This atrocity was part of the ethnic cleansing of the Zamość region and was additionally seen as retribution against the civilian population for their support of the Polish resistance movement.

Some accounts suggest that its inhabitants provided aid to Jewish refugees in hiding and to Soviet prisoners of war who had escaped from German captivity.

[1] In the autumn of 1942, at the direction of SS-Brigadeführer Odilo Globocnik, SS and Police Leader in the Lublin district of the General Government, a significant Nazi displacement operation commenced in the Zamość region.

[3] Partisan units from the Peasant Battalions (Bataliony Chłopskie), Home Army (Armia Krajowa), and communist People's Guard (Gwardia Ludowa) attempted to impede pacification and displacement efforts, targeting German police, economic sites, and transportation facilities.

[4][5] On the morning of May 18, 1943, a punitive expedition composed of German gendarmes and members of the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police[a] from Biłgoraj and Tarnogród arrived in Szarajówka.

Soon after, the Germans and Ukrainians entered the village, forcing residents out of their homes and gathering them in the square opposite farmer Saniak's farm.

[6] Initially, women and children were treated with some leniency, while men endured harsh interrogations in attempts to extract information about Polish partisans.

[9] Czesław Madajczyk suggests that the atrocity was in retaliation for the village's collaboration with the resistance movement, as well as a reprisal for an earlier assault by Polish partisans on the gendarmes stationed at Tarnogród.