Paulinów, Masovian Voivodeship Explained

Paulinów
Settlement Type:Village
Total Type: 
Subdivision Type:Country
Subdivision Type1:Voivodeship
Subdivision Name1:Masovian
Subdivision Type2:County
Subdivision Name2:Sokołów
Subdivision Type3:Gmina
Subdivision Name3:Sterdyń
Coordinates:52.5483°N 22.2978°W
Pushpin Map:Poland

Paulinów is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Sterdyń, within Sokołów County, Masovian Voivodeship, in east-central Poland.[1]

During WWII, several people in the village helped to hide Jews. The Germans used a Jewish agent to pose as an escapee looking for a hiding place with a Polish family, after receiving help the agent denounced the Polish family to the Germans, resulting in the deaths of 12 Poles and several Jews who were hiding with the family.[2] [3]

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Central Statistical Office (GUS)  - TERYT (National Register of Territorial Land Apportionment Journal) . 2008-06-01 . Polish.
  2. Teresa Prekerowa, Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences, "Who Helped Jews during the Holocaust in Poland", Acta Poloniae Historica, Wydawnictwo Naukowe Semper, vol. 76, p. 166. "The gravest provocation involving Jews took place in 1943, some 100 km east of Warsaw; a Jewish Gestapo agent posing as a fugitive was given, or promised, help by 14 inhabitants of the village of Paulinów." Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1997
  3. Joanna Kierylak, Treblinka Museum, "12 sprawiedliwych z Paulinowa", 2013, retrieved 2018-05-25. "Akcja niemiecka, zakrojona na szeroką skalę... Posłużono się tu prowokacją. Rozpoznania dokonali prowokatorzy. Byli nimi Żydzi, jeden z Warszawy, drugi ze Sterdyni – Szymel Helman. Prowokator z Warszawy dołączył do ukrywających się Żydów, podając się za Żyda francuskiego, zbiegłego z transportu przesiedleńców wiezionych do Treblinki." ("[In a] large-scale German operation... use was made of provocation. The scouting-out was done by agent-provocateurs. They were Jews, here one from Warsaw, the other from Sterdyń—Szymel Helman. The agent-provocateur from Warsaw joined some Jews who were in hiding, giving himself out to be a French Jew who had escaped from a transport of deportees who were being sent to Treblinka.")