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The town of Bilgoraj is the principal town of its county in Lublin province. As of 2009 its population was 27.341. It is located on Bilgoraj Plateau, on the Lada River (right tributary of the Tanew River), in the vicinity of Roztoczanski National Park. On August 2, 1919 the province of Lublin consisting of 19 districts was established, including Bilgoraj district with the principal town being Bilgoraj.
The first Jews settled in Bilgoraj most probably as early as the second half of the 14th century. The earliest written record of Jews appearing there dates back to 1597. The Bilgoraj population in 1860 numbered 5,434 people, including 2,070 (38%) Jews. In 1899 the number of the inhabitants of Bilgoraj increased to 8,953 people, including 3,810 Jews (42%). In the second half of the 19th century the Jewish community of Bilgoraj owned a brick synagogue, two study houses, a mikvah, two cemeteries, four prayer houses, a Talmudic and Torah school and a poorhouse.
According to the data from before WWI, the Bilgoraj population was 11,173 , including 5,595 Jews (50%).
After the outbreak of WWII, as a consequence of the Nazi terror policy, Jews were allowed to live only in the area encompassing 3 Maja St., Nadstawna St. and Ogrodowa St. On the left arm they had to wear a white armband with a Star of David and they were banned from entering Glowna St., where the Germans lived. A Jewish Council – Judenrat- was appointed by the German occupying authorities in 1939. It consisted of five people.
In August of 1940, the Nazis shot all Judenrat members in Bilgoraj. The reason was the refusal of the chair person, Szymon Bin and the deputy chair person, Hillel Janower, to identify a group of Jews to be sent to the extermination camp in Belzec and to establish the Jewish Police. The deportation of Jews from the town Bilgoraj and Bilgoraj district to the extermination camp in Belzec took place three times. For this reason round-ups were organized in various places of the district and as a result, 202 Jews were caught, out of whom 80 people were from Bilgoraj.
All four were shot on 3 May. On the following day, the deportations from Bilgoraj to Belzec began.