# Wierzbica <table class="place-meta"> <tr><td>Local name(s)</td><td>Wierzbica (Polish)</td></tr> <tr><td>Region (today)</td><td>Lublin Voivodeship, Chełm County, Gmina Wierzbica, Poland</td></tr> <tr><td>Coordinates</td><td>51°16′N 23°19′E</td></tr> </table> <table class="place-meta place-eras"> <tr><th>Era</th><th>Town name</th><th>Country / jurisdiction</th></tr> <tr><td>to 1795</td><td>Wierzbica</td><td>Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth</td></tr> <tr><td>1815–1915</td><td>Wierzbica</td><td>Congress Poland (Russian Empire)</td></tr> <tr><td>1918–1939</td><td>Wierzbica</td><td>Second Polish Republic (Lublin Voivodeship)</td></tr> <tr><td>1939–1944</td><td>Wierzbica</td><td>German occupation (General Government)</td></tr> <tr><td>present</td><td>Wierzbica</td><td>Poland — Lublin Voivodeship, Chełm County</td></tr> </table> ## Overview Wierzbica is a village and gmina seat in Chełm County, about 17 km north-west of Chełm and some 53 km east of Lublin. It had a small Jewish presence — 81 Jews (about 6.5% of inhabitants) in the 1921 census — with a Jewish cemetery established around 1831 and in use until 1942. Under the German occupation the community was destroyed; local records note 14 Jews murdered by the Nazis in a mass grave at the edge of a nearby forest, and after the war no Jews remained. The neglected, vandalized cemetery (about 0.14 ha, no surviving stones) is the main physical trace of the community. (Wierzbica is a common Polish place-name; this is the Chełm-County Wierzbica, consistent with the vault's Lublin-region cluster.) <small>Sources: International Jewish Cemetery Project — https://cdp.jewishgen.org/eastern-europe/poland/wierzbica ; Wikipedia — Wierzbica, Gmina Wierzbica, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wierzbica,_Gmina_Wierzbica</small> ## People with events here | Person | Event | | --- | --- | | [[Perla Katz (b.1814)]] | Born ~1814, Died 1856 | | [[Icek Lejba Gersztenblit (b.1838)]] | Born ~1838 | | [[Srul Gersztenblit (b.1841)]] | Born 1841 | | [[Berek Gersztenblit (b.1843)]] | Born 1843 | | [[Ankiel Gersztenblit (b.1847)]] | Born 1847 | | [[Zelman Gersztenblit (b.1852)]] | Born 1852 | | [[Chaja Bejla Gersztenblit (b.1853)]] | Born 1853 | | [[Ester Malka Gersztenblit (b.1853)]] | Born 1853 |