20th Century); and Rabbi Yedidia Frenkel (20th Century). Buried in the cemetery are Twersky, the Trisker Rabbi, who died while submerged in the town mikvah. Last known Jewish burial in Orthodox (mostly Ashkenazi) cemetery was prior to 1941. Landmarked cemetery was.5 mile from the congregation.
The isolated urban flat land, according to differing sources, with a sign in Polish and Hebrew mentioning Jews, the Holocaust, and the Jewish community. Reached by turning directly off a public road, access is open to all. A continuous fence and a non-locking gate surround the cemetery. The size of the cemetery both before WWII and now is about 3 hectares. Two tombstones stand in original position. The rest of them were either used by the Germans for paving or are displayed in the cemetery monument (an amalgam of sixty Jewish cemetery stones) erected in July 1997. Approximately sixty other stones are not in original location with less than 25% broken. Many stones are incorporated into roads or structures (location: Hrubieszow.) The cemetery is not divided into special sections. The oldest known gravestone dates from the 19th century. The sandstone tombstones and memorial markers are flat shaped stones with inscriptions (pictures) on some, but most Hebrew inscribed. The cemetery contains a special memorial monument to Holocaust victims. No known mass graves. Municipality owns property used for Jewish cemetery only. Properties adjacent are residential. Occasionally, organized Jewish group tours or pilgrimage group and private visitors stop. The cemetery was vandalized during World War II and not in the last ten years. Individuals or groups of non-Jewish origin, local or municipal authorities, and Jewish individuals and groups abroad re-erected stones, patched broken stones, cleaned stones, and cleared vegetation as a community effort. Avram Scher (Sher) donated funds for a monument in Hrubieszow (year unknown). 1981, Shalom Greenberg visited Hrubieszow and donated funding. 1989, four leaders of the Association of Hrubieszow in Israel came to the town to prepare the ground for a group visit to dedicate the monument. They told non-Jewish students of Hrubieszow about the Jewish community; the students, in turn, brought tombstone fragments that they found scattered around town. 26 June 1990, a delegation of sixty Jews from the organization of former Jewish inhabitants of Hrubieszow in Israel visited the death camps in order to take part in an unveiling of the monument and rehabilitation of the Jewish cemetery. 7 August 1997, gathering at Jewish Cemetery in Hrubieszow to inaugurate the monument erected from broken tombstones found and gathered from varying parts of the town. Citizens and visitors, members of the organization in Israel, and abroad, gathered to pay tribute. Current Care: occasional clearing or cleaning by authorities. Security and vegetation are moderate threats. Weather erosion and vandalism are a slight threat.Aaron J. Biterman. E-mail: JewishCo1@aol.com completed survey in March 1999. Documentation: Our Roots Hrubieszow book series (1990-1995). Other documentation exists but was inaccessible. The site was not visited. Stefan Krakowski, Nathan Michael Gelber, Barry Megdal, Jay Lazerowitz, Ricki L. Zunk, Robert Huber, S.B. Weinryb, Baruch Kaplinsky, and Binyamin Yanover supplied information used to complete this survey.
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