The Germans occupied the town in September 1939 and immediately began to terrorize the Jewish population, which amounted to around 600, kidnapping them for forced labor, robbing them of their possessions, and beating them at will. In October 1941, the Jewish population was confined to a ghetto. In 1942, murders began, usually instigated by the Gestapo and assisted by the Polish police. Jews from other locations were forcibly moved into the ghetto so that there were 1700 residents by mid-1942. In 1942 and 1943, the occupying Nazi forces carried out a number of Jewish massacres. In August 1942, 200 Jewish citizens were publicly executed by the Nazis in the town square. The remainder of the Jewish population were held for three days without food and water and then transported to the Belzec extermination camp. Polish police killed many of those trying to hide. Some survivors returned after the war but a few were murdered and the town refused to turn over synagogues which had been put to other uses. So the survivors left.