peacefully as well and it seemed that nothing would happen. Consequently,
the vox popu[l]i¹⁵⁶ concluded that Greger was a liar, that all he wanted was to
make a profit from the stamps, which he provided at a high price, and that
the deportation was his invention. Earlier everybody was on the alert. They
tried to be prepared or they were hiding. Now by contrast, they stopped [4]
taking any precautions.
At 10 p.m. on 16 March, the men were set apart. Such manhunts in Lublin
were nothing new as they had been sporadically organised since the Germans’
entry. This was why all the wealthier Lublin inhabitants had a hiding place prepared
in their homes, often very ingenious ones, such as walls opening at the
press of a button, passages through old wardrobes, secret rooms, etc. In short,
everybody hid wherever they could. Those who were captured, were captured
and it seemed that was it. But about at approximately 11:30 p.m. the city
was unexpectedly brightly illuminated (it had been blacked out) and the
Germans, accompanied by the Ukrainians, started the second act of the resettlement campaign. It began on Lubartowska Street.
It proceeded in the following way: A group of Germans or Ukrainians
stormed into a flat and drove out everybody into the yard, without letting them
take anything. The people were segregated in accordance to age, sex, family, or
stamps, depending on the thugs’ whim and obviously with an accompaniment
of shouts, blows, and even gunshots. That first Aktion (the colloquial name in
Lublin for what the official statements called an Umsiedlung¹⁵⁷) cwhich lasted
approximately three hoursc, resulted in the execution of 30 people. The emptied
residential buildings were immediately surrounded by Ukrainians. But
what happened to the resettled? They were escorted to Ma[ha]rshal’s synagogue,
¹⁵⁸ where the families with the stamps were separated from those without.
The former were then released at dawn.
As late as the morning, the authorities officially announced the beginning
of a two-week resettlement campaign. 160 people without the stamps
were to be resettled every day. The [Jewish] Community received an order
to establish a Krankensamme[l]stelle für Nichttransportfähige¹⁵⁹ on the border
156 (Latin) Voice of the people.
157 (German) Resettlement.
158 See footnote 114.
159 (German) gathering point for the unfit for transport.
