Sobibor Sub-Camps: The Lublin Waterworks Labor Camps

ADAMPOL: About 8 km. from Wlodawa was Adampol. The camp was liquidated on August 13, 1943, during which 475 Jewish prisoners were executed on the spot. In 2016, archaeologist Dr. Caroline Sturdy Colls uncovered evidence of mass graves in Adampol.

LUTA: The water-drainage camp in Luta existed between July 1940 and late 1943, and encompassed an area ranging from 3,600 square meters up to 1.5 hectares. The camp was also equipped with a barbed-wire fence. The waterworks management forced slave laborers to work on drying the marshes along the Krzywianki River. In October 1941, 150 Jews were executed at Luta; the remainder were re-located to Krychow.

Starting in March of 1942, Luta functioned as a transit camp to Sobibor. Four wooden guard towers were added and the camp was enlarged using slave labor. local witnesses recalled an average of 1,000 deportees at a time.

In October 1943, the S.S. camp commandant ordered the transport of 200 slave laborers to Sobibor and another 150 inmates to the Osowa camp. At this time, 600 Luta camp inmates were executed in the nearby Kutuszej forest.

The commander of Luta was also in charge of the water-drainage camp in the village of Osowa, a 6 km. walk from Luta.

SOURCE: The Waterworks' Camps in the Lublin District, 1940-1942 by Frank Grelka.

SAJCZYCE: Located near the village of Sawin in Chelm County, the labor camp at Sajczyce was 140 by 60 meters in size. Initially, Jews from Poland were dispatched there, and later also Jews from Bohemia. In total, about 1,500 Jews passed through the camp. The work of the prisoners was to meliorate the Uherka River. There were also tailor and shoemaker workshops within the camp. Although there was no hospital in the camp, a doctor from Chelm, Molberger, stayed there. At the camp, some Jews were shot and buried in the Jewish cemetery in Sawin. The camp was liquidated in the winter of 1942-1943. The Jews who survived the camp were gathered for a transport to the extermination camp in Sobibór. No trace of the camp has remained.

TOMASZOWKA: There was a German labor camp in Tomaszówka near Sawin. It was established in 1941 and was located in the local school. The Jewish prisoners who stayed here worked on the regulation of the Krzemianki River.

S.S. involved in the Waterworks camps included: Ernst Gschliesser, Georg Haller, Dr. Karl Hofbauer, Szmul Siwka (Jewish police, Warsaw).