Haapalah / Aliyah Bet

Jewish Gen.org cites: "The camp in Kelbasin was the most horrific of these "collection camps" in which tens of thousands Soviet prisoners of war had previously been interned and starved and tortured to death."
The Kelbasin Camp had been used as a camp for Russian POWs captured by the Germans.
The Russian prisoners were made to live in underground dwellings called Zimlanki, which they had been forced to dig out.
Most of the Russian prisoners in the Kelbasin Camp died, the remainder were transported to Germany.

On November 2, 1942, the Jews of the communities of the Bialystok region were expelled from the homes by the Germans, and sent to the death camps, via collection camps, which extermination camps, without crematoria and forced labor.
The Kelbasin Camp was one of these collection camps, Along with a transition camp near Volkovysk, to which, Jews from neighboring towns of Volpa, were deported, before being sent to Treblinka.
Jewish Gen.org cites "The Jews of Krynki were expelled to the Kelbasin camp together with the Jews of Brestovitz, a part of the mass of twenty-eight thousand Jewish victims originating from the Jewish towns in the area: Adelsk, Azher, Amdur, Ostrin, Dubrava, Druzgenik, Holnika, Yanova, Luna-Volya, Novy-Dovar, Sapotzkin, Sakolka, Suchavalya, Sidra, Skidel, Paretzch, Kaminka, Koritzhin, Kuznitza, Rotnitza and a remnant of the Grodno Ghetto. Only a few hundred able-bodied persons were kept for a short time in their previous communities (including Krynki) interned in work camps, which were still necessary for the Nazi war machine."
The Kelbasin Camp consisted of six blocks, each having 14 underground barracks, each barrack housing uo to 500 persons.
ShtetLinks cites: "The underground barracks were assigned by town, according to the number of Jews from each town. The Jews of Lunna, numbering approximately 1600, were forced into 3 barracks within the Krynki section shown in the attached sketch of Kelbasin camp. Each village had an oven of sorts for cooking within the camp kitchen which was located outside the huts. The food products that the Jews had brought with them from their towns were collected and used in the kitchen. The Germans also provided a small portion of soup per person with a few unpeeled potatoes (usually frozen or rotten) or scraps of rotten cauliflower cooked in water and 100-150 grams of bread per day."

Eliezer Eisenshmidt worked in the Sonderkommando in the Kelbasin Transit Camp.

During November and December, 1942, the Jewish prisoners were sent, on six separate transports from the Bialystok Ghettos and the Kelbasin Transit Camp, to their deaths, at Treblinka and Auschwitz concentration camps.
On December 5, 1942, the Jews of Lunna-Wola were transported from the Kelbasin Transit Camp.
At the end of December, 1942, the Germans liquidated the Kelbasin Transit Camp.