Budzyn

In the summer of 1942 a labor camp was established in a small village called Budzyn north of Krasnik, about fifty kilometres southwest of Lublin . In that area there were already war-producing industries. The first 500 Jewish prisoners came from nearby ghettos, mainly from Krasnik. These were Jews whom the Nazis considered productive and needed for slave labor in war-producing industries. Later in the year, about 400 Soviet prisoners of war were sent to the camp. In 1943, about 800 Jews who had participated in the Warsaw ghetto uprising were sent to the camp. At the end of 1942, about 100 sick and old Jews were sent to the extermination camp Belzec and in August 1943, about 200 unproductive Jews were sent to Majdanek where they were murdered.

In the summer of 1943, the number of prisoners amounted around 3,000. The prisoners in Budzyn were used as slave workers in a nearby factory that manufactured parts for aircraft. When the Nazis in November, 1943, murdered about 18,000 Jews in the Lublin district, the Jews at Budzyn were spared cause they were important as slave labor. In February 1944 Budzyn became an official satellite camp to Majdanek and in connection with this, the prisoners were transferred to a new prison camp with eight barracks closer to the factory. In comparison with previous years and other labor camps within the Lublin district, conditions in Budzyn were better. In May 1944, the Germans began evacuating the prisoners and dismantling the factory and moving them westward further away from the front.