Adampol (Adampol Kolonia) | Lublin Voivodeship

Adampol, located in the Chełm Voivodeship, west of Włodawa. A labor camp. The camp held an average of 600 people. During the liquidation of the camp in 1942, the prisoners were shot. [AGK, OKBZN Lublin, sygn. 175. K. 5. AIZ, Dok. V 26, t. 4, k. 188. E. Dziadosz, J. Marszałek Więzienia i obozy w dystrykcie lubelskim w latach 1939-1944, “Zeszyty Majdanka” 1969, t. 3, s. 109]

Witness Piotr J. stated, "The bodies were buried on the spot near the barn. Then, these bodies were exhumed and burned." [Protocol of witness interrogation, June 7, 1971. Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Poland in Lublin, file no. OKL/Ds 49/70/Wł]

Adampol is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Wyryki, within Włodawa County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland. Little is known about the pre-war Jewish presence in Adampol. According to the last surviving witness accounts, there were no Jewish families living in the village before the war. The nearest Jewish community was located in Włodawa, a town about 16 km away.

The history of Jews in Włodawa dates back at least to the 18th century. Situated at the crossroads of major trade routes, the town became an important center of Jewish life. Over time, Jews came to make up a significant part of the population, and on the eve of the Second World War, they represented nearly two-thirds of Włodawa’s inhabitants.

The Jewish community of Włodawa was both vibrant and diverse. It maintained its own institutions, including several synagogues, cheders (traditional religious schools), and a range of cultural and charitable associations. Jews played an active role in the town’s economic life, operating shops, craft workshops, and small businesses. The town also hosted Jewish political, labor, and Zionist organizations, reflecting a high level of social and civic engagement.

At the heart of Włodawa’s religious and cultural life stood the synagogue complex, one of the few such ensembles preserved in Poland today. It included the Great Synagogue, the Small Synagogue (also known as the House of Prayer), and the building of the Kahal—the Jewish community council. Nearby was the Jewish cemetery, which served as the final resting place for generations of Włodawa’s Jewish residents.

Before 1939, Włodawa was a typical Polish town where Jewish and Polish life coexisted and intertwined. Despite differences in faith and tradition, the two communities lived side by side and contributed to the town’s identity. The outbreak of the Second World War abruptly ended this centuries-old coexistence, bringing the destruction of the Jewish community that had shaped Włodawa’s history for generations.

From 1941 to 1943, a German Arbeitslager (forced labor camp) operated in the village of Adampol, specifically in Adampol Kolonia, which is now part of Adampol. The camp functioned as a subcamp of the Sobibór killing center. Jewish residents from nearby towns, as well as Jews deported from the Wartheland, were imprisoned there. The prisoners were housed in barns, stables, and other agricultural buildings belonging to the former estate and were forced to work in agriculture under inhumane conditions. Some prisoners, mostly women and children, found temporary shelter in the households of local Polish families, where they were often employed in domestic or farm work.

In its early days, the camp was neither fenced nor clearly demarcated, which allowed prisoners to leave the area with relative ease. Over time, however, escape became nearly impossible due to armed patrols in the surrounding forests and checkpoints set up both within the camp and along nearby roads.

The camp was liquidated in August 1943, when at least 342 prisoners were executed (some sources give the number as 475). Witnesses recall, however, that the first large-scale executions in Adampol had already taken place in May 1943. Several testimonies describe the massacre of prisoners in August 1943: a group of Jews was herded near a well and shot. It is estimated that around 600 people were killed in Adampol through systematic round-ups, random arrests, and spontaneous executions, although the actual number may have been higher. The victims’ bodies were buried in the nearby forest, in both mass and individual graves. It is presumed that a number of unmarked and uncommemorated burial sites still exist within and around the area of the former camp.

According to available information, some prisoners were saved thanks to the intervention of local partisan groups, who warned them of the impending liquidation.

In the spring of 1944, a special unit under the supervision of SD officers arrived in Adampol to erase the evidence of the crimes. The victims’ bodies were exhumed and burned on specially constructed pyres, and the ashes were either scattered across the fields or dumped into pits in the forest.

In 2016, forensic archaeologist Dr. Caroline Sturdy Colls uncovered evidence of mass graves in Adampol. Thanks to the efforts of the family of Jankiel Pomeranc, a survivor of the camp, the site where the victims’ remains were buried—now covered by an 80-year-old forest—has been cleared and properly commemorated in recent years. On October 30, 2021, a ceremony was held in Adampol to unveil a memorial honoring more than 600 Jewish men, women, and children murdered between 1941 and 1943 as prisoners of the German labor camp. The monument stands on the site where, in the spring of 1944, as part of Aktion 1005, the Germans burned the bodies of camp victims along with the remains of fallen Home Army soldiers.

https://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/Wlodawa/wloe001.html