• Monument to the murdered Jews of Łomazy
In the summer of 1942, approximately 1,700 Jews were shot by German police and Ukrainian auxiliary forces in the eastern Polish town of Łomazy. A monument in the forest near Łomazy honours the memory of the victims.
Image: Łomazy, August 18, 1942, Jewish women on the way to a forest clearing, where they were subsequently shot, Staatsarchiv Hamburg
Łomazy, August 18, 1942, Jewish women on the way to a forest clearing, where they were subsequently shot, Staatsarchiv Hamburg

Image: Łomazy, 2010, The 1988 monument, Tomasz Kowalik
Łomazy, 2010, The 1988 monument, Tomasz Kowalik
Today, the Polish town of Łomazy is located in eastern Poland, about 100 km north-east of Lublin. Before the war, the town was home to many Jews: over half of the 3,000 residents of Łomazy were Jewish. In 1939, the German Wehrmacht occupied the western part of Poland, including the area of Lublin and Łomazy. In 1940, the Jews of Łomazy had to move into a ghetto and conduct forced labour, as all of the 300,000 Jews in the district of Lublin. In the summer of 1942, the SS began deporting Jews from the Lublin region to extermination camps. In some towns, however, the Jews were shot on site. On August 18, 1942, the Hamburg Reserve Police Battalion 101 herded the Jews of Łomazy together in a school yard, among them many Jews from Hamburg and other towns, from where they had been deported to Łomazy. About 1,700 Jewish men, women and children had to wait in the school yard in the blazing summer heat, while 60 to 70 strong Jewish men were forced to dig a pit in a nearby forest, overseen by the German order police. Later, the German police chased the Jews to the pit. There, the Jewish men, women and children were shot dead by drunk Ukrainian »volunteers« and German policemen. At first, the Ukrainian auxiliary troops – men recruited from POW camps for Soviet prisoners and trained in an SS camp in Trawniki – took over the killing, later the German policemen too participated in the shooting.
Image: Łomazy, August 18, 1942, Jewish women on the way to a forest clearing, where they were subsequently shot, Staatsarchiv Hamburg
Łomazy, August 18, 1942, Jewish women on the way to a forest clearing, where they were subsequently shot, Staatsarchiv Hamburg

Image: Łomazy, 2010, The 1988 monument, Tomasz Kowalik
Łomazy, 2010, The 1988 monument, Tomasz Kowalik
Most of the approximately 1,700 Jewish victims came from Łomazy and vicinity. Among the victims were also Jews from Hamburg, who had been deported from Hamburg to Poland in the spring of 1942.
Image: Łomazy, August 18, 1942, Jews on their way to the site of the shootings, Staatsarchiv Hamburg
Łomazy, August 18, 1942, Jews on their way to the site of the shootings, Staatsarchiv Hamburg

Image: Łomazy, 2010, Monument on the former Jewish cemetery, Tomasz Kowalik
Łomazy, 2010, Monument on the former Jewish cemetery, Tomasz Kowalik
In 1988, a monument was erected by an association of Jewish survivors from Łomazy at the site of a mass grave on the former Jewish cemetery, into which the remains of the dead had been transferred after the war. A further memorial was later set up in the Hały forest, on the site of the shootings.
Image: Łomazy, 2010, Memorial at the site of the shootings, Tomasz Kowalik
Łomazy, 2010, Memorial at the site of the shootings, Tomasz Kowalik
Name
Tablica pamiątkowa na cmentarzu żydowskim
Address
ul. Brzeska
21-532 Łomazy
Open
The monument is accessible at all times.