On 14 September 1939, during the Invasion of Poland, Rawa-Ruska was captured by the Wehrmacht. The German troops left the town within days in accordance with the German–Soviet Frontier Treaty, and Rava-Ruska was occupied by the Soviet forces. A year and a half later, on the 28 June 1941, it was recaptured by the Germans the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa. The Ukrainian People's Militsiya was formed. The town was incorporated into the General Government territory. The "Judenrat" was established in July 1941. In March 1942 the nearby Belzec extermination camp began its killing operations, and at the end of the month the first transport of 1,000 Jews left Rawa Ruska for Belzec. Many Jewish residents were killed at Belzec in further deportations, usually organized by the Germans and sometimes assisted by the Ukrainian police. Approximately 5,000 Polish Jews from Rava-Ruska were shot during a liquidation "Aktion" between 7 and 11 December 1942. The last mass shootings of Jews occurred in June 1943, during which 300-400 Jews were killed in a forest outside the village.