Osowa is a

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

in the administrative district of

Gmina Hańsk __NOTOC__ Gmina Hańsk is a rural gmina (administrative district) in Włodawa County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland. Its seat is the village of Hańsk, which lies approximately south-west of Włodawa and east of the regional capital Lub ...

, within

Włodawa County __NOTOC__ Włodawa County () is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Lublin Voivodeship, eastern Poland, on the border with Ukraine and Belarus. It was established on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local ...

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 ...

, in eastern Poland. It lies approximately east of

Hańsk Hańsk is a village in Włodawa County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Hańsk. It lies approximately south-west of Włodawa and east of the regional capital Lublin ...

, south of

Włodawa Włodawa () is a town in eastern Poland on the Bug River, close to the borders with Belarus and Ukraine. It is the seat of Włodawa County, situated in the Lublin Voivodeship. it has a population of 13,500. Geography The town lies along the borde ...

, and east of the regional capital

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 ...

WWII labor camp Osowa

During

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 ...

the Nazis established a

labor camp A labor camp (or labour camp, see British and American spelling differences, spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are unfree labour, forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have ...

for

Polish Jewish The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jews, Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the long pe ...

citizens, as well as citizens of other states, mostly

Czech Jewish The history of the Jews in the Czech lands, historically the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, including the modern Czech Republic (i.e. Bohemia, Moravia, and the southeast or Czech Silesia), goes back at least 1100 years. There is evidence that ...

prisoners brought here from the

Theresienstadt Ghetto Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ( German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstadt served as a waystation to the extermination c ...

. The camp was founded in

1941 The Correlates of War project estimates this to be the deadliest year in human history in terms of conflict deaths, placing the death toll at 3.49 million. However, the Uppsala Conflict Data Program estimates that the subsequent year, 1942, wa ...

and had an average of about 1,000 prisoners at a time. In total, about 4,000 people passed through the camp. The prisoners worked mostly in melioration of the surrounding meadows. Around 170 people died as a result of harsh working conditions, and another about 70 were executed by the

Nazis Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

. The camp was disbanded in

1943 Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * January 1 – WWII: The Soviet Union announces that 22 German divisions have been encircled at Stalingrad, with 175,000 killed and 137,650 captured. * January 4 � ...

and its prisoners taken to the nearby

Sobibor extermination camp Sobibor ( ; ) was an extermination camp built and operated by Nazi Germany as part of Operation Reinhard. It was located in the forest near the village of Żłobek Duży in the General Government region of Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), ...

, where they were murdered.''Obozy hitlerowskie na ziemiach polskich 1939-1945. Informator encyclopedyczny'', ed. C. Pilichowski et al., Warsaw 1979, p. 353.

References

Villages in Włodawa County {{Włodawa-geo-stub