Remember Jewish Zwierzyniec
Pronunciation: Zveer-zhin-yitz
HISTORY OF JEWISH ZWIERZYNIEC
Zwierzyniec is located about 58 miles south-southeast of Lublin, near Zamosc. Preserved documents dated from 1639 and 1690 list the name of the Markowitz family which made its income from renting a mill in Rudka, near Zwierzyniec, as well as renting inns.
In the first years of the 20th century, the Leflers and Szmul Litwak ran a few tailor’s shops. Three Wagner brothers -- Dawid, Srul and Berko -- had their own cap factory, grocer's shop and lodging residence in Rudka.
Originally, the local Jews came under the kehilla in Szczebrzeszy; Jews from Zwierzyniec and Rudka were buried in the Jewish cemetery there. Towards the 19th century, a synagogue was constructed in Zwierzyniec, and an independent religious community was established only as late as the interwar period. A Jewish cemetery was built in 1928.
In the early 1930s, the kehilla Board owned a synagogue, house of prayer, mikvah, cemetery, slaughterhouse, and a religious school. Szaja Grynberg was appointed rabbi of the kehilla of Zwierzyniec in 1929; Icek Krigszer became the synagogue caretaker (shames); Szmul Ber Nordman performed the role of shochet. A wealthy tradesman by the name of Jurfest was the owner of a sawmill operating in the town. Szlomo Holcberg operated a shoe store, tailor shops were owned by Lefler and Szmul Litwak; and Dawid, Srul and Berko Wagner (three brothers) ran a factory in nearby Rudka.
Jews lived mainly in the central part of the town, known locally as ‘Little Palestine.’ This is where the Jewish house of prayer was situated. Jozef Kerszman (1897 in Lublin - 1943), a notable doctor, worked at the city hospital in Zwierzyniec before the war. In August 1939, some 2,050 Jews lived in Zwierzyniec and the neighboring village Rudka.
THE HOLOCAUST IN ZWIERZYNIEC
It is unclear when the ghetto was formalized or when the Judenrat was established. In July 1941, the ghetto population in Zwierzyniec stood at 544, including refugees. Among the refugees were Jews who had been forcibly deported from Kalisz, Katowice, Lodz and Poznan, as well as Jews who had settled from other places like Lublin and Warsaw, of their own free will. From the spring of 1942, several small groups of Jews, usually two or three, were arrested and executed at the Jewish cemetery or at a mass grave located in the Borek woods.
The Zwierzyniec ghetto residents were conscripted for labour at the sawmill and lumber yard on the former Zamoyski estate. Other Jews repaired and expanded the roads leading from Zwierzyniec to Bilgoraj and to Szczebrzeszyn. Tombstones from the Jewish cemetery were used on these projects.
In the summer of 1940, scores of young men were sent from the nearby railway station at Zwierzyniec to the labor camp at Turkowice. At Turkowice, prisoners were tasked with deepening and widening a channel to the Khuchva River — near Tyszowce. According to Israel Geist, in the Bilgoraj Yizkor Book, "At Turkowice, we worked barefoot, up to our waists in water full of leeches which attached themselves to our legs and sucked our blood. The heat was unbearable, yet we were not given a drop of water to drink, and we had to drink from the contaminated river. The engineers and supervisors treated us sadistically and beat us murderously." From there, they were dispatched to Belzec Death Camp for certain deaths.
A group of Jews from Zwierzyeniec ghetto, numbering 52 Jews from Zwierzyniec, Rudka and nearby locales, was sent to a death camp in Belzec in September 1942 via Bilgoraj. A mass extermination of the Jews of Zwierzyniec commenced on October 21, 1942. Over 2,000 Jews from Zwierzyniec and Rudka were murdered in the Shoah.
This marked the end of the Jewish community in Zwierzyniec. Zachor - We Remember.
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[Luba Gurdus Testimony: Zwierzyniec to Belzyce Transport]
[About the Zwierzyniec Ghetto]
[About Turkowice Labor Camp]
[About Belzec Death Camp]
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