Dobrucowa | Subcarpathian Voivodeship

Helena Gorayska (left), heiress of the Szebnie estate (background); died in 1942 at the age of 30, infected with typhus while caring for sick prisoners at the camp with German permission. Photograph from 1938 © Taken from wikipedia The plan of the Szebnie Concentration Camp © Taken from Wikipedia / At this place the Szebnie camp used to be located. Today there is a football stadium. ©Victoria Bahr/ Yahad – In Unum lzbieta Z. recalling the shooting of the Jews brought from a camp in Szebnie © Freddy Murphy/ Yahad – In Unum Elzbieta Z. watched the shooting from behind the trees with her brother and their friends © Freddy Murphy/ Yahad – In Unum Stanislawa T. was forced by Nazi to work on a construction site of the camp in Szebnie © Freddy Murphy/Yahad – In Unum Elzbieta Z. showing the Yahad’s team the place of the shooting © Freddy Murphy/ Yahad – In Unum

Execution of Jews from the Szebnie concentration camp in Dobrucowa

1 Sitio(s) de ejecución

Tipo de lugar antes:
Forest
Memoriales:
Yes
Período de ocupación:
1939 – 1944
Número de víctimas:
2,000

Entrevista del testigo

Stanisława T., born in 1927, describes the camp Szebnie :
“Y.U. : What was this place before ? Was it an empty plot?
W: Before, there were agricultural fields. And in the middle of the fields there was a manor.
Y.U. : Was there only one building inside this agricultural property?
W: No, there were many buildings. The owners of the manor had stables with horses; they had a garden with a small building inside. In all, there were four buildings: two on each side of the road. The servants lived in one of those houses and another one was the manor of the Gorajscy family.
YIU: During the construction of the camp were the buildings fenced in with the barbed wire?
W: Yes, the entire camp was fenced in with barbed wire.
Y.U.: How far was the central building from the fence?
W: Not that far, a couple of meters away from the Gorajscy manor. There was a gate to enter the camp.
Y.U. : Did the construction start immediately after the Germans’ arrival?
W: Shortly after, during the first year. In the beginning there was no electricity in the camp. It was after that the barracks were built and the electricity was established.
Y.U. : What kind of building materials were you forced to bring? Was it wood or stone?
W : Stones, gravel, sand, planks, and iron wires. (Testimony n°363, interviewed in Bierówka, on June 23, 2014)

Archivos polacos

  1. Date and place of execution: autumn 1943, shootings took place on the September 29th 1943 and November 6th 1942, forest in Dobrucowa.
  2. Type of execution: shooting
  3. executed victims’ personal data: Jews from the concentration camp in Szebnia. Another shooting of Poles.
  4. Killed due to the liquidation of the camp in Szebnia
  5. Bodies were burned and thrown into the river.

There was probably another execution of Hungarian Jews in Dobrucowa, but the bodies were burned.  [Court Inquiries about executions and mass graves in districts, provinces, camps and ghettos-Ankieta Sadow Grodzkich; USHMM; RG-15.019M Reel#10, File 34, p.284-285]

Nota histórica

Dobrucowa is a village located in Podkarpackie voivodeship, 60 kilometers south west of the regional capital Rzeszow. Before the war, Jews didn’t live in Szebnie or Dobrucowa but Jews from Warzyce and other towns were coming there to trade from time to time.

Holocausto por balas en cifras

The victims murdered in Dobrucowa were all brought from the Szebnie concentration camp created in spring 1943 at the place of the former POW’s camp.  Besides the Jews, who were gathered from the liquidated ghettos of Jaslo, Tarnów, Rzeszów , Bochnia,  Roma and Poles were detained in the camp. All the inmates fit to work were subjected to forced labor while others were systematically exterminated. In autumn 1943 there were about 5,000 detainees and their number gradually rose to 10,000. Throughout the entire existence of the camp, the inmates were killed by shooting either in the nearby forest of Dobrucowa or in the cemetery of Szebnie, or deported to the Auschwitz. Thus, the first execution of Jews was conducted September 22nd 1943, when about 700 Jews, including 400 from Tarnow, were murdered in the forest of Dobrucowa. The second execution occurred on November 6th in the same forest. Bodies of the victims were burned and thrown into a nearby river.  On the eve of the second execution, 2,800 Jewish inmates from the camp were deported to Auschwitz.

For more information about the camp in Szebnie please refer to the corresponding profile

Otros enlaces

Pueblos cercanos

  • Jasło
  • Szebnie
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