Jewish Collaborators in the Holocaust in the Lublin District

Shamai Grajer (Szamaj Grajer): A barber and petty criminal before the war, Grajer was imprisoned by the Nazis, in 1939 or early 1940, for hitting a Volksdeutsche [ethnic German collaborator] who had been mistreating Jews. Grajer lived in Lublin (city). According to researcher at Yad Vashem, David Silberklang, "While in prison, Grajer befriended many influential SS men and emerged from his incarceration as a proprietor of a café at 15 Lubartowska Street, which was frequented by some of the SS men. Grajer very quickly became a wealthy and influential figure, mistrusted and feared. He was able to acquire special privileges for those who paid him well, and he was correctly perceived by the ghetto community as a Gestapo informer.”

Grajer then forced the well-known Rabbi Zvi Elimelech Talmud to officiate a wedding to his mistress, Mina Fishman***. (His previous relationship was with Golda Malc.) Grajer threw a big wedding party at his café and invited his S.S. ‘friends’, including Worthoff and Sturm**, to attend. The wedding took place on May 8, 1942. A few days later, Grajer and his new bride were taken to the Krepiec woods and shot*. Read more about Grajer.

* He was shot by Herman Worthoff, who also killed Marek Alten, head of the Judenrat, and Moniek Goldfarb, head of the Jewish police. The execution took place on Nov. 9, 1942 — during the "liqudation" of the ghetto at Majdan Tatarski — and was ordered by senior S.S. operative Odilo Globochnik.

** Hermann Worthoff and Dr. Harry Georg Sturm (from Estonia) — two senior S.S. operatives.

*** Mina Fiszman was born in Tarnopol in 1922, but her father, Yehoshua (Szyja) was a Lubliner (born in Lublin, 1897). Shortly before the outbreak of the war, the whole family lived in Cieszyn, where Szyja worked as a chazzan in the main synagogue. In 1940, the Fiszman family moved back to Lublin.

Below: Szamaj Grajer, in the center, with his arm around a woman.