On September 14th, 1939, during the German Blitzkrieg marking the beginning of World War 2, German troops entered the town, but withdrew ten days later, and were replaced with a Russian garrison. In October, the Germans returned and embarked on a reign of terror, with the help of nationalist Ukrainian collaborators. In response, an organized partisan force formed in Hrubieszow, which acted against the Germans. The city was finally liberated in 1944 and incorporated into communist Poland until the fall of the USSR, in the 1980s. After the war, the remaining Ukrainian residents of Hrubieszow were deported to the USSR, and Hrubieszow was awarded the Grunwald Cross (2nd Class) for Heroism for its resistance activity.
The city currently has about 12,000 residents. Not one of them is a Jew.