Janowska
Encyclopedia : J : JA : JAN : Janowska
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Background - The Lvov Ghetto
The city of Lvov, Poland (now Lviv, Ukraine), was occupied by the Soviet Union in September 1939, under the terms of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact during World War II. At that time, there were over 200,000 Jews residing in Lvov. Over 100,000 of these Jews were refugees from Nazi-occupied Poland. The German army later managed to take Lvov away from the Soviet army in June 1941, after the Operation Barbarossa invasion of the Soviet Union's territories.
The onset of the Nazi regime let loose a wave of antisemitic feeling, that had been brewing during the previous period of Soviet occupation. Encouraged by the German army to perform violent and brutal attacks against the Jews of Lvov, local Ukrainian nationalists murdered about 4,000 Jews during a pogrom in early July 1941. On July 25-27, 1941, a second pogrom took place, known as the "Petliura Days", named for Symon Petliura, infamous for organising anti-Jewish pogroms in the Ukraine following World War I. For three straight days, Ukrainian militants went on a murderous rampage through the Jewish districts of Lvov. Groups of Jews were herded out to the Jewish cemetery and to the Lunecki prison where they were shot. More than 2,000 Jews were killed and thousands more were injured.
In early November 1941, the Nazis closed off the city of Lvov into a ghetto. German police shot and killed thousand of elderly and sick Jews as they crossed the bridge on Peltewna Street, while they were on their way to the ghetto. In March 1942, the Nazis began to deport Jews from the ghetto to the Belzec extermination camp. By August 1942, more than 65,000 Jews had been deported from the Lvov ghetto and killed. In early 1943, the Germans destroyed and liquidated the ghetto.
The Janowska labor and transit camp
In addition to the Lvov ghetto, the Nazis set up a factory in September 1941 on Janowska Street in the suburbs of Lvov. This factory became part of the network of factories that belonged to the German Armament Works, which was owned and operated by the SS. Jews who worked at this factory were used as forced laborers, mainly working in carpentry and metalwork. In October 1941, the Nazis established a concentration camp beside the factory, which housed the forced laborers. Thousands of Jews from the Lvov ghetto were forced to work as slave laborers in this camp. When the Lvov ghetto was liquidated by the Nazis, the ghetto's inhabitants who were fit for work were sent to the Janowska camp; the rest were deported to the Belzec camp for extermination.
During 1942, Janowska also served as a transit camp for the "Final Solution", with the mass deportations of Polish Jews to killing centers. At Janowska a selection process was conducted, similar to those at Auschwitz-Birkenau and the Majdanek extermination camp. The minority of these Jews who were deemed fit for work remained at Janowska for forced labor. The rest were either deported to Belzec for extermination there, or were shot at the Piaski ravine, located just north of the camp. In summer 1942, thousands of Jews (mostly from the Lvov ghetto), were deported to Janowska and killed in the Piaski ravine.
Liquidation of the Janowska camp
In November 1943, the Nazis commenced evacuating the inmates of the Janowska camp. As the Nazis tried to destroy evidence of the mass killings at Janowska, they forced inmates to open the mass graves and burn the bodies. On November 19, 1943, inmates staged an uprising against the Nazis and a mass escape attempt. A few inmates actually succeeded in escaping from the camp, but most were recaptured by the Nazis and killed. The SS staff and their local auxiliaries murdered at least 6,000 Jews who had survived the uprising killings, as well as Jews in other forced labor camps in Galicia, at the time of the Janowska camp's liquidation.
See also
References
Aharon Weiss, Encyclopaedia of the Holocaust (Hebrew edition), vol. 3, pp. 572-575. Map, illustrationExternal links
- [US Holocaust Memorial Museum Website (Search: "Janowska")]
- [Eichmann Trial transcript: Testimony of Dr. Leon Weliczker-Wells (part 1 of 5)] - navigate consecutive web pages within website
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