Józefów (), also called ''Józefów Biłgorajski'', ''Józefów Ordynacki'' and ''Józefów Roztoczański'', is a town in
Biłgoraj County
Biłgoraj County () is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Lublin Voivodeship, eastern Poland. It was established on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms passed in 1998. Its adminis ...
,
Lublin Voivodeship
Lublin Voivodeship ( ) is a Voivodeships of Poland, voivodeship (province) of Poland, located in the southeastern part of the country, with its capital being the city of Lublin.
The region is named after its largest city and regional capital, Lu ...
,
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
, with 2,436 inhabitants (2006). It lies on the , in historic
Lesser Poland
Lesser Poland, often known by its Polish name ''Małopolska'' (; ), is a historical region situated in southern and south-eastern Poland. Its capital and largest city is Kraków. Throughout centuries, Lesser Poland developed a separate cult ...
, among the hills of
Roztocze
Roztocze () is a range of hills in east-central Poland and western Ukraine which rises from the Lublin Upland and extends southeastward through Solska Forest and across the border into Ukrainian Podolia. Low and rolling, the range is approximat ...
, and
Solska Forest. The distance to
Biłgoraj
Biłgoraj (, ''Bilgoray'', ) is a town in south-eastern Poland with 25,838 inhabitants as of December 2021. Since 1999 it has been situated in Lublin Voivodeship; it was previously located in Zamość Voivodeship (1975–1998). It is located sou ...
is , to
Zamość
Zamość (; ; ) is a historical city in southeastern Poland. It is situated in the southern part of Lublin Voivodeship, about from Lublin, from Warsaw. In 2021, the population of Zamość was 62,021.
Zamość was founded in 1580 by Jan Zamoyski ...
, and to
Lublin
Lublin is List of cities and towns in Poland, the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the centre of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin i ...
- .
History
The town was founded in the 1720s in a location of the village of Majdan Nepryski. Józefów belonged to the
Zamoyski family
The House of Zamoyski (plural: Zamoyscy) is an important Polish noble (''szlachta'') family belonging to the category of Polish magnates. They used the Jelita coat of arms. The surname "Zamoyski" literally means "of/from Zamość" and refle ...
, and its name honors
Tomasz Józef Zamoyski
Tomasz Józef Zamoyski (1678–1725) was a Polish nobleman (szlachcic).
Tomasz became the 5th Ordynat of Zamość estate. He was also starost of Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine, Płoskirów and Horodok, Lviv Oblast, Gródek and became a Royal Colonel. ...
, the 5th
Ordynat
In English common law, fee tail or entail is a form of trust, established by deed or settlement, that restricts the sale or inheritance of an estate in real property and prevents that property from being sold, devised by will, or otherwise ali ...
of the ''Zamość Estate'' (''Ordynacja zamojska''). In 1725, Józefów received
Magdeburg rights
Magdeburg rights (, , ; also called Magdeburg Law) were a set of town privileges first developed by Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (936–973) and based on the Flemish Law, which regulated the degree of internal autonomy within cities and villages gr ...
, with the right to organize nine
fair
A fair (archaic: faire or fayre) is a gathering of people for a variety of entertainment or commercial activities. Fairs are typically temporary with scheduled times lasting from an afternoon to several weeks. Fairs showcase a wide range of go ...
s a year. The town remained within boundaries of the ''Zamość Estate'' until 1939. Due to a convenient location in the middle of the Estate, Józefów quickly developed, becoming a local artisan center.
In the late 18th century, however, following the
Partitions of Poland
The Partitions of Poland were three partition (politics), partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place between 1772 and 1795, toward the end of the 18th century. They ended the existence of the state, resulting in the eli ...
, Józefów found itself under
Austrian rule. After the Polish victory in the
Austro-Polish War
The Austro-Polish War or Polish-Austrian War was a part of the War of the Fifth Coalition in 1809 (a coalition of the Austrian Empire and the United Kingdom against Napoleon's French Empire and allied states). In this war, Polish forces of ...
of 1809, it became part of the short-lived
Duchy of Warsaw
The Duchy of Warsaw (; ; ), also known as the Grand Duchy of Warsaw and Napoleonic Poland, was a First French Empire, French client state established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1807, during the Napoleonic Wars. It initially comprised the ethnical ...
, and after the duchy's dissolution in 1815, the town became part of the
Russian-controlled Congress Poland
Congress Poland or Congress Kingdom of Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It was established w ...
, near the border with Austrian province of
Galicia. Proximity of the border did not help, as governments of both empires were not in favor of international trade on local scale. In 1864, following
January Uprising
The January Uprising was an insurrection principally in Russia's Kingdom of Poland that was aimed at putting an end to Russian occupation of part of Poland and regaining independence. It began on 22 January 1863 and continued until the last i ...
, Russian authorities stripped Józefów of its town charter, as a punishment for helping Polish rebels. At that time, the number of Jews living here steadily grew as a result of Russian discriminatory policies (see ''
Pale of Settlement
The Pale of Settlement was a western region of the Russian Empire with varying borders that existed from 1791 to 1917 (''de facto'' until 1915) in which permanent settlement by Jews was allowed and beyond which the creation of new Jewish settlem ...
''), reaching 72% of the population in 1905.
In the
Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 7 October 1918 and 6 October 1939. The state was established in the final stage of World War I ...
Józefów belonged to
Lublin Voivodeship (1919–39). The village was poor and backward, with most of houses made of timber and with no access to electricity. It did not have a rail station, with the nearest one located away, and its population was app. 2,000.
World War II
During the
invasion of Poland
The invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, Polish Campaign, and Polish Defensive War of 1939 (1 September – 6 October 1939), was a joint attack on the Second Polish Republic, Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak R ...
at the start of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, first
Wehrmacht
The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the German Army (1935–1945), ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmac ...
units entered Józefów on September 17, 1939, after heavy fighting with
Warsaw Armoured Motorized Brigade
The Warsaw Armoured Motorized Brigade (, WBP-M, WBPanc-Mot) was a motorized unit of the Polish Army during the interbellum period. The brigade was one of two such units in Poland (the other being the 10th Motorized Cavalry Brigade (Poland); seve ...
(see
Battle of Tomaszów Lubelski
The Battle of Tomaszów Lubelski took place from 18 September to 20 September 1939 near the town of Tomaszów Lubelski. It was the second largest battle ). The
Luftwaffe
The Luftwaffe () was the aerial warfare, aerial-warfare branch of the before and during World War II. German Empire, Germany's military air arms during World War I, the of the Imperial German Army, Imperial Army and the of the Imperial Ge ...
bombarded Józefów, destroying its center. On September 28, 1939, as part of the
Soviet invasion of Poland
The Soviet invasion of Poland was a military conflict by the Soviet Union without a formal declaration of war. On 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Second Polish Republic, Poland from the east, 16 days after Nazi Germany invaded Polan ...
, it was seized by the
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...
. They soon withdrew (see
Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union
A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between sovereign states and/or international organizations that is governed by international law. A treaty may also be known as an international agreement, protocol, covenant, convention ...
), leaving the village to become part of the Nazi's
General Government
The General Government (, ; ; ), formally the General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region (), was a German zone of occupation established after the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, Slovak Republic (1939–1945), Slovakia and the Soviet ...
. Initially, Jews remaining in Józefów continued living relatively normal lives, governed by the Jewish Committee or
Judenrat
A ''Judenrat'' (, ) was an administrative body, established in any zone of German-occupied Europe during World War II, purporting to represent its Jewish community in dealings with the Nazi authorities. The Germans required Jews to form ''J ...
. It was an important center of
Polish resistance, with numerous battles and skirmishes taking place in the area (see
Zamość Uprising
The Zamość uprising comprised World War II partisan operations, 1942–1944, by the Polish resistance (primarily the Home Army and Peasant Battalions) against Germany's '' Generalplan-Ost'' forced expulsion of Poles from the Zamość region ...
). On May 13, 1942, Germans killed 100 local Jews, and on July 13 approximately another 1,500 in the Józefów Massacre. On June 1, 1943, Józefów was partially destroyed for the killing of two
SS officers by Polish partisans. In the same year, the village of Parsykówka, which now is a district of Józefów, was destroyed. German units retreated from the village on July 24, 1944, during
Operation Bagration
Operation Bagration () was the codename for the 1944 Soviet Byelorussian strategic offensive operation (), a military campaign fought between 22 June and 19 August 1944 in Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Byelorussia in the Eastern ...
.
Józefów Massacre
Before the massacre, Józefów was a typical, relatively large village in what was then central Poland located twenty miles southeast of
Biłgoraj
Biłgoraj (, ''Bilgoray'', ) is a town in south-eastern Poland with 25,838 inhabitants as of December 2021. Since 1999 it has been situated in Lublin Voivodeship; it was previously located in Zamość Voivodeship (1975–1998). It is located sou ...
. It had a large Jewish population numbering around 2,800.
["Józefów Biłgorajski." ARC "Aktion Reinhard Camps" website featuring list of reliable sources but also selected first-party allegations based on hearsay. Holocaust Education and Archive Research Team, 28 May 2006.] The substantial Jewish sector originated with the founding of the town in the early 18th century. Traditionally, the town was fairly poor and provincial with a large population of orthodox Jews.
The Józefów Massacre was carried out by the men of Nazi German
Reserve Police Battalion 101
Reserve Police Battalion 101 () was a Nazi German paramilitary formation of the uniformed police force known as the ''Ordnungspolizei'' (Order Police, ''Orpo''), the organization formed by the Nazi unification of the civilian police forces in th ...
, led by Major
Wilhelm Trapp (“Pappa Trapp”). On July 12, the day before the massacre was to take place, Major Trapp relayed the orders to the officers. Sometime between the hours of midnight and 2 a.m., the battalion left for Józefów. When they arrived, Major Trapp delivered the order calling for the mass extermination of the village's Jews. One witness recalled,
He announced that in the locality before us we were to carry out a mass killing by shooting and he brought out clearly that those whom we were supposed to shoot were Jews. During his address he bid us to think of our women and children in our homeland who had to endure aerial bombardments. In particular, we were supposed to bear in mind that many women and children lose their lives in these attacks. Thinking of these facts would make it easier for us to carry out the order during the upcoming illingaction. Major Trapp remarked that the action was entirely not in his spirit, but that he had received this order from higher authority.[Goldhagen, 212.]
First, the Jews were driven out of their homes and rounded up in the market place. Any Jew who resisted, hid, or was unable to make it to the market was ordered to be shot on the spot. Around 10 a.m, all the young men who were deemed fit to work were separated and the group (about 400) was sent to work in Lublin.
During part of the selection process, the 1st Company gathered in a semi-circle around Dr. Schoenfelder where the battalion's physician proceeded to instruct the men to shoot their victims in the back of the neck. Then the remaining Jews were loaded into trucks and driven to the nearby forest. Each member of the firing squad was paired with a Jewish man, woman, or child. Together, members of the 1st Company and Jews marched into a clearing and executions were carried out after a squad leader issued the order. By noon, the 1st Company was joined by the 2nd Company
[Goldhagen, 219.] and by the end of the day they had murdered between 1,200 and 1,500 Jews.
[Goldhagen, 219; and Browning, 98.] The battalion left the corpses in the forest and the responsibility for their burial fell to the mayor of Józefów.
After the Józefów massacre
Some Jews did manage to escape the shootings and return. One source estimates that 200 to 300 Jews survived the Józefów massacre by hiding in homes, city buildings, and the forest.
[Chris Webb and Robert Kuwalek]
“Jozefow”
Holocaust Education and Archive Research Team, accessed February 29, 2012. Many of the survivors came back to their town. Jews from surrounding towns were also relocated to Józefów. The remaining Jewish population was subsequently killed in the September and November 1942 deportation actions. The town was then proclaimed to be ''
Judenfrei
''Judenfrei'' (, "free of Jews") and ''judenrein'' (, "clean of Jews") are terms of Nazi origin to designate an area that has been " cleansed" of Jews during the Holocaust.
While ''judenfrei'' refers merely to "freeing" an area of all of i ...
'': free of Jews. Meanwhile, two members of the Mart family from the
German minority residing in Józefów were shot by
Polish underground
The Polish Underground State (, also known as the Polish Secret State) was a single political and military entity formed by the union of resistance organizations in occupied Poland that were loyal to the Government of the Republic of Poland ...
resistance fighters thereafter for cooperation with the enemy.
[Zygmunt Puźniak]
Eksterminacja ludności cywilnej i zagłada Żydów józefowskich
(Killing of civilians and the annihilation of Jews of Józefów) Rzeczpospolita Jozefowska.wordpress.com, ''see:'' Zygmunt Klukowski, ''Dziennik z lat okupacji'', "17 lipca"; and T. Bernstein, ''Martyrologia, opór i zagłada ludności żydowskiej w dystrykcie lubelskim''. Retrieved June 27, 2014.
Post-war period
Józefów regained its town charter in 1989. The town is now a popular tourist center, due to its picturesque location. It has a 19th-century synagogue, and a 19th-century parish church with a park and a cemetery.
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
Cities and towns in Lublin Voivodeship
Biłgoraj County
Holocaust locations in Poland
Populated riverside places in Poland
Reserve Police Battalion 101