The Kielce Ghetto ( pl, getto w Kielcach, german: Ghetto von Kielce) was a
Jewish World War II ghetto created in 1941 by the ''
Schutzstaffel
The ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS; also stylized as ''ᛋᛋ'' with Armanen runes; ; "Protection Squadron") was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe d ...
'' (''SS'') in the Polish city of
Kielce
Kielce (, yi, קעלץ, Keltz) is a city in southern Poland, and the capital of the Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship. In 2021, it had 192,468 inhabitants. The city is in the middle of the Świętokrzyskie Mountains (Holy Cross Mountains), on the bank ...
in the south-western region of the
Second Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, at the time officially known as the Republic of Poland, was a country in Central Europe, Central and Eastern Europe that existed between 1918 and 1939. The state was established on 6 November 1918, before the end of ...
, occupied by German forces from 4 September 1939. Before the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939, Kielce was the capital of the
Kielce Voivodeship
Kielce Voivodeship ( pl, województwo kieleckie) is a former unit of administrative division and the local government in Poland. It was originally formed during Poland's return to independence in the aftermath of World War One, and recreated within ...
. The Germans incorporated the city into ''Distrikt Radom'' of the semi-colonial
General Government
The General Government (german: Generalgouvernement, pl, Generalne Gubernatorstwo, uk, Генеральна губернія), also referred to as the General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region (german: Generalgouvernement für die be ...
territory.
The liquidation of the ghetto took place in August 1942, with over 21,000 victims (men, women and children) deported to their deaths at the
Treblinka extermination camp
Treblinka () was an extermination camp, built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Masovian Voivodeship. The camp ...
,
[Statistical data compiled on the basis o]
"Glossary of 2,077 Jewish towns in Poland"
by ''Virtual Shtetl
The Virtual Shtetl ( pl, Wirtualny Sztetl) is a bilingual Polish-English portal of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, devoted to the Jewish history of Poland.
History
The Virtual Shtetl website was officially launched on June ...
'' Museum of the History of the Polish Jews
POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews ( pl, Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich) is a museum on the site of the former Warsaw Ghetto. The Hebrew word ''Polin'' in the museum's English name means either "Poland" or "rest here" and relates to a ...
(Polish), as well a
"Getta Żydowskie" by ''Gedeon''
(Polish) an
at ARC. and several thousands more shot, face-to-face.
There was a considerable Jewish presence in Kielce. The
Kehilla operated two synagogues, a ''
beth midrash
A ''beth midrash'' ( he, בית מדרש, or ''beis medrash'', ''beit midrash'', pl. ''batei midrash'' "House of Learning") is a hall dedicated for Torah study, often translated as a "study hall." It is distinct from a synagogue (''beth kness ...
'' house of learning, a ''
mikveh
Mikveh or mikvah (, ''mikva'ot'', ''mikvoth'', ''mikvot'', or (Yiddish) ''mikves'', lit., "a collection") is a bath used for the purpose of ritual immersion in Judaism to achieve ritual purity.
Most forms of ritual impurity can be purif ...
'', the
cemetery
A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word ''cemetery'' (from Greek , "sleeping place") implies that the land is specifically designated as a buri ...
with ''
ohalim
Ohel ( he, אוהל; plural: , literally, "tent") is a structure built around a Jewish grave as a sign of prominence of the deceased. cover the graves of some (but not all) Hasidic Rebbes, important rabbis, tzadikim, prominent Jewish community l ...
'', an orphanage, a retirement home, three elementary schools, two high schools, a
Talmud
The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cente ...
ic college and a large
Tarbut
The word Tarbut (תרבות) means "Culture" in Hebrew.
The Tarbut movement was a network of secular, Hebrew-language schools in parts of the former Jewish Pale of Settlement, specifically in Poland, Romania and Lithuania. It operated primarily bet ...
library with 10,000 volumes. There were also numerous organizations and societies including two sports clubs. Nevertheless, the economic crisis of the 1930 prompted many younger Jews to emigrate before the war began, mostly to America.
Ghetto history
On 4 September 1939, the city was bombed by the Luftwaffe and occupied by the German army on the following day.
Kielce was made into a county seat of the newly-formed ''Distrikt Radom'' governed by Dr. Karl Lasch appointed from Berlin on 26 October 1939. A month later, ''
SS-Oberführer''
Fritz Katzmann
Fritz Katzmann, also known as Friedrich Katzmann, (6 May 1906 – 19 September 1957) was a German SS and Police Leader during the Nazi era. He perpetrated genocide in the cities of Kattowitz (today, Katowice), Radom, Lemberg (today, Lviv), Da ...
– a notorious Holocaust perpetrator – took over policing of his district.
As in all Polish cities incorporated into the Nazi German
General Government
The General Government (german: Generalgouvernement, pl, Generalne Gubernatorstwo, uk, Генеральна губернія), also referred to as the General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region (german: Generalgouvernement für die be ...
territory, the new administration ordered the creation of a ''
Judenrat
A ''Judenrat'' (, "Jewish council") was a World War II administrative agency imposed by Nazi Germany on Jewish communities across occupied Europe, principally within the Nazi ghettos. The Germans required Jews to form a ''Judenrat'' in every com ...
'' in Kielce. It was headed by physician and former city counsellor Moshe (Moses) Pelc, fluent in German.
On 1 December 1939 all Jews were ordered to wear a
Star of David
The Star of David (). is a generally recognized symbol of both Jewish identity and Judaism. Its shape is that of a hexagram: the compound of two equilateral triangles.
A derivation of the ''seal of Solomon'', which was used for decorative ...
on their outer garments. At the same time, Jewish–owned factories were confiscated by the
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
, stores and shops along the main thoroughfares liquidated,
and all wealthy houses plundered by the Nazi officials. The Grand Synagogue was emptied and turned into a storehouse with a holding cell.
In January 1940 houses of Jewish prayer were made illegal.
![Bundesarchiv Bild 121-0328, Kielce, jüdische Gepäckträger](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Bundesarchiv_Bild_121-0328%2C_Kielce%2C_j%C3%BCdische_Gep%C3%A4cktr%C3%A4ger.jpg)
Between the onset of war in September 1939 and March 1940, the Jewish population of Kielce expanded from 18,000,
to 25,400 (35% of all residents),
with trains of dispossessed Jews arriving under the escort of ''
Ordnungspolizei
The ''Ordnungspolizei'' (), abbreviated ''Orpo'', meaning "Order Police", were the uniformed police force in Nazi Germany from 1936 to 1945. The Orpo organisation was absorbed into the Nazi monopoly on power after regional police jurisdiction w ...
'' from the
Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany
Following the Invasion of Poland at the beginning of World War II, nearly a quarter of the entire territory of the Second Polish Republic was annexed by Nazi Germany and placed directly under the German civil administration. The rest of Nazi ...
. Pelc and the ''Judenrat'' secured housing for them to the best of ability; soup kitchens were set up. Due to a typhus epidemic which erupted in early 1940, a new clinic opened.
Pelc used his Polish contacts to help Jewish families survive. The general Polish population was not separated from them as of yet. Also, the ''Judenrat'' received material help from the
Kraków
Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...
branch of the Jewish self-help organizations JSS and
JDC.
However, Pelc found himself unable to deal with the German ransom demands, and in August 1940 proposed that the industrialist Herman Lewi (Hermann Levy) become his successor.
Pelc was dismissed, and a year later murdered on suspicion of "collaborating" with the Poles.
Levy resumed his duties and imposed a heavier tax burden on the community.
In October 1940 , age 36, was appointed mayor (''Stadthauptmann'') of Kielce. Drechsel had already successfully ghettoised 12,000 Jews in the occupied city of
Piotrków Trybunalski
Piotrków Trybunalski (; also known by #Etymology, alternative names), often simplified to Piotrków, is a city in central Poland with 71,252 inhabitants (2021). It is the second-largest city situated in the Łódź Voivodeship. Previously, it wa ...
, distance.
![Getto kieleckie](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Getto_kieleckie.png)
On 31 March 1941, ''Reichsamtsleiter'' Lasch ordered the creation of the Kielce Ghetto surrounded by high fences, barbed wire, and guards. Drechsel brought in Police Battalion 305 to help out. The gentile Poles were ordered to vacate the area and the Jews were given one week to relocate. The ghetto was split in two, along Warszawska Street (Nowowarszawska) with the Silnica River ''
(pl)'' running through it.
The so-called large ghetto was set up between the streets of Orla, Piotrkowska, Pocieszka, and Warszawska to the east, and the smaller ghetto between Warszawska on the west, and the streets of Bodzentyńska, St. Wojciech, and the St. Wojciech square. The ghetto gates were closed on 5 April 1941; the
Jewish Ghetto Police
The Jewish Ghetto Police or Jewish Police Service (german: Jüdische Ghetto-Polizei or ''Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst''), also called the Jewish Police by Jews, were auxiliary police units organized within the Nazi ghettos by local ''Judenrat'' ( ...
was formed with 85 members and ordered to guard it.
Meanwhile, further expulsions elsewhere and deportations to Kielce continued until August 1942 at which time there were 27,000 prisoners crammed in the ghetto. Trains with Jewish families arrived from the entire
Kielce Voivodeship
Kielce Voivodeship ( pl, województwo kieleckie) is a former unit of administrative division and the local government in Poland. It was originally formed during Poland's return to independence in the aftermath of World War One, and recreated within ...
, and also from Vienna,
Poznań
Poznań () is a city on the River Warta in west-central Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business centre, and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John ...
, and
Łódź
Łódź, also rendered in English as Lodz, is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of canti ...
.
The severe overcrowding, rampant hunger, and outbreaks of epidemic typhus took the lives of 4,000 people before mid-1942.
Several forced-labour enterprises were set up in the city by the
SS, including
Hasag
HASAG (also known as Hugo Schneider AG, or by its original name in german: Hugo Schneider Aktiengesellschaft Metallwarenfabrik) was a German metal goods manufacturer founded in 1863. Based in Leipzig, it grew from a small business making lamps ...
Granat Werke with 400–500 Jews manufacturing munition, as well as the Ludwigshütte (prewar
Ludwików foundry) with 200–300 slave labourers; the Henryków woodworking plant, and various workshops for German war economy. The Jews who worked in these factories were almost the only ones who survived the ghetto's liquidation, for two more years.
The Jewish clandestine resistance, under the leadership of Dawid Barwiner (Bachwiener) and Gerszon Lewkowicz, attempted to procure weapons, but they were largely unsuccessful. The secret production of arms and ammunition for the planned uprising failed abruptly when the chief of Jewish police, Wahan Spiegl (Spiegel), informed the Gestapo on the goings-on in the German metal shops.
Murder operations
![Starowarszawska1942](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Starowarszawska1942.jpg)
The
fate of ghettoised Jews across occupied Poland was sealed at
Wannsee
Wannsee () is a locality in the southwestern Berlin borough of Steglitz-Zehlendorf, Germany. It is the westernmost locality of Berlin. In the quarter there are two lakes, the larger ''Großer Wannsee'' (Greater Wannsee, "See" means lake) and the ...
in early 1942, when the
Final Solution
The Final Solution (german: die Endlösung, ) or the Final Solution to the Jewish Question (german: Endlösung der Judenfrage, ) was a Nazi plan for the genocide of individuals they defined as Jews during World War II. The "Final Solution to th ...
was set in motion. The Kielce Ghetto was eradicated in three operations in the course of only five days as part of
Operation Reinhard
or ''Einsatz Reinhard''
, location = Occupied Poland
, date = October 1941 – November 1943
, incident_type = Mass deportations to extermination camps
, perpetrators = Odilo Globočnik, Hermann Höfle, Richard Thomalla, Erwin L ...
, which marked the deadliest phase of
the Holocaust in occupied Poland
The Holocaust in Poland was part of the European-wide Holocaust organized by Nazi Germany and took place in German-occupied Poland. During the genocide, three million Polish Jews were murdered, half of all Jews murdered during the Holocaust.
...
. The first ghetto liquidation action took place on 20 August 1942.
During
roundups, all Jews unable to move were shot on the spot including the sick, the elderly, and the disabled. Around 6,000–7,000, mostly women and children, were herded onto Okrzei Street and transported to
Treblinka extermination camp
Treblinka () was an extermination camp, built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Masovian Voivodeship. The camp ...
. Within four days, 1,200 people including patients of the Jewish hospital were shot face-to-face and 20,000–21,000 Jews were led into waiting
Holocaust trains
Holocaust trains were railway transports run by the ''Deutsche Reichsbahn'' national railway system under the control of Nazi Germany and its allies, for the purpose of forcible deportation of the Jews, as well as other victims of the Holocaus ...
, sent to Treblinka, and murdered in the gas chambers. By the end of 24 August 1942, there were only 2,000 people left in the ghetto.
All surviving Jewish skilled workers were lodged in
the labour camp at Stolarska and Jasna Street ''
(pl)'' within the small ghetto, including members of the ''Judenrat'', Levy with his family,
and the Jewish policemen.
The Holocaust survivor, Adam Helfand, forced along with a group of Jewish men to collect corpses of prisoners massacred during the ghetto liquidation, took part in the digging of mass graves at the Jewish cemetery. Helfand remembered stripping the bodies naked before burial on German orders and witnessed the terrorized Jews yanking gold teeth from the mouths of cadavers on pain of death.
The labour camp functioned for several more months, supplying slave labour to German factories that were still running. In May 1943, some Jewish prisoners from Kielce were taken to forced-labour camps in
Starachowice,
Skarżysko-Kamienna
Skarżysko-Kamienna is a city in northern Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship in south-central Poland by Kamienna river, to the north of Świętokrzyskie Mountains; one of the voivodship's major cities. Prior to 1928, it bore the name of ''Kamienna''; i ...
,
Pionki
Pionki is a town in Radom County, Masovian Voivodeship, central Poland with 18 846 inhabitants (2016). Surrounded by the ''Kozienice'' Wilderness, Pionki is located in northern part of historic province of Lesser Poland, from Radom, and from ...
, and
Bliżyn
Bliżyn is a village in Skarżysko County, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, in south-central Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Bliżyn. It lies on the Kamienna river and Bliżyn Reservoir, approximately wes ...
.
On 23 May 1943, the German police collected 45 Jewish children who had stayed behind at the liquidated camp. They were
brought to the Pakosz Cemetery and shot. Their ages ranged from 15 months to 15 years. In September 1943, as the Soviet front advanced westward, what remained of the Kielce
slave labour facilities was gradually abandoned. The remaining skilled workers were sent to the
Auschwitz
Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...
complex and further to
Buchenwald
Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or su ...
, including future Canadian artist
Gershon Iskowitz
Gershon Iskowitz (1919 – January 26, 1988) was a Canadian artist of Jewish background originally from Poland. Iskowitz was a Holocaust survivor of the Kielce Ghetto, who was liberated at Buchenwald. The circumstances of his early life—the ...
.
The Soviet Red Army rolled into Kielce on 15 January 1945.
The once-vibrant Jewish community that existed in Kielce since the mid-1800s was all but wiped out.
![Ohel Mordechaja Kuzmirera](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Ohel_Mordechaja_Kuzmirera.jpg)
During the ghetto liquidation, there were a number of Jewish escapes, as well as
rescue attempts by local Polish gentiles. Several Jews who escaped the ghetto were sheltered by Stefan Sawa in the village Zagórze near
Daleszyce
Daleszyce is a town in Kielce County, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, Poland, with 2,830 inhabitants as of December 2021. It became a town at the start of 2007. Daleszyce lies among the hills of the Malopolska Upland, in the historic province of Le ...
. Polish
Home Army
The Home Army ( pl, Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK; ) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) esta ...
soldiers of the "Wybraniecki" unit, commanded by ("Barabasz"), murdered the hiding Jews and Sawa. Six Jewish victims are known by name, but more than ten were probably murdered. Sawa was posthumously awarded a
Righteous Among the Nations
Righteous Among the Nations ( he, חֲסִידֵי אֻמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם, ; "righteous (plural) of the world's nations") is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to sav ...
medal. Other righteous who helped Kielce Ghetto's Jews include
Bolesław Idzikowski,
and the Śliwiński family.
Post war
Kielce was the site of the
Kielce pogrom
The Kielce pogrom was an outbreak of violence toward the Jewish community centre's gathering of refugees in the city of Kielce, Poland on 4 July 1946 by Polish soldiers, police officers, and civilians[Polish Jews
The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the lo ...]
(17–21 of whom remain unidentified) and 2 ethnic Poles were murdered,
including 11 fatally shot with military assault rifles and 11 more stabbed with bayonets, indicating direct involvement of the Stalinist troops (according to the official findings of the
Institute of National Remembrance
The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation ( pl, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej – Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, abbreviated IPN) is a Polish state resea ...
).
In 2007 a monument commemorating the liquidation of the ghetto and the destruction of the city's Jewish community was unveiled in Kielce. A menorah-shaped monument, half-sunk in the ground, was designed by artist
Marek Cecula who is also a Kielce-born Holocaust survivor.
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
Jewish ghettos in Nazi-occupied Poland