Judenrat in Zwierzyniec Kolekcja dokumentów z gett i obozów Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej, 1939-1944. Judenraty Rada Żydowska Zwierzyniec (Sygn. 271)

Zwierzyniec is a town on the Wieprz river in the Zamość County, Lublin Voivodeship, Poland. It has 3,324 inhabitants (2004). Zwierzyniec is the northernmost town of the Roztocze National Park. The park comprises some of the last remaining sections of the primordial forest of Central Europe, especially spectacular stand of ancient beech trees (Bukowa Gora). It also is a rail junction, located along the Rejowiec Fabryczny-Hrebenne-Munina connection, with a branch line going westwards, to Stalowa Wola, via Biłgoraj. During the occupation of Poland in WWII, Germans set up a transit camp in Zwierzyniec for the province-wide Action Zamość. The camp processed 20,000-24,000 Poles, with many victims sent to death camps at Auschwitz and Majdanek. Race selections based on forcible abduction of children were conducted at Zwierzyniec. The term "Children of Zamojszczyzna" originates from this programme. The town also had a Jewish population of between 1,000 and 1,500 Jews. The first transport of Jews during the Holocaust, numbering approximately 52 Jews from Zwierzyniec, Rudka and other surrounding villages, was sent to a death camp in Bełżec in September 1942. A mass extermination of the Jewish population from Zwierzyniec started on October 21, 1942. Some of the Jews were shot dead on the spot; the remaining residents were sent to the railway station at Szczebrzeszyn, from where, together with the Szczebrzeszyn Jews, were sent to a death camp in Bełżec.

Żydowski Instytut Historyczny im. Emanuela Ringelbluma

Source of acquisition is the Żydowski Instytut Historyczny im. Emanuela Ringelbluma Poland, Sygn. 271. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the filmed collection via the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum International Archival Programs Division in June 2018.