Zbylitowska Góra is a

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

in the administrative district of Gmina Tarnów, within

Tarnów County __NOTOC__ Tarnów County () is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, southern Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms passed in 199 ...

Lesser Poland Voivodeship Lesser Poland Voivodeship ( ) is a voivodeships of Poland, voivodeship in southern Poland. It has an area of , and a population of 3,404,863 (2019). Its capital and largest city is Kraków. The province's name recalls the traditional name of a h ...

, in southern Poland. It lies approximately south-west of

Tarnów Tarnów () is a city in southeastern Poland with 105,922 inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of 269,000 inhabitants. The city is situated in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship. It is a major rail junction, located on the strategic east– ...

and east of the regional capital

Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...

. It is the site of a mass grave from World War II, marked by a monument.

World War II history

During the

invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign, Polish Campaign, and Polish Defensive War of 1939 (1 September – 6 October 1939), was a joint attack on the Second Polish Republic, Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany, the Slovak R ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the German army took over the area on 7 September 1939. In nearby Tarnów, some 40

synagogue A synagogue, also called a shul or a temple, is a place of worship for Jews and Samaritans. It is a place for prayer (the main sanctuary and sometimes smaller chapels) where Jews attend religious services or special ceremonies such as wed ...

s and Jewish prayer houses were blown up and burned down before December. In March 1941 the Tarnów Ghetto was set up by the Nazis. Some 40,000 Jews were imprisoned there.

Buczyna woods

From June 1942 until 1943, during the

Final Solution The Final Solution or the Final Solution to the Jewish Question was a plan orchestrated by Nazi Germany during World War II for the genocide of individuals they defined as Jews. The "Final Solution to the Jewish question" was the official ...

, the Nazi Germans used the Buczyna forest in Zbylitowska Góra as a remote mass execution site. Approximately 10,000 people were murdered there and buried in pits. The executions were carried out usually from 5 a.m. till 1 p.m. The largest mass shooting action took place around 11 June 1942. The massacre took the lives of 6,000 Jewish men, women and children from the Tarnów Ghetto, including 800 children from the orphanage, who were killed in the pits with hand grenades. It is reported that small children who were not killed by gunfire or initial blasts were swung by their ankles into nearby rocks to ensure there would be no survivors. On top of the Jewish victims, there were 2,000 Christian Poles murdered at Zbylitowska Góra. The Buczyna forest is the place of Jewish martyrology and the focus of ongoing archaeological research using non-invasive radar technology.

Mass graves of Zbylitowska Góra

File:Las Buczyna. Zbylitowska Góra. Miejsce pamięci narodowej (1).jpg, File:Las Buczyna. Zbylitowska Góra. Miejsce pamięci narodowej (2).jpg, File:Memorial at Mass Grave at Zbylitowska Gora.jpg, File:Mass Grave at Zbylitowska Gora.jpg, File:Las Buczyna. Zbylitowska Góra. Miejsce pamięci narodowej (7).jpg,

References

External links

Zbylitowska Góra
on Virtual Shtetl.
Zbylitowska.pl
Zbylitowska Góra - current local information. {{Authority control Villages in Tarnów County Holocaust locations in Poland