Life and Death In the shadow of Sobibór: economic dimensions of Jewish-Gentile relations in the town of Włodawa, 1939-1944

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article considers the changing forms of economic relations between Jewish and Gentile residents of the Eastern Polish town of Włodawa from the 1920s to the immediate postwar years, focusing on their interactions during the German occupation of 1939 to 1944. It adopts a microhistorical approach by revealing how the proximity of the Sobibór extermination camp shaped Jewish survival strategies and dynamics of inter-ethnic relations. Drawing on local court documents and postwar testimonies, I follow the lines of communication between the camp and Włodawa and argue that widespread local knowledge of the murder of Jews at Sobibór drove the plunder and take-over of ‘post-Jewish’ goods and property (‘mienie pożydowskie’) in and around the town. By providing a new perspective on how knowledge of and encounters with mechanisms of extermination determined Jewish-Gentile interactions during the Holocaust, this article illuminates routine forms of collaboration and broadens our understanding of the genocide in rural Poland.