Janowska concentration camp

Background - The Lwów Ghetto

The city of Lwów, Poland (now Lviv, Ukraine) was occupied by the Soviet Union in September 1939 (after the invasion of Poland at the beginning of World War II), under the terms of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. At that time, there were over 200,000 Jews residing in Lwów. Over 100,000 of these Jews were refugees from the Nazi-occupied part of Poland. In June of 1941, however, the German Army occupied Lwów as part of the Operation Barbarossa invasion.

During the Lwów/Lemberg massacre of June 1941, the retreating Soviets killed about 7,000 Polish and Ukrainian prisoners who were being held in three prisons (Brygidki, Zamarstynów, Łąckiego) in Lwów. The Germans blamed the massacre on the Jews and used the NKVD's atrocity as propaganda to incite a first pogrom in which over 4,000 Jews were killed. A further 7,000 Jews were murdered by the German Einsatzgruppen.

The onset of the Nazi regime let loose a wave of antisemitic feeling. Encouraged by the German army, local Ukrainian nationalists murdered about 4,000 Jews during the second Lviv pogrom in early July 1941. On July 25-27, 1941, a second pogrom took place, known as the "Petliura Days", named for Symon Petliura. For three straight days, Ukrainian militants went on a murderous rampage through the Jewish districts of Lwów. Groups of Jews were herded out to the Jewish cemetery and to the prison on Łąckiego street where they were shot. More than 2,000 Jews were killed and thousands more were injured.

In early November 1941, the Nazis closed off northern portions of the city of Lwów into a ghetto. German police shot and killed thousands of elderly and sick Jews as they crossed under the rail bridge on Pełtewna Street (which was called bridge of death by Jews), while they were on their way to the ghetto. In March 1942, the Nazis began to deport Jews from the ghetto to the Belzec extermination camp. By August 1942, more than 65,000 Jews had been deported from the Lwów ghetto and killed. In early June 1943, the Germans destroyed and liquidated the ghetto.

The Janowska labour and transit camp

In October 1941, the Nazis established a concentration camp beside the factory, which housed the forced laborers. Thousands of Jews from the Lwów ghetto were forced to work as slave laborers in this camp. When the Lwów ghetto was liquidated by the Nazis, the ghetto's inhabitants who were fit for work were sent to the Janowska camp; the rest were deported to the Belzec camp for extermination.

In addition to being a forced-labor camp for Jews, Janowska was a transit camp (Durchgangslager Janowska) during the mass deportations of Polish Jews to the killing centers in 1942. Jews underwent a selection process in Janowska camp similar to that used at Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek extermination camps. Those classified as fit to work remained at Janowska for forced labor. The majority, rejected as unfit for work, were deported to Belzec and killed or were shot at the Piaski ravine, located just north of the camp. In the summer and fall of 1942, thousands of Jews (mainly from the Lwów ghetto) were deported to Janowska and killed in the Piaski ravine.

Liquidation of the Janowska camp

The evacuation of the Janowska camp began in November 1943. As the Germans attempted to destroy the traces of mass murder (Sonderaktion 1005), they forced the prisoners to open the mass graves and burn the bodies in Lesienicki forest. On November 19, 1943, inmates staged an uprising against the Nazis and attempted a mass escape. A few succeeded in escaping, but most were recaptured and killed. The SS staff and their local auxiliaries murdered at least 6,000 Jews who had survived the uprising killings, as well as Jews in other forced labor camps in Galicia, at the time of the Janowska camp's liquidation.

See also

References

External links

* The HolocaustResesearchProject

Category:1941 establishments Category:1941 in Poland Category:1942 in Poland Category:1943 disestablishments Category:1943 in Poland Category:1943 riots Category:Nazi concentration camps in Poland Category:Prison uprisings Category:Anti-Jewish pogroms