The Dęblin Camp (Wikipedia Translation)

Bombing of the Deblin Airfield on September 3, 1939

Before World War II, thousands of Jews lived in the towns of Dęblin and Irena [pl][a] in central Poland; Irena had been home to the Polish Air Force Academy since 1927. In September 1939, the town was captured during the German invasion of Poland, and the persecution of Jews began with forced recruitment for forced labor and the establishment of a Judenrat (“Jewish Council”).

In November 1940, a ghetto was established in Irena, initially consisting of six streets. It was an open ghetto (Jews were not allowed to leave without permission, but non-Jews were permitted to enter). Many ghetto residents worked on labor projects for the Dęblin Fortress (a German Army base), the railway, and the Luftwaffe.

From May 1941, Jews from the ghettos of Opole and Warsaw were sent to labor camps around Dęblin. Conditions in the ghetto worsened at the end of 1941 due to increasing German restrictions and epidemics of typhus and dysentery.

The first deportation took place on May 6, 1942, sending about 2,500 Jews to the Sobibór extermination camp. A week later, two thousand Jews from Slovakia and hundreds more from nearby liquidated ghettos arrived.[b] In October of the same year, the Irena Ghetto was liquidated; about 2,500 Jews were deported to the Treblinka extermination camp, while about 1,400 Jews were kept in forced labor camps in the town.

Unusually, the labor camp operated by the Luftwaffe—holding around a thousand Jews at its peak—remained in existence until July 22, 1944, less than a week before the Red Army took over the region. As one of the last Jewish labor camps in the Lublin district, it allowed hundreds of Jews to survive the Holocaust.

Some survivors who returned to their homes were met with hostility, and several were murdered; all had left the region by 1947.

Background

Jews in Dęblin welcomed Polish Marshal Józef Piłsudski after the capture of Dęblin during the Polish-Soviet War of 1920.

Dęblin and Irena [pl][a] (Yiddish: מאדזשיץ, Modzhitz) are located 70 kilometers northwest of Lublin, Poland, at the confluence of the Vistula and Wieprz rivers and at an important junction of the Lublin– Warsaw railway line.

Local Jews supported the January Uprising of 1863. By the late 19th century, the area had become a center of Hasidism; most Jews followed the Modzitz dynasty, named after the town of Irena. There were also Gur Hasidim. The Modzitz Rebbe, Yisrael Taub, settled in the town in 1889.

Other Jews were Bundists or Zionists. Many earned their livelihoods as peddlers, shopkeepers, or craftsmen (especially in leather and metalworking) and later contributed to the town’s development as a summer resort.

In 1927, the civilian population of Dęblin and Irena was 4,860, including 3,060 Jews. From 1927, Dęblin was home to the Polish Air Force Academy, whose airfield was one of the largest in Poland.

German Invasion

During the German invasion of Poland, which marked the beginning of World War II in Europe, the Luftwaffe bombed Dęblin between September 2 and 7, 1939, targeting the military airfield, Polish Army ammunition depots, and a nearby bridge over the Vistula River. Most Polish soldiers left the city on September 7; on September 11, the remaining Polish forces blew up the ammunition storage facilities and withdrew. The German army arrived on either September 12 or 20. Many residents, both Jews and other locals, had fled the air raids. In the following weeks, most returned under German pressure. The Jews found that their homes had been looted. They were forced into labor groups to clear bomb damage and repair some buildings. Additionally, the Jewish community was fined 20,000 złoty.

During the German occupation, Dęblin and Irena became part of the Lublin District in the General Government. By the end of 1939, Jews were required to wear armbands with the Star of David, and some were forcibly sent to labor camps in Janiszów, Bełżec, and Pawłowice.

Later that year, the German occupiers forced the Jews to establish a Judenrat (Jewish Council) to mediate between the Jewish community and German demands. The Judenrat in Dęblin was formed later than in other regions and had its office on Bankowa Street. Its first members tried to mitigate the impact of German demands and warn residents about searches. The first chairman, Leizer Teichman, was dismissed in early 1941; reports suggest that he and his secretary, along with their families, were deported to Wąwolnica after attempting to bribe police officers. The Judenrat was temporarily led by Kalman Fris, who resigned after a few months. In August, he was replaced by Vevel Shulman, and in September 1941, by a man named Drayfish from Konin.

The Ghetto

In November 1940 or early 1941, a Nazi ghetto was established in Irena on the orders of Kurt Lenk, the region’s new land commissioner. Some Jews were forced to leave their homes and move into the ghetto. The likely motive was to keep Jews away from two nearby military facilities: a Luftwaffe airfield and a German army base filled with troops preparing for the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union. The official decree for the ghetto’s establishment was issued only in 1942.

Until 1942, Irena was an open ghetto (there was no physical fence, but leaving without permission was punishable by death), consisting of six streets. Its boundaries included Okólna Street, the Irenka River, Bankowa Street, and Staromiejska Street. In September 1942, Staromiejska Street was removed from the ghetto, and its residents were relocated to Bankowa Street. Initially, non-Jews were allowed to enter the ghetto and even live there, allowing many Jews to survive by bartering goods for food. A secular Polish-language school, led by Aida Milgroijm-Citronbojm, educated 70 to 100 students.

The Jewish ghetto police maintained order inside the ghetto, while outside it was guarded by a special service unit made up of Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans) and Ukrainian auxiliary police. This unit was notorious for beating, humiliating, and killing ghetto residents.

By late 1941, non-Jews were prohibited from entering the ghetto, leading to an increase in waste and epidemics of typhus and dysentery. The sick were treated in a 30-bed hospital run by Isaar Kawa, a doctor from Konin. With the help of non-Jewish doctors, medicine was smuggled in from Warsaw. At the same time, the Germans tightened restrictions: the use of ovens was banned, winter clothing was confiscated, and fuel imports were prohibited.

More Jews began leaving the ghetto in search of essentials, leading to the execution of twenty young women who were caught outside. Due to relatively better conditions in the Lublin District compared to Warsaw, some Jews fled to towns like Irena, but twenty unregistered Jewish refugees were executed.

Forced Labor

Until the end of 1942, Jews received wages for forced labor, except for those recruited by the city administration for tasks such as street cleaning and snow removal. Some Jews worked for German companies like Schwartz and Hochtief, which were contracted by the Wehrmacht for construction work at military bases in the city.

The Eastern Railway (Ostbahn) hired Schultz to upgrade the Lublin– Warsaw rail line, a project that employed 300 Jews starting in June 1941. Working conditions on this site were extremely harsh, with Jews forced to work twelve-hour days.

Most Jews, however, worked for the German army or the Luftwaffe; women and children grew food for the military. At the Dęblin Fortress, which had been taken over by the German army and where about 200 Jews from the ghetto worked, Stalag 307 was established on July 10, 1941—a prisoner-of-war camp for Soviet soldiers. Approximately 80,000 Soviet prisoners were held there, all of whom died within months due to starvation and disease. The Jews working there witnessed that the prisoners endured even worse conditions than they did.

The Jews from Dęblin and Irena sought the best labor assignments; 200 of the Slovak deportees eventually worked for the city administration. Another 200 Slovaks later worked for Schultz after the company expanded its operations. Survivors reported that the German soldiers overseeing the forced laborers treated them relatively well, while some Polish supervisors beat the Jewish workers. The Ukrainian guards at the railway construction site were particularly brutal, frequently threatening workers with death.

In May 1941, in preparation for the invasion of the Soviet Union, the Luftwaffe contracted the Autheried company to expand the airfield. They recruited 200 Jewish workers from Opole, many of whom were Austrian Jews deported from Vienna in February 1941 who had sought to escape the harsh conditions in Opole. These Jews, along with 400 others recruited in Irena and at the Lipowa 7 camp in Lublin, as well as 500 Polish workers, worked twelve-hour shifts leveling runways, building roads, walls, air-raid shelters, and earth fortifications. They also constructed a barbed-wire-enclosed area near the runway for craftsmen.

After the project was completed in October, the workers were reassigned to various construction sites in the city, possibly related to a typhus epidemic. Some of the Jews from Vienna remained at the airfield because they had obtained work permits to help transport gravel and build fuel tanks. These workers formed the core of the later labor camp.

After the first deportation from the Irena ghetto on May 6, 1942, additional Jews sought work permits—often through bribery—to avoid deportation. By October 1942, the camp had 543 registered residents.

At that time, there were five forced labor camps around Dęblin: the Luftwaffe camp, the fortress, the railway station (with 300 Jews), the Lipowa Street camp (with 200 Jews and ethnic Poles), and another near the city limits with 300 Jews.

Deportation, Murder, and Liquidation

First Deportation

The first deportation took place on May 6, 1942, to make room for Slovak deportees who arrived a week later. A unit consisting of German and Ukrainian police, along with some German SS and Ukrainian SS auxiliary troops, ordered the Jews to assemble at the main square at 9:00 AM. According to Yad Vashem, the Blue Police (Polish police under German control) also participated in the action.

Probably because the Luftwaffe was trying to recruit more forced laborers, the Jews were forced to wait for five hours. At 2:00 PM, 1,000 Jews who already had work permits were separated, and local employers began selecting an additional 200–500 Jews. Around 40 or 50 people were killed while trying to join the labor group. Around 2,300 to 2,500 Jews from Dęblin—mainly elderly people and families with young children—were marched approximately 2.5 kilometers to the Dęblin train station at 6:00 PM and deported to the Sobibór extermination camp. The victims were beaten, and those who could not keep up the pace were shot. Only late at night were the Jews who had been assigned to labor allowed to return home. Every family was affected. After the deportation, the bodies of the dead were collected in the synagogue and transported out of the ghetto in carts.

Over the next two days, more than 4,000 Jews from the northern Puławy district were deported—200 from Bobrowniki (May 6), 1,800 from Ryki (May 7), 125 from Stężyca (May 7), 1,500 from Baranów (May 8), and 500 from Łysobyki (May 8)—and sent to Sobibór. This was part of a nationwide extermination operation in the Puławy district, the first in a series of systematic deportations in the Lublin district as part of “Operation Reinhard.” The district administrator, Alfred Brandt, ordered the operation shortly after Sobibór became operational; he was present during the Dęblin deportation.

Second Deportation

The next deportation, coinciding with the liquidation of the last two remaining ghettos in Puławy (Opole and Końskowola), took place on October 15, 1942. The day before, all laborers were ordered to remain at their workplaces. Under the command of SS-Obersturmführer Grossman, the remaining Jews were rounded up by gendarmes, Luftwaffe soldiers, and auxiliary police. Many Jews attempted to escape the roundup and reach the Luftwaffe labor camp, which at that time housed 543 registered residents. Some were turned away by the camp’s Jewish police. Israeli historian Talia Farkash estimates that around 500 Jews, including 60–90 young children, managed to enter the camp, mostly through bribery. Historian David Silberklang estimates that about 1,000 Jews entered the camp, including 280 women and 100 children.

Many of the Slovak Jews, unaware of what awaited them, remained in the ghetto while gathering their belongings. Between 215 and 500 Jews were shot by the Ukrainians and Germans while their homes were being cleared. Between 2,000 and 2,500 people—mostly Slovaks—were deported to the Treblinka extermination camp. Members of the Judenrat, the Jewish police, and their families—totaling around 100 people—were kept behind to clean up the ghetto. Possibly another 100 Jews remained hidden in the ghetto without permission. On October 28, the remaining Jews were sent to the Schultz forced labor camp, and the ghetto was officially liquidated. Either on that day or in the following weeks, 1,000 people from the labor camps were removed, including 200 workers from the Dęblin fortress and 200 to 500 Luftwaffe workers. They were deported to Końskowola or Treblinka.

After this deportation, Farkash estimates that about 1,400 Jews remained in the labor camps around Irena. Estimates suggest that 1,000 to 2,000 were in the Luftwaffe camp, another 300 in a camp near the train station, and 120 in another camp near the railway loading dock. In May or July 1943, most of the remaining prisoners in the railway camps were deported to the Poniatowa concentration camp; the rest were deported by the end of 1943. Hundreds of Jews were still living in the remaining labor camps in the Puławy district, but they were murdered during “Operation Harvest Festival” (November 2–3, 1943). This operation also killed the prisoners of Poniatowa but did not affect the Jews in the Luftwaffe camp in Irena, who were unaware of it. After “Operation Harvest Festival,” ten labor camps remained in the Lublin district, with more than 10,000 Jews still alive.

Luftwaffe Camp

Camp Leader

The senior prisoner (Lagerältester) at the Luftwaffe camp was Hermann Wenkert, a Jewish lawyer from Vienna who was deported to Opole in 1941 and later arrived in Irena with a group of volunteers. According to Wenkert’s account, soon after his arrival, he encountered Eduard Bromofsky, an Austrian Luftwaffe officer with whom he had served during World War I. Bromofsky convinced the camp commander to promote Wenkert. Even after Bromofsky was transferred, Wenkert retained his position due to his good relations with the German authorities.

Wenkert staffed the camp administration with other Viennese Jews, secured extra rations for himself and his family, and arranged for his family to be transferred from Opole to Irena. Due to his close ties with the German authorities and his use of his position for personal gain, some survivors viewed him as a collaborator. Whenever possible, Wenkert negotiated with the authorities and paid bribes to avoid punishments. In cases unknown to the Germans, he consulted respected prisoners. However, when he believed he had no other choice and the survival of the camp was at stake, Wenkert handed over Jews accused of offenses to the Germans, knowing that this meant their deaths. German-speaking Jews had a more favorable opinion of him than local Yiddish-speaking Jews. According to historian David Silberklang, both perspectives on Wenkert might be true: he sought personal advantages but also worked to keep other Jewish prisoners alive.

Conditions

Compared to other camps, conditions in the Luftwaffe camp were relatively good. Prisoners received food rations of about 1,700 calories per day (enough for survival), had access to weekly baths and medical care, and were allowed to practice their religion. The presence of 100 young children—justified by the claim that they increased their parents’ productivity—was particularly unusual and was not seen in any other camp in the Lublin district after Aktion Erntefest (Operation Harvest Festival). Aida Milgroijm-Citronbojm continued running the Polish-language school she had established in the ghetto within the camp. The SS, unaware of the children’s presence, conducted regular unannounced inspections, during which the children had to be hidden. According to historian Talia Farkash, Wenkert’s good relationship with the camp administration partly contributed to the relatively favorable conditions.

Wenkert managed to exempt religious Jews from working on the Sabbath and allowed the establishment of a Chevra Kadisha (burial society) to ensure that the dead were buried according to Jewish law. In 1943, about 80 Jews, including Wenkert, received kosher food for Passover.

The camp had three German commanders, all with the rank of Feldwebel (sergeant): Kattengel (until March 1943), Dusy, and Rademacher (during the last two months). While Kattengel was viewed with suspicion by prisoners because he patrolled with a dog and a whip, Dusy and Rademacher were described positively by survivors. Dusy even arranged for a woman to receive treatment at a German hospital after she was severely injured. Wiszniewski, a local ethnic German (Volksdeutscher), was the lead foreman overseeing Jewish workers and was not known for mistreating them. Autheried engineer Kozak provided food to the Jews he worked with.

The Slovak Jews in the camp were the last large surviving group of the nearly 40,000 Slovak Jews deported to the Lublin district in 1942. Jews remaining in Prešov hired couriers (non-Jews from the Polish-Slovak border region) to regularly bring letters and valuables into the camp. A committee was formed within the camp to distribute these goods among the Slovak Jews. However, cases of theft by Polish Jews led to tensions between the two groups.

Despite the relatively good conditions, some Jews attempted to escape, fearing the camp would be liquidated. The Luftwaffe camp administration imposed collective punishments to deter escapes. Both theft and possession of foreign currency were punishable by hanging. Punishments could be excessive and arbitrary—nine Jews were executed by a firing squad for accidentally starting a fire—but overall, conditions were less brutal than in other Nazi camps.

Liquidation

The camp was dissolved on July 22, 1944, the same day the Red Army reached Lublin. At the time of the deportation, about 800 to 900 Jews remained in the camp, including 400 to 600 from Dęblin or Irena, 40 from Vienna, and 70 to 80 from Slovakia. Two or three transports left Irena on July 17 and 22 (Silberklang mentions a third on July 20).

Since no one volunteered, the first transport consisted of about 200 people who had few connections in the camp, including single adults and fifteen children between the ages of three and six. On the orders of the camp’s security officer, Georg Bartenschlager, the fifteen children were shot upon arrival in Częstochowa. The remaining prisoners, including Wenkert and 33 young children, left with the second transport alongside the German camp commander, Rademacher, who carried a letter of protection from the airfield commander.

Escape and Deportation

Around fifty Jews managed to escape during the camp’s evacuation, but most of them were killed. The second transport arrived in Częstochowa on July 25; the young children were separated for two and a half days but were not killed. The reason for this remains unclear, though it was likely due to negotiations with Bartenschlager.

In Częstochowa, the Jews worked in the four Hugo Schneider AG (HASAG) factories. Some were deported to Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen in January 1945, while others were liberated by the Red Army. About half of them survived.

A Unique Case in Nazi-Occupied Poland

According to historian Talia Farkash, the Luftwaffe camp at the Irena airfield was a “singular case” in the Lublin district and possibly in all of Nazi-occupied Poland. One unusual aspect of the camp was that it was operated by the Luftwaffe from beginning to end, rather than the SS, despite the SS attempting to expand its control in 1943 and 1944. According to David Silberklang, the fact that the Wehrmacht, rather than the SS, ran the camp played a crucial role in its continued existence. However, other Luftwaffe-run camps, such as three in the Zamość district, were liquidated before the end of 1943.

Another reason for the camp’s survival was the importance of Jewish labor for the German war effort in Dęblin, a point that Wenkert repeatedly emphasized in his negotiations with the Germans. Overall, luck also played a significant role, along with the combination of Jewish leadership, relatively lenient German overseers, and the evacuation of the camp to Częstochowa instead of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

While 99% of the Jews from the Lublin district were murdered in the Holocaust, hundreds from Dęblin and Irena survived the war.

Post-War Period

Dęblin was liberated by the 1st Polish Army on July 27, 1944. In 1945, Alfred Brandt was convicted of his crimes by a Soviet military tribunal near Słupsk and executed by firing squad.

Some Jewish survivors who attempted to return home in January 1945 were warned by the local chief of the Milicja Obywatelska (People’s Militia) that settling in the town was illegal. In March 1945, the surviving Luksemburg sisters—Łaja, Gitla, and Fryda—were murdered with the involvement of local policemen. Other Jews received threatening letters.

Following the Kielce Pogrom in 1946, a memorial gathering was held in Dęblin to honor the victims, but local residents disrupted the event with antisemitic slogans. By 1947, the last remaining Jew had left the town, and as of the 21st century, no Jewish community remains there. In 2011, the former synagogue in Dęblin was in a state of disrepair and was under discussion for demolition. In 2015, a memorial plaque was unveiled in Dęblin to commemorate the Irena Ghetto.

Ignaz Bubis, a former prisoner of the ghetto, served as chairman of the Central Council of Jews in Germany from 1992 to 1999.