page_title: Józefów, Biłgoraj County
section_title: Józefów Massacre
hierarchical_section_title: Józefów, Biłgoraj County / Józefów Massacre
caption_attribution_description: Obelisk w miejscu masowych egzekucji Żydów w Józefowie (pow. biłgorajski)
context_page_description: Józefów also called Józefów Biłgorajski, Józefów Ordynacki and Józefów Roztoczański, is a town in Biłgoraj County, Lublin Voivodeship, Poland, with 2,436 inhabitants. It lies on the Niepryszka River, in historic Lesser Poland, among the hills of Roztocze, and Solska Forest. The distance to Biłgoraj is 24 km, to Zamość 30 km, and to Lublin - 92 km.
context_section_description: Before the massacre, Józefów was a typical, relatively large village in Eastern Poland located twenty miles southeast of Biłgoraj. It had a large Jewish population numbering around 2,800 Jews. The substantial Jewish sector originated with the founding of the town in the early 18th century. Traditionally, the town was fairly poor and provincial with a large population of orthodox Jews.
  During the 1939 invasions of Poland by Germany and the Soviet Union, Józefów was bombed by the German Luftwaffe, and subsequently occupied by first the German and then the Red Army for a few days. The Soviet occupation was short-lived, however as many as 1,000 Jews left the town during this time, mostly those with the means and relations to relocate to other areas, especially the Soviet Union. The area became part of the Nazi's General Government, and those remaining in Józefów continued living relatively normal lives,  governed by the Jewish Committee or Judenrat. In 1941, an influx of 1,100 poor Jews were relocated to Józefów from Konin. As a result, conditions in the already struggling town deteriorated. There was not enough food or housing for the growing Jewish population and the Nazi presence became harder to ignore. There were also growing health concerns as Józefów become a hot spot for the typhus epidemic in Biłgoraj County in 1941 and 1942. There were no doctors remaining in the town to tend to the sick and deaths from typhus were common.
  The Józefów Massacre was carried out by the men of Nazi German Reserve Police Battalion 101, led by Major Wilhelm Trapp (“Pappa Trapp”). The battalion had eleven officers, five administrators and 486 men. The servicemen of Police Battalion 101 were not dedicated Nazis, but ordinary Germans from Hamburg and the surrounding region. They were primarily Evangelical Protestants and most were older men with wives and families of their own. The average age in the battalion was thirty-nine, meaning most had grown up and experienced life before the rise of Hitler and Nazism. These men were also mostly from the working class, dock workers and truck drivers, but some were lower-middle class or skilled laborers. Few had been educated beyond the age of fifteen. The fact that these men were only police battalion members, and had not volunteered for the SS or Gestapo duty indicates that they were not particularly strong advocates of Nazism. By 1942 only 25% were members of the Nazi Party.
  
  On July 12, the day before the massacre was to take place, Major Trapp relayed the orders to the officers. A reserve Lieutenant in the 1st Company declared himself unfit for the task. Instead, he was reassigned to transport Jews to work in Lublin. Sometime between the hours of midnight and 2 a.m., the battalion left for Józefów. When they arrived, Major Trapp delivered the order calling for the mass extermination of the village’s Jews. One witness recalled, 
  He announced that in the locality before us we were to carry out a mass killing by shooting and he brought out clearly that those whom we were supposed to shoot were Jews. During his address he bid us to think of our women and children in our homeland who had to endure aerial bombardments. In particular, we were supposed to bear in mind that many women and children lose their lives in these attacks. Thinking of these facts would make it easier for us to carry out the order during the upcoming [killing] action. Major Trapp remarked that the action was entirely not in his spirit, but that he had received this order from higher authority.
  It is unclear whether referencing German women and children was meant to encourage or deter the men from fulfilling their duties. Regardless, Trapp then requested that any man who did not feel up to the task should step forward. Between ten and twelve men opted out and were reassigned to guard or transport duties.
  First, the Jews were driven out of their homes and rounded up in the market place. Any Jew who resisted, hid, or was unable to make it to the market was ordered to be shot on the spot. Around 10 a.m, all the young men who were dee
caption: Monument in Józefów erected in 1974 to commemorate the 1942 massacre of its Jewish population by the German Nazis
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