As one of Poland's older cities in Eastern Poland, from the fourteenth century, Jewish people played an integral role in the industry, communications and culture throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Later, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Jewish organizations and political parties were numerous. There was a Jewish population of about 40,000 out of a total of 122,000 at the beginning of World War II.

Lublin was a place of refuge for the thousands fleeing the Germans. Resistance efforts took place as the city was being occupied by the Germans. Soon thereafter, the Jews were forced to perform labor and were beaten and robbed of their belongings and property. Their apartments were taken and they had to wear the Jewish Badge and they could no longer go wherever they wanted.

There was a master Nazi plan to create the Lublin Reservation whereby all Jews of the Generalgouvernement and other parts of Poland near the Reich were to be concentrated. By 1940, sixty-three hundred deportees had arrived. Since the plan was not well organized by the German administration, it was dissolved in April 1940. This didn't matter however since Lublin continued to be a place where mass deportation and extermination could happen. The headquarters of Odilo Globocnik, the head of Aktion Reinhard, was in charge of operating the death camps in the eastern part of the Generalgouvernement; the Majdanek concentration and extermination camp was located in a suburb of Lublin.

The Jewish Community Council worked as demanded by the Germans, by providing daily quotas of forced labor and collecting and surrendering valuables, furniture, and other household items. The Jewish people who needed help or were refuges were also given aid by the council. On January 25, 1940 this council officially became a Judenrat (Jewish Council), which had twenty-four members. The council helped in many ways to aid the Jewish people. However, when the Germans became tougher, things changed drastically. In 1940, forced labor increased and people were taken off the streets eventually ending up in the prisoner-of-war camps. The Judenrat was also made to provide laborers for these camps which caused an uproar by the Jewish population.

By 1941, the Jewish population of Lublin were forced to be deported. There were about 10,000 of them taken to different places. They suffered tremendously due to economic problems as well as the horrible housing conditions. By the end of March 1941, the ghetto was established with a Jewish population of more than thirty-four thousand. The conditions were horrific and a typhus epidemic spread in the ghetto. Because the conditions were so poor, starvation and overcrowding was severe, and there wasn't much medication, there wasn't much that could be done.

On March 17, 1942, the Jews of Lublin were taken to Belzec extermination camp and they were among the first victims of the gas chambers. Everyday fourteen hundred Jews were deported. Many Jews who had gone into hiding in the ghetto, about five hundred, were captured by the Germans and instantly killed. By April 20 of that same year, thirty thousand Jews had been deported from Lublin, most by dying at Belzed and the rest in the forests near the city.

The liberation of Lublin happened on July 24, 1944. Many Jewish survivors from the city and around, and those who took refuge in the Soviet Union came here. Lublin remained the provisional capital of Poland and the institutions of the Jewish community took root. A part of this Jewish Community Cultural Society, a national institution was recognized by the Polish government there until 1968. By the early 1970s, the Jewish community ended and today only a few Jews call Lublin their home.

Bibliography
Blumenthal, N. Documents from the Lublin Ghetto:
Judenrat without Direction. Jerusalem, 1967. (In Hebrew.)

Blulmenthal, N., and M. Korzen, eds. Lublin. Vol. 5 of
Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora. Jerusalem, 1957. (In Hebrew.)

Trunk, I. Judenrat. New York, 1972.