Zwierzyniec, Polonia, Libretti di lavoro di Vowinckel & Richtberg, 1942 (USHMM)

General collection information

This database contains details extracted from records of the Judenrat in Zwierzyniec, including card files of people employed by the firm Vowinckel & Richtberg. The original records are held by the Żydowski Instytut Historyczny imienia Emanuela Ringelbluma in Poland.

Historical Background

Zwierzyniec is approximately 58 miles southeast of Lublin in Poland. In August of 1939, around 2,050 Jews lived in Zwierzyniec (total population or about 4,000) and the neighboring village Rudka. After the joint German and Soviet invasion of Poland, Zwierzyniec changed hands multiple times. A September 28, 1939 border renegotiation retuned Zwierzyniec to German control. When the Soviet forces retreated on October 5, as many as half of the Jewish population of Zwierzyniec and Rudka joined.

Zwierzyniec was transformed into a retreat for high-ranking German military officers and Nazi elites. From January 1940, Nazi leaders regularly visited to hunt rare pheasants at the hunting lodge ang preserve. As a result of the popularity of the town amongst the military elite, the Jews were quickly confined to a ghetto. This was an unfenced ghetto located in a pre-war Jewish neighborhood. There are believed to have been no survivors of the Zwierzyniec ghetto.

Bibliography

Megargee Geoffrey P and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 2009. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos 1933-1945, Volume II. Bloomington Washington D.C: Indiana University Press ; in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.