Jews in the General Government did not die only in extermination and labor camps. In many towns and villages, they were victims of mass shootings carried out at nearby cemeteries, in forests, or in open fields. One of the most infamous of these places was Józefów, near Biłgoraj. The town became symbolic for the killings committed by the German Order Police, particularly Reserve Police Battalion 101 from Hamburg—later documented in Christopher Browning’s study Ordinary Men.

Before Operation Reinhard

Before World War II, Józefów was a typical Eastern Polish shtetl. Around 2,000 Jews—about 60 percent of the population—formed a close-knit community that had existed since the early 18th century. The town was known for its Jewish-owned paper mill, leased by the Wax family, which printed Hebrew religious books sold internationally. Although Józefów’s Jewish life was vibrant, the town remained poor, and the printing business eventually failed when competition from larger presses in Lublin, Warsaw, and Vilnius intensified.

When the war began in September 1939, the German Luftwaffe bombed Józefów, destroying much of its center. The Soviet army entered briefly under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact but soon withdrew, taking with it around 1,000 Jews who fled east—one of the few routes to survival. Those who stayed were the poorest. During the first months of German occupation, a Jewish Council [Judenrat] was established under Baruch Goldsztajn, with Rabbi Szymon Parzenczewski among its members.

From March 1941, about 1,100 impoverished Jews from Konin, in the Wartheland, were deported to Józefów. Overcrowding and poor hygiene led to a severe typhus outbreak that made Józefów the epidemic’s center in the Biłgoraj district. With no hospital or trained doctors, the suffering was immense. In letters to the Jewish Social Self-Help (JSS) in Kraków, deportees described their plight: “We live in a small, war-torn town among very poor people. There is a terrible lack of food, clothing, and shoes…. Starvation and death visit every home.”

By 1942, more than 2,000 Jews lived in Józefów, surviving on meager rations of 72 grams of bread per day.

During Operation Reinhard

The first German action came on May 1, 1942, when Gestapo officers from Biłgoraj arrested 20 Jews accused of being communists. Ten days later, on May 11, they murdered around 130 Jews in the streets and at the local quarry—an ominous prelude to what would follow.

On July 13, 1942, Reserve Police Battalion 101 arrived under the command of Major Wilhelm Trapp. The German policemen gathered Józefów’s Jewish residents in the market square, loaded them onto trucks, and drove them to a forest clearing known as Winiarczykowa Góra. There, about 1,500 Jews—mostly women, children, and the elderly—were executed in mass shootings. The victims were buried in large pits dug nearby. Today, a memorial stone stands in the forest toward Biłgoraj and Aleksandrów.

Some 300–400 Jews who escaped the massacre or arrived later from nearby villages remained temporarily in the town. Among them was Estera Fefer from Kraków, who later testified: “Józefów was a city of death. People were killed without reason. On Yom Kippur, the Germans came with a list of twenty names but took seventy. They beat them cruelly and shot them at the quarry.” These executions were carried out after the Gestapo accused the community of failing to deliver a demanded ransom.

The final liquidation came on November 3, 1942, as part of the broader Operation Reinhard. Under the command of Werner, head of the Schutzpolizei from nearby Długi Kąt, German and Polish police surrounded Józefów. The remaining Jews were gathered at the fire station and forced to march to the Długi Kąt railway station. Those who collapsed were shot and buried in a mass grave at Chojniasta Góra, while 200–300 others were deported to the Majdanek concentration camp.

After Operation Reinhard

In the following months, German and railway police continued to carry out raids in Józefów and surrounding villages, hunting for Jews in hiding. Captured individuals were executed near the school building or at local cemeteries. A few tried to survive in the forests, but many were betrayed or killed by local collaborators.