1. Rachanie - Centrum miejscowości

The village of Rachanie, mentioned in sources since the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries., was part of the domains belonging to the Dukes of Mazovia, located in a borderland area and exposed to frequent attacks by, among others. Tatars. The first documented source reference dates back to 1425., when Ziemowit IV, Duke of Mazovia and Bełsk, granted Michal Motyczka, a townsman from Szczebrzesko, a village and entrusted him with settling the town of Rachanie under Magdeburg law. In 1482. The locality passed to the ownership of Jan Trojan of Jastrzębiec coat of arms, a judge of Bełsk (he took the surname Rachański from the name of the seat), who contributed to the economic development of the center. His son Mikolaj Trojan of Rachań, an ensign of Belsk, received a privilege from King Sigismund the Old to hold two fairs a year. The next owners of Rachań were members of the Cetner family, who built a magnificent castle here. Developing as a local agricultural, trade and craft center, Rachanie was plundered by royal troops stationed here in 1632-1634, in 1635. while they burned down. After the first partition of Poland, Rachanie lost its municipal rights.During the interwar period, Catholics and Orthodox Christians, making their living mainly from farming, and Jews lived here. Rachanie developed as an administrative center for the surrounding estates, as well as a local trade and service center. There were two water mills, two oil mills, two beer stores, grocery stores, liquor and tobacco stores, a mud store and a tavern. In September 1939. Parts of Rachań were burned during the war effort. In the spring of 1940. The school building was occupied by the German army, which was stationed here until Germany's attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941. In July 1943. Some of the settlement's residents were deported to a resettlement camp in Zamosc.In their place, Germans from Russia, Romania and Latvia were brought in. During the war, 233 residents of the settlement were killed.Jews in Rachany - Until 1918. - The earliest surviving mention of Jews in Rachany dates back to 1550. By the end of the 19th century. They were a small group of residents and, unlike Jews in many other cities in the region, were never the dominant ethno-religious group.They made their living mainly from trade. Beginning in the 16th-17th centuries., and on a larger scale since the 19th century., few Jews lived in villages in the Rachanie municipality, including. in Vozhchyn. In the 1880s. There were 18 Jews living there, mainly engaged in crafts, usury and petty trading in food products.Interwar period - Most of the Jews lived in the eastern part of the village, along the road leading towards Jozefowka and Tomaszow; single families also lived in the center and western part of the village. In Rachany there was a grain purchase and three Jewish stores (a grocery, a multi-branch store and a mud store), an inn located in the center of the village, three oil mills, and two water mills on the Rachany River run by Jewish entrepreneurs. Most of the local Jews made a living from petty trade, including door-to-door, handicrafts and leasing orchards.There was no synagogue either in Rachany itself or in the community. Jews prayed in synagogues in Komarow, Laszczow or Tyszowce.In the eastern part of the village, in one of the houses, there was a private beit ha-midrash. A small cemetery was located outside the village.Holocaust - In October 1939. A group of Jews from Wożuczyn, and perhaps some Jews from Rachań, fled east with the retreating Red Army. In the spring of 1940, the Germans resettled Jews from neighboring villages to Rachań.They settled them in barracks built in the area of the settlement and forced them to work on meadow reclamation.In the autumn of 1940. The Germans resettled about 100 old men, women and children to Rachań, who, according to witnesses, were shot by the Germans and buried near the local school. All the Jews working at digging the ditches were shot.In the local school, on ul. Partisans 47, the Germans placed a gendarmerie post. During the occupation, more than 216 people were held, tortured and murdered there, including a number of Jews.On the wall of the building is a plaque dedicated to the memory of the victims. Next to the school, the Germans set up a small camp for Jews. It consisted of four barracks, located directly behind the school building, and eight barracks built a few dozen meters further north, by the road leading to the cemetery. The Jews held there were forced to work, among other things. In the reclamation of grasslands.