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that the Jews selected for work, the luggage, and the food supplies did not accompany them there. At Sobibór the gas chambers were deep in the forest and not visible from the unloading ramp. But contrary to most Order Police denials, Fischmann and his commando apparently entered the camp and watched the unloading.
    The Order Police who guarded the deportation train from Kołomyja in Galicia found the experience considerably more trying than the incident-free transport from Vienna. Indeed, inGalicia, where the Jews had been subjected to open-air massacres in the summer and fall of 1941 and to a first wave of deportations in the spring of 1942, the resumption of deportations in August 1942 clearly no longer entailed an unknown fate for many of the victims. In mid-September 1942 an Order Police captain of Reserve Police Battalion 133 in Police Regiment 24 reported on the experiences of one week of deportation operations.
    7./Pol. 24.  Lemberg [Lwów], September 14, 1942
    To: Commander of the Order Police in the district of Galicia, Lemberg Subject: Jewish Resettlement
    After carrying out Jewish resettlement actions on the 3d and 5th of September in Skole, Stryj, and Khodorov, for which Captain of the Schutzpolizei Kröpelin was in charge of the Order Police involved and which has already been reported in detail, the 7th Company of the 24th Police Regiment arrived as ordered in Kołomyja on the evening of September 6. I immediately contacted Kriminal Kommissar and SS-Obersturmführer Leitmaritz, head of the branch office of the Security Police in Kołomyja, and First Lieutenant Hertel of the Schutzpolizei station in Kołomyja.
    Contrary to the experience in Stryj, the action planned for September 7 in Kołomyja was well prepared and made easy for all units involved. The Jews had been informed by the above-mentioned agencies and the Labor Office to gather at the collection point of the Labor Office for registration on September 7 at 5:30 a.m. Some 5,300 Jews were actually assembled there at the appointed time. With all the manpower of my company, I sealed the Jewish quarter and searched thoroughly, whereby some 600 additional Jews were hunted down.
    The loading of the transport train was completed about 7 p.m. After the Security Police released some 1,000 from thetotal rounded up, 4,769 Jews were resettled. Each car of the transport was loaded with 100 Jews. The great heat prevailing that day made the entire action very difficult and greatly impeded the transport. After the regular nailing up and sealing of all cars, the transport train got underway to Beżec about 9 p.m. with a guard of one officer and nine men. With the coming of deep darkness in the night, many Jews escaped by squeezing through the air holes after removing the barbed wire. While the guard was able to shoot many of them immediately, most of the escaping Jews were eliminated that night or the next day by the railroad guard or other police units. This transport was delivered in Beżec without noteworthy incident, although given the length of the train and the deep darkness, the guard had proved to be too weak, as the commander of the transport guard from 6th Company of Police Regiment 24, who returned directly to Stanislawów, was able to report to me in person on September 11.
    On September 8, some 300 Jews—old and weak, ill, frail, and no longer transportable—were executed. According to the order of September 4, of which I was first informed on September 6, concerning use of ammunition, 90% of all those executed were shot with carbines and rifles. Only in exceptional cases were pistols used.
    On September 8 and 10, actions in Kuty, Kosov, Horodenka, Zaplatov, and Śniatyn were carried out. Some 1,500 Jews had to be driven on foot marches 50 kilometers from Kuty or 35 kilometers from Kosov to Kołomyja, where they were kept overnight in the courtyard of the Security Police prison with the other Jews brought together from the region. Other than the Jews