The Międzyrzec Podlaski Ghetto was one of the

Nazi ghetto Beginning with the invasion of Poland during World War II, the Nazi Germany, Nazi regime set up ghettos across German-occupied Europe, German-occupied Eastern Europe in order to segregate and confine Jews, and sometimes Romani people, into small ...

s established for the confinement and persecution of the

Jewish population As of 2020, the world's "core" Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewis ...

Międzyrzec Podlaski Międzyrzec Podlaski ( la, Meserici, german: Meseritz) is a city in Biała Podlaska County, Lublin Voivodeship, Poland, with the population of 17,162 inhabitants . The total area of the city is . Międzyrzec is located near the Krzna river, not f ...

in the

General Government The General Government (german: Generalgouvernement, pl, Generalne Gubernatorstwo, uk, Генеральна губернія), also referred to as the General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region (german: Generalgouvernement für die be ...

territory of

occupied Poland ' (Norwegian: ') is a Norwegian political thriller TV series that premiered on TV2 on 5 October 2015. Based on an original idea by Jo Nesbø, the series is co-created with Karianne Lund and Erik Skjoldbjærg. Season 2 premiered on 10 October 2 ...

. The ghetto was liquidated in stages between 1942 and 1943 as part of the "

Final Solution The Final Solution (german: die Endlösung, ) or the Final Solution to the Jewish Question (german: Endlösung der Judenfrage, ) was a Nazi plan for the genocide of individuals they defined as Jews during World War II. The "Final Solution to th ...

", with all Jews either killed on the spot in mass shooting actions or deported to

Treblinka Treblinka () was an extermination camp, built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Masovian Voivodeship. The camp ...

and

Majdanek Majdanek (or Lublin) was a Nazi concentration and extermination camp built and operated by the SS on the outskirts of the city of Lublin during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. It had seven gas chambers, two wooden gallows, a ...

death camp Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. The v ...

Ghetto history

At the end of September 1939, during the

Soviet invasion of Poland The Soviet invasion of Poland was a military operation by the Soviet Union without a formal declaration of war. On 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, 16 days after Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west. Subse ...

, the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...

occupied the city of

. At the beginning of October, the Soviet Union handed over the city to Germany as part of the German-Soviet Frontier Treaty amended to the secret Hitler-Stalin Pact against Poland in 1939. Following the exchange, approximately 2,000 of the city’s Jews left for the

territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union Seventeen days after the Nazi Germany, German invasion of Poland in 1939, which marked the beginning of the Second World War, the Soviet invasion of Poland, Soviet Union entered the eastern regions of Second Polish Republic, Poland (known as the ...

. The Germans set up a transfer ghetto in the historic neighbourhood of Szmulowizna. It held 20,000 Jewish prisoners at its peak. On August 25–26, 1942 some 11,000–12,000 Jews were rounded up by German

Order Police battalions The Order Police battalions were militarised formations of the German Order Police (uniformed police) during the Nazi era. During World War II, they were subordinated to the SS and deployed in German-occupied areas, specifically the Army Group ...

amid gunfire and screams and deported to the

Treblinka extermination camp Treblinka () was an extermination camp, built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Masovian Voivodeship. The camp ...

. The next mass extermination action took place around October and November 1942. "Strip-search" of young Jewish women was introduced by ''

Oberleutnant () is the highest lieutenant officer rank in the German-speaking armed forces of Germany (Bundeswehr), the Austrian Armed Forces, and the Swiss Armed Forces. Austria Germany In the German Army, it dates from the early 19th century. Trans ...

'' Hartwig Gnade before executions dubbed "mopping up" actions. His first sergeant later said: "I must say that First Lieutenant Gnade gave me the impression that the entire business afforded him a great deal of pleasure."Browning 1998, pp. 106–108. The wave of mass killings lasting non-stop for several days were conducted by the Trawniki battalion of about 350 to 400 men, while the Germans from the parallel

Reserve Police Battalion 101 Reserve Police Battalion 101 (german: Reserve-Polizei-Bataillon 101) was in Nazi Germany a paramilitary formation of the uniformed police force known as Order Police (''Ordnungspolizei#Police battalions, Ordnungspolizei'', abbreviated as Orpo), o ...

of the ''

Ordnungspolizei The ''Ordnungspolizei'' (), abbreviated ''Orpo'', meaning "Order Police", were the uniformed police force in Nazi Germany from 1936 to 1945. The Orpo organisation was absorbed into the Nazi monopoly on power after regional police jurisdiction w ...

'' from Hamburg dealt with the thousands of ghetto inhabitants. On the seventeenth of July 1943, the ghetto was liquidated, with all remaining Jews deported to

and

extermination camps; at which time the last 160–200 residents were shot, and the city was officially declared free of Jews. Fewer than 1% of the Jewish population of the city survived the German occupation.

Escape and rescue

Jewish townsman, Sender Dyszel who managed to escape shootings in Międzyrzec was rescued by Polish Righteous Franciszka Abramowicz (1899–1990). She brought him food into the forest until he could return to her later. Dyszel emigrated to Argentina after 1947.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Miedzyrzec Podlaski Ghetto Ghettos in Lublin District Jewish Polish history Reserve Police Battalion 101

Ghetto history

Escape and rescue

See also

References

Further reading

External links