up at the station. In the course of the Aktion, 200 Jews were shot in the town.
In the square by the railway station, the Germans (SS-men and gendarmes)
carried out a “segregation” of the Jews. Children – separately; elderly, sick
and women – separately; healthy men (approximately 1,500 men) – separately.
The children were loaded into sealed carriages and sent away. Since
there were not yet any carriages for the others, they remained in the square
under guard by German, Polish, and Jewish police. According to what a local
Jew told me, a temporary camp was to be set up for the selected healthy men
for a period of three weeks. They would stay in that camp until they received
proper J-cards. For the time being they would be given temporary cards. Of the
selected 1,500, only about 800 were needed by the Germans and [therefore]
would stay alive.²³³ There were two hypotheses as to where they would be
put: The first was that they would be confined [9] in a labour camp; the second
that they would be given only 2 streets in Hrubieszów in which to live.
The inmates were warned by the Germans that any Jew found outside the
camp would be shot on the spot. If anyone needed to go out, he should hold
his J-card up to show that he was a useful Jew.
We stayed overnight in a Polish hotel in Hrubieszów. The strict control
of new arrivals was indicated by the fact that around 9 p.m. Polish policemen
arrived with our check-in forms and started inspecting our documents. (We
had checked in around 7 p.m!)
On Monday morning, we left for Grabowiec, which is 11 km from the
Miączyn²³⁴ railway station.
Zamość – Miączyn – Koniuchy – Konopne – Werbkowice – Hrubieszów
← --------------↓--------------------------------------------------------------- →
Grabowiec²³⁵
We arrived in Miączyn at about 10 a.m. We had planned to walk from
there to Grabowiec, where our comrades from Werbkowice were concentrated
233 On 19 August 1942 there were 2,638 Jews living in Hrubieszów.
234 Miączyn (Hrubieszów County). The railway station is south of the railway line, the village – north of the line.
235 Probably the route travelled by the author. Place names are in Latin characters.
