Józefów, Biłgoraj County

Infobox Settlement
name = Józefów
image_shield = POL Józefów COA.svg
pushpin_

pushpin_label_position = bottom
subdivision_type = Country
subdivision_name = POL
subdivision_type1 = Voivodeship
subdivision_name1 = Lublin
subdivision_type2 = County
subdivision_name2 = Biłgoraj
subdivision_type3 = Gmina
subdivision_name3 = Józefów
leader_title = Mayor
leader_name = Roman Dziura
area_total_km2 = 5.00
population_as_of = 2006
population_total = 2450
population_density_km2 = auto
timezone = CET
utc_offset = +1
timezone_DST = CEST
utc_offset_DST = +2
latd = 50 | latm = 29 | lats = | latNS = N | longd = 23 | longm = 3 | longs = | longEW = E
elevation_m = 220
postal_code_type = Postal code
postal_code = 23-460
blank_name = Car plates
blank_info = LBL
website = http://www.jozefow.miasto.woi.lublin.pl Józefów [IPA-pl|j|u|'|z|e|f|u|f] is a town in Biłgoraj County, Lublin Voivodeship, Poland, with 2,436 inhabitants (2006).

Jewish extermination

A Jewish massacre took place in Józefów during World War II. Roundups, deportations and the mass killing of Jews were not uncommon during the war. Polish Jews suffered severely, being the first targeted in 1939; originally placed in Ghettos, they were eventually deported or murdered. Józefów was one of such villages. The near 1,800 Jews that resided in Józefów in 1942 were nearly all murdered in a single day. On July 13 1942 a unit from a German reserve police battalion rolled into the village from nearby Biłgoraj. In sixteen hours with 482 (12 of them did not take part) men the police unit killed approximately 1,500 Jews and sent three hundred able-bodied men to a workcamp. The sick were shot in the beds they lay in, infants were torn from the hands that held them and murdered, while the elderly, women and children were dragged from their homes and taken to the marketplace. Shooting squads were established and each executioner was paired with a victim. The policemen would then march the Jew back into the woods where the Jew would be forced to lie down and was subsequently shot in the back of the head. At the end of the night the German police officers returned to their housing in Biłgoraj leaving the bodies of nearly 1,500 Jews behind unburied in the woods.

Citation
last =Browning
first =Christopher
title =Ordinary Men Reserve Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland
place =New York
publisher =Harper Perennial
year =1992

Citation
last =ARC
title =Jozefow Bilgorajski
date =28 May
year =2006
url = | accessdate =09.11.07