Łopuchowa, a village in south-eastern Poland, was part of the Kreishauptmannschaft Debica in the Krakow District of the German-occupied part of Poland (General Government) following the invasion of the German Reich. In the spring of 1943, at least 15 Roma were killed there by as yet unidentified members of the German occupation forces of the Kreishauptmannschaft Debica. Investigations by the Main Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation [Główna Komisja Badania Zbrodni Hitlerowskich w Polsce], indicate that at least 33 Roma were murdered by the Nazi occupation’s persecution apparatus across the entire municipality of Ropczyce, which included Łopuchowa before the war.
Course of Events
Łopuchowa1Before the war, Łopuchowa was part of the Kraków Voivodeship, the Dębica County and the municipality of Ropczyce; today, the town belongs to the Podkarpackie Voivodeship, the Ropczyce-Sędziszów County and the municipality of Ropczyce. is one of 188 documented killing sites in the General Government where, between 1939 and 1945, murders were committed against Polish Roma and, in isolated cases, against German Sinti who had previously been deported there.
It is known that the Roma victims—including the Sywak and Góral families—arrived in Łopuchowa from the former county of Krosno in the spring of 1943. They settled there near a forest not far from the farm of the villager Józef Zapał (biographical data unknown), who supported them in exchange for money. The families had spent several weeks there when Łopuchowa was raided by uniformed Germans. The documentary record does not make clear to which occupation force they belonged. According to a witness, they were armed with machine guns and wore chains with metal plates, which suggests they were members of the Feldgendarmerie.
These German soldiers are said to have been the sole perpetrators. They surrounded the dwelling of the Roma and shot them on the spot. The bodies of the victims remained in the pit that had been dug for the execution until they were buried by villagers.
The Romani man Teodor Sywak (biographical data unknown) was the only one to escape the shootings, to which almost his entire family fell victim.2Zabierowski, “Die Ausrottung der Zigeuner in Südostpolen,” 4. Together with Maksym Sywak (biographical data unknown) and Andrzej Góral (biographical data unknown), Teodor Sywak was in the nearby forest at the time of the crime. On their way back to their dwelling, the three men were fired upon by a German in uniform. Only Teodor Sywak survived, as he was able to escape into the forest and hide there.
No further details about the course of the massacre have been uncovered. The names of several other murder victims are known, though not their dates of birth. They were Gabriel Sywak, Grzegorz Sywak, Michał Góral, Stefan Góral, Teodor Góral, and Anna Góral, as well as the children Maksym Góral, Michał Góral, Maria Góral, and Zofia Góral. Three more children, whose names are unknown, were also shot. At an unknown date, the survivor Teodor Sywak fenced off the burial site and erected a cross there.
Given that Teodor Sywak names the neighbouring village of Stobierna, rather than Łopuchowa, as the scene of the crime, it can be assumed that this was one of the shootings that Piotr Kaszyca lists in his 1998 overview of massacres committed against Roma in the General Government. There, Stobierna, not Łopuchowa, is listed as the crime scene. However, the details regarding the course of events, the number of victims, and the time of the incident are consistent: Kaszyca describes how a group of around 15 Roma sleeping in the forest was surrounded by the gendarmerie and police in the spring of 1943, shot and buried at the scene of the crime.3Kaszyca, “Die Morde an Sinti und Roma im Generalgouvernement 1939–1945,” 132.
Other members of the Sywak and Góral families survived the shootings in Łopuchowa because they were in the village at the time of the massacre. However, they were murdered in the summer of 1943: according to Teodor Sywak, Maria Góral, two other women–one of whom was named Kazia–and six children were shot at the cemetery in the village of Ropczyce. In a wooded area near the villages of Golcowa and Malinówka (part of the Kreishauptmannschaft Krosno under the German occupation), there was another massacre, during which Katarzyna Góral was murdered along with her three children.
These two massacres are also described in a publication by the Main Commission authored by Stanisław Zabierowski (1910–1986), but there are slight discrepancies compared to the account given above. According to Zabierowski, only Maria Góral and three children were shot by a gendarme in Ropczyce. Katarzyna Góral, on the other hand, was shot not only together with her three children, but also with her aunt in the forest near Golcowa.4Zabierowski, “Die Ausrottung der Zigeuner in Südostpolen,” 4.
Investigations
In November 1979, the Polish Main Commission filed charges with the Central Office of the Land Judicial Authorities for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes in Ludwigsburg, south-west Germany, against unidentified members of German occupation forces from the responsible Kreishauptmannschaft Debica as well as against unidentified members of the Feldgendarmerie. The charge was the murder of an unknown number of Polish Roma in the spring and autumn of 1943 in Łopuchowa, Ropczyce, and Malinówka.
Following preliminary investigations by the Central Office, the case was forwarded to the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Hanover, but was discontinued in 1985 due to insufficient evidence to identify the perpetrators.
