Józefów, Biłgoraj County

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Józefów is a small town in Biłgoraj County, Lublin Voivodeship, in eastern Poland. It lies on the Niepryszka River in the Roztocze hills and Solska Forest. The town is about 24 km from Biłgoraj, 30 km from Zamość, and 92 km from Lublin. In 2006, around 2,436 people lived there. It is also known as Józefów Biłgorajski.

Józefów was founded in the 1720s on land from the Zamoyski family and was named after Tomasz Józef Zamoyski, the fifth Ordynat of the Zamość Estate. In 1725 it received Magdeburg rights, which let it hold nine fairs each year. The town grew as a local center for artisans and remained part of the Zamoyski Estate until 1939.

After Poland was partitioned, Józefów came under Austrian rule, then briefly belonged to the Duchy of Warsaw (1809–1815), and after 1815 became part of Russian-controlled Congress Poland near Galicia. In 1864, following the January Uprising, Russian authorities stripped Józefów of its town charter as punishment. A large Jewish community lived in the town, and by 1905 Jews made up about 72% of the population.

In the Second Polish Republic (1919–1939) Józefów was poor and largely rural, with no railway and about 2,000 residents. During World War II, German forces bombed the town in 1939, and it soon came under Nazi occupation. The Jews of Józefów suffered severely in 1942: between 1,200 and 1,500 were killed in a massacre in the forest near the town, and many others were deported later that year. Some survivors hid in homes and the forest, and a few people managed to escape. Two members of the German minority, the Mart family, were shot by Polish resistance fighters for cooperating with the enemy.

Józefów regained its town charter in 1989. Today it is a popular tourist spot because of its scenic location. The town has a 19th-century synagogue, a 19th-century parish church, a park, and a cemetery.