The use of forced labor under German rule during World War II was very common . By the fall of 1940 , the Jewish population in the town of Gorlice in southeastern Poland had increased to around 4,000 people , due in part to Kristallnacht , which drove many Jews out of Germany and into Poland . Jews who owned small businesses were allowed to manage them , but only women were allowed to work in them . There was a fear among able-bodied Jewish men of being kidnapped and taken to a forced labor camp , a frequent occurrence , prompting the Germans to create the '' Judenrat '' , or Jewish Council . The seven Jewish leaders who made up the '' Judenrat '' were headed by a local lawyer , Dr. Henryk Arnold , with Dr. Jakub Blech as his deputy . The Gorlice '' Judenrat '' was in place until the regional '' Judenrat '' in Jasło took control . They were instructed to find labor volunteers to end the random kidnappings , and 200 Jewish men were enlisted to work at the German company , HOBAG , in April 1941 . Men were killed while working in the sawmill if their work slowed , a tactic used to instill fear in the Jewish workers . Non-Jewish Poles also working at HOBAG provided the Jewish workers with food in addition to their rations so they would be able to keep up with the demanding work . Until December1 , 1942 , the Jews working at HOBAG received extremely low wages , which was rare for Jewish forced laborers during the war , who were normally unpaid . The workers continued to live in the Gorlice Ghetto along with the rest of the Jewish population , until evacuations began . During mid-August 1942 , around 200 non-HOBAG laborers in the ghetto were collected and sent to the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp , while many more were taken by truck to Stróżówka where they were lined up and shot in a pit in the Garbacz Forest by the Nazis . The HOBAG laborers were exempt from these evacuations of the Gorlice Ghetto , and the workers were instead taken to live in the grounds of the sawmill
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht
HOBAG