[1] During the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland, which started World War II, on September 25, 1939, the Soviets carried out a massacre of wounded Polish prisoners-of-war in Grabowiec.

The Germans set up a labor camp 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from Grabowiec and employed workers from there and nearby towns.

They appointed a Judenrat in the town, whose task it was to provide Jews for slave labor and to obey German orders.

On 8 June 1942, in the early morning, SS troops, aided by Blue Police, dragged the Jews from their houses and assembled them in the market square.

Some scores of ill people were murdered on the spot; about 800 Jews fit for work were sent back to Grabowiec at the request of their Nazi employers, while the remainder – some 1,200 souls – were dispatched in wagons to the extermination camp at Sobibór.