View source for Międzyrzec Podlaski Ghetto

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{{Infobox holocaust event
| name          = Międzyrzec Ghetto
| image         = File:Getto w Międzyrzeczu Podlaskim.jpg
| image_size    = 
| caption       = The ghetto in 1943
| location      = [[Międzyrzec Podlaski]], [[Occupation of Poland (1939–1945)|German-occupied Poland]]
| date          =
| incident_type = Imprisonment, mass shooting, forced labor, starvation, deportations to [[death camps]]
| perpetrators  = [[Schutzstaffel|Nazi ''SS'']], [[Order Police battalions]]
| camp          =
| victims       = 20,000 Jews
| survivors     =
| witnesses     =
| memorials     =
}}
The '''Międzyrzec Podlaski Ghetto''' was one of the [[Nazi ghetto]]s established for the confinement and persecution of the [[Polish Jews|Jewish population]] of [[Międzyrzec Podlaski]] in the [[General Government]] territory of [[Occupation of Poland (1939–45)|occupied Poland]]. The ghetto was liquidated in stages between 1942 and 1943 as part of the "[[Final Solution]]", with all Jews either killed on the spot in mass shooting actions or deported to [[Treblinka]] and [[Majdanek]] [[death camp]]s.

==Ghetto history==
At the end of September 1939, during the [[Soviet invasion of Poland (1939)|Soviet invasion of Poland]], the [[Red Army]] occupied the city of [[Międzyrzec Podlaski]]. At the beginning of October, the Soviet Union handed over the city to Germany as part of the [[German-Soviet Frontier Treaty]] amended to the secret [[Hitler-Stalin Pact]] against Poland in 1939. Following the exchange, approximately 2,000 of the city's Jews left for the [[territories of Poland annexed by the Soviet Union]]. The Germans [[Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland|set up a transfer ghetto]] in the historic neighbourhood of Szmulowizna. It held 20,000 Jewish prisoners at its peak. On August 25–26, 1942 some 11,000–12,000 Jews were rounded up by German [[Order Police battalions]] amid gunfire and screams and deported to the [[Treblinka extermination camp]].<ref name="Browning"/>

The next mass extermination action took place around October and November 1942.<ref name="Browning"/> "Strip-search" of young Jewish women was introduced by ''[[Oberleutnant]]'' Hartwig Gnade before executions dubbed "mopping up" actions. His first sergeant later said: "I must say that First Lieutenant Gnade gave me the impression that the entire business afforded him a great deal of pleasure."<ref name="Browning-108">Browning 1998, pp. 106&ndash;108.</ref> The wave of mass killings lasting non-stop for several days, conducted by the [[Trawniki men|Trawniki battalion]] of about 350 to 400 men,  while the Germans from the parallel [[Reserve Police Battalion 101]] of the ''[[Ordnungspolizei]]'' from Hamburg dealt with the thousands of ghetto inhabitants.<ref name="Browning">{{cite web |url=http://hampshirehigh.com/exchange2012/docs/BROWNING-Ordinary%20Men.%20Reserve%20Police%20Battalion%20101%20and%20the%20Final%20Solution%20in%20Poland%20(1992).pdf |last=Browning |first=Christopher R. |author-link=Christopher Browning |orig-year=1992 |year=1998 |title=Arrival in Poland |publisher=Penguin Books |work=Ordinary Men: [[Reserve Police Battalion 101]] and the Final Solution in Poland |access-date=July 12, 2014 |pages=80–93 |format=PDF file, direct download 7.91 MB complete |quote=''Also:'' [https://web.archive.org/web/20131019043400/http://hampshirehigh.com/exchange2012/docs/BROWNING-Ordinary%20Men.%20Reserve%20Police%20Battalion%20101%20and%20the%20Final%20Solution%20in%20Poland%20(1992).pdf PDF cache archived by WebCite.]}}</ref>

On the seventeenth of July 1943, the ghetto was liquidated, with all remaining Jews deported to [[Treblinka]] and [[Majdanek]] extermination camps; at which time the last 160&ndash;200 residents were shot, and the city was officially declared [[Judenfrei|free of Jews]]. Fewer than 1% of the Jewish population of the city survived the German occupation.

== Escape and rescue ==
Jewish townsman Sender Dyszel, who managed to escape shootings in Międzyrzec, was rescued by [[Polish Righteous]] Franciszka Abramowicz (1899–1990). She brought him food into the forest until he could return to her later. Dyszel emigrated to Argentina after 1947.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://sprawiedliwi.org.pl/en/stories-of-rescue/story-franciszka-abramowicz|title=The story of Franciszka Abramowicz {{!}} Polscy Sprawiedliwi|website=sprawiedliwi.org.pl|language=en|access-date=2018-11-27}}</ref>

==See also==
*[[Timeline of Treblinka]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* [http://www.mezritch.org.il/eng-text/eng-town.html Ghetto's history and liquidation, by Mezritch.org]

== External links ==
* {{JewishGen-LocalityPage|516296|Międzyrzec Podlaski, Poland}}

{{coord|51|59|N|22|47|E|region:PL_type:city|display=title}}
{{Holocaust Lublin}} 
{{Holocaust Poland}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Miedzyrzec Podlaski Ghetto}}
[[Category:Ghettos in Lublin District]]
[[Category:Jewish Polish history]]
[[Category:Reserve Police Battalion 101]]