History of Jewish Kielce
Personal History
You can submit information on family members who have been killed during the Nazi occupation or the immediate aftermath, as well as gain information that has been previously submitted to Yad Vashem.
Basic Information on Kielce
To see where Kielce is located and get basic information about this Jewish community, go to Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute.
The Sefer Kielce (Book of Kielce)
The Sefer Kielce (Book of Kielce) provides a comprehensive history of the Jewish Community of Kielce, from its founding until its destruction. This book also includes portraits of some of the leaders, as well as, some of the central characters of the community, testimony, sketches and excerpts from diaries. There is also a chapter related to the pogrom in Kielce of July, 4, 1946.
Read the original Hebrew/Yiddish publication of the monumental Sefer Kielce courtesy of the New York Public Library. Toldot Kehilat Kielce. Miyom Hivsuduh V'ad Churbanah. (Book of Kielce. History of the Community of Kielce. From Its Founding Until Its Destruction) Edited by: Pinchas Cytron, Tel Aviv, 1957.
The Martyrdom and Extermination of the Jews in Kielce During WW II (2005)
In February 1945 there were approximately only 200 Jews from Kielce, who managed to survive The Holocaust. Professor Krzysztof Urbanski has painstaking written a highly detailed and comprehensively researched book The Martyrdom and Extermination of the Jews in Kielce During WW II (PDF).
This translation of The Martyrdom and Extermination of the Jews in Kielce During World War II is published through the generous support of Mr. Yaacov Kotlicki in memory of his family members who lived in Kielce and were murdered in the Holocaust. and in memory and honor of his parents.
Letters from the Ghetto
This book, a collection of letters mailed from the Kielce Ghetto during the German occupation, provides priceless documents and adds a new dimension to our understanding of these most tragic of times. These letters were sent by Mr. Yaacov Kotlicki's 17 year old aunt, Hanka Goldszajd (murdered in Treblinka) to his parents who escaped to Russia.
Documentation Efforts
Project to document post-war Jewish life (23 August 2006)
The Jewish Historical Institute (JHI) in Warsaw, Poland, under the direction of Professor Feliks Tych, has begun a new project, The Aftermath of the Holocaust in Poland, 1944-2005.
In this project a team of scholars, historians, and journalists will systematically document Jewish life in Poland since the end of the Second World War, including life under Communism and the transition to democracy. The project will be headed by Professor Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska, Director of Jewish Studies at the Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin. This latest venture is undertaken in the spirit of a similar project spearheaded by Emanuel Ringelblum (1900-1944) commonly known as Oneg Shabas, which covered the period 1939-1943. Ringelblum also gathered an interdisciplinary team which systematically documented life in the Warsaw ghetto.
According to the JHI, the current research project will employ a stringent methodology, ensuring historical accuracy. An international body of scholars will review results prior to publication. Scholars from universities in Warsaw, Lublin, Lodz, the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, and the Polish Academy of Sciences will participate in research teams. Publication of the final document, in both English and Polish, is expected in late 2007 or early 2008.
Jewish Historical Institute: www.jewishinstitute.org.pl
Historical Perspectives & Eyewitness Accounts
1. Excerpt From the writings of Raphael Blumenfeld
A Jewish survivor from Kielce, also an eyewitness to the pogrom and the hatred leading up to it.
This city is known in infamy for the depth of its hatred for Jews throughout the generations. In the annals of Poland it is regarded as a holy Catholic city in which, until the Polish revolt in 1863, it was forbidden for Jews to settle and reside in the town. Jews were able to enter the city during the day for purposes of trade and economic activity, but it was forbidden for them to stay overnight in this "holy" city lest they contaminate its holiness. The Jews consequently were concentrated in the small towns around the city like Hentzin or Hamailnik in which glorious Jewish communities existed going back to medieval times.
From the year 1863, after the failure of the Poles' revolt against the Russian Czarist rule, Jews from the small towns around began to establish a place for themselves in terms both of residence in the city and of building a communal life in Kielce. The community developed quickly and contributed much to the city's economic and industrial life by developing the quarries and the natural resources in the town's vicinity as well as small industry such as shoe and leather manufacturing. The Jews were among the pioneers of industrialization and craftsmanship in the city, but all this did not discourage the Poles from victimizing them whenever possible.
The influence of the anti-Semitic national party, N.D., upon the Polish inhabitants of Kielce was decisive, as its leaders in the city occupied various positions in the Catholic clergy. So long as the Russian oppression remained intact, they had to be satisfied with anti-Jewish propaganda and with occasional acts causing disturbance to Jews on their own holidays, in particular on their Easter festival. But with the end of World War I, upon receiving independence after a century-and-a-half of Russian rule, the anti-Semitic Poles on this city immediately demonstrated their power against the despised Jews as they initiated a murderous pogrom on November 11, 1918, on the very day on which they won their independence. In this pogrom more than ten Jews were killed and several hundred were wounded, and the damages in the wake of the booty and plunder of Jewish property accompanying the pogrom could be measured in millions of zloti.
This pogrom was engraved as an abomination in the memory of the Jewish population of Kielce. But even with all these incidents, the Jewish community in the city increased and surmounted all the difficulties and the pogroms which Poles tried once again to foment against the Jews of Kielce during the 1930's. They would cause damage to Jewish stores and trade by throwing stink bombs and placing groups of Polish students near Jewish stores, all this with the encouragement of the authorities. Additional encouragement was provided by the Polish prime-minister, General Skladkibski, who in his speech in the Polish parliament announced that "actions threatening the lives of Jews are forbidden, but economic destruction uvsham (quite the contrary)."
« Back to top2. Kielce
Translated by Mark Froimowitz
In this emotionally charged narration, the writer relates the Jewish characteristic of Kielce and how it was erased by the Nazis and completed after the war by the Poles of Kielce.
- M. Bekier
Kielce was a large Jewish center where, before the war, there lived 22,000 Jews. But the economic and cultural position that Jews occupied here far exceeded their number. The picture of Kielce was Jewish. The long street beginning at the railroad station and running till far past the city center and all of the cross streets were thickly settled with Jews and occupied by Jewish stores. The signs over the stores, the houses themselves, the people on the streets - Jews and Jewishness. Though the pre-war Polish powers compelled the Jewish manufacturers to remove Jewish workers and to replace them with Polish ones, the Kielce industries remained Jewish and Kielce was dominated by the Jewish family Zagiski, the owner of the large lime kilns that supplied lime for all of Poland.
Kielce did not have those deep traditions of the old Jewish cities like Lublin or Krakow. She was the youngest Jewish community in Poland. Until the Polish “rebellion” in the year 1863, there was not a single Jew in Kielce. After the removal of the prohibition for Jews to live there, Jewish life was established in the course of a short time, which from that time on, increased continuously until the great catastrophe of 1939.
Because of her youth, Kielce did not have famous Yeshivas and Talmud Torahs. Here, Jewish life developed more under the influence of trends toward Polish culture. Later on, the Jewish secular culture did not hold back its great ambitions. However, Kielce was a city with a Jewish heart. As the Jews in Warsaw and other cities, the Kielce Jews had the same readiness to sacrifice, the same tie to Jewish qualities and ways. On the other hand, the wallets of Kielce Jews were more open than in other cities. As if they wanted with charity and generosity to atone for their lack of a Torah tradition.
Among the Kielce Jewish citizens, the largest influence was Zionism. But other Jewish political parties also had an honest share here. And just as in the other cities, the Kielce Jews believed that they were building an eternal place, and in that eternal place would play out all Jewish salvation. They believed, through their hard work, they could build a Jewish state in the land of Israel, as well as, shape the socialist revolution in Kielce. They would free themselves and others.
Now I have come to Kielce and discovered all that the Jews here have created. But of the Jews themselves, I found only a few. Literally, only a few Jews. I did not find them in their homes, but only accidentally, the way that one meets people in a bus depot.
It was, beginning in 1940, when in Kielce there were 28,000 Jews. After the take over of Poland by the Germans, the Jewish wandering began. Better said, the Jewish running. Several thousands Jews fled Kielce. They were running to the Soviet side, toward Lemberg. Later, many of them came back in order “to die in their own bed”. Jews also came from nearby towns. Two thousand Jews came from Lodz and from the Lodz province. On the eve of Passover 1941, 28,000 Jews were locked in the ghetto. Compared with other cities, the Kielce ghetto was large enough. The local Polish leaders asked the Germans to designate a large ghetto since overcrowding causes the outbreak of epidemics from which everyone suffers, including the Polish population. The Germans accommodated the request of the Polish city fathers. However, they later realized that what the Polish leaders want is against the politics of the Germans. They, the Germans, need epidemics and the largest possible gas chambers. They cut Warsaw street off from the ghetto and the crowding made epidemics a natural annihilation.
In the ghetto, however, a much worse epidemic broke out, degeneracy. An assimilated Jew, Herman Levi informs on the president of the Jewish Council, Dr. Moshe Pelz, who did all things possible to lighten the lives of the Jews in the ghetto, that he was working against the German power. Dr. Pelz was sent to Oswiecim (Auschwitz) where he died in the gas chamber. Herman Levy then took over the leadership of the Jewish Council. Nevertheless, Levy, after his betrayal, was sent to the Oswiecim gas chambers in November 1942.
The youth in the ghetto prepared an underground movement. However, the same dark process repeated itself as in all other Polish cities. Against the Jews were not only the Germans. The Jews were completely alone. The Polish organizations received help from abroad. They had weapons, but they refused contact with Jews. The ghetto existed without any hope of any help from the outside world.
The 20th August 1942 began the end of all hope in the ghetto. The German “Zondercommando” with the Ukrainian, Lithuanian, and Polish helpers took over the ghetto, and within several days, they liquidate the Kielce Jewish community. On average, six thousand Jews a day were deported. The command was to kill more Jews on the spot. In the time of the “resettlement”, the streets, the houses, and the bunkers were bathed with Jewish blood. Thousands of dead Jews were scattered in the streets. A wild slaughter went on for a week. Every second day, approximately 6000 Jews were rounded up - on the 20th, the 22nd and the 24th of August. At the end, there remained not more than 2,100 Jews in the ghetto. Among them, 45 children from the Jewish police, the doctors, and the Jewish Council.
After the final transport and on site executions, 1500 Jews were confined to the Kielce work camp [translator's note: There was a Hasag slave labor camp in Kielce]. With their own hands, the German murderers gathered together the plunder. Here the Jews would live until their work ended. Left were only the young and strong. They now began to prepare themselves intensively for a revolt. The organizers were David Bachwiener, Gershon Leftkowich and the younger Chmielevski. They were able to manufacture weapons by themselves . David Bachwiener made grenades. Unfortunately, a provocateur, Yahan Spiegel, the chief of the Jewish police, infiltrated the movement. Yahan Spiegel believed that, by betraying the organization, he would win life for himself and his family. He betrayed the organization to the Gestapo and all were executed. Later when the Germans liquidated the work camp, they send Spiegel to Oswiecim. There he was killed by two religious Jewish boys, the brothers Shlomo and Yehuda Perl from Kielce.
The Jewish community of Kielce no longer existed. After the war, a few Kielce Jews who saved themselves in Russia returned. The remainder survived the German camps. 400 Kielce Jews came home and wanted to start anew, as was done 80 years ago. But, the Polish population was reluctant to allow Jews to return to Kielce. The triumph of the German murder of the Jews was also their triumph and they would not allow it to be pulled from their hands. This culminated in a pogrom against Jews in 1946.
The current representative of the Jews in Kielce, Isadore Cohen led me to the house where most of the victims fell. He told me that the tactics of the Poles were well thought out, as the pogrom was planned out before hand. The pogrom was carried out through the unified power of all of the Polish strata. They killed the Jews leisurely in cold blood, as they were sure that no one would interfere with their work. Hoodlums from their security forces also participated in the pogrom.
The central power liquidated the pogrom. About ten pogrom perpetrators were shot. And even several officers of the security forces were punished for their “slow interventions” at the time of the pogrom. However, the father of the pogrom, Bishop Hlond remained in Kielce.
As a result, Jews made every effort to leave Kielce and Poland. They have had enough, of Kielce and this land, as all that was dearest was forever crushed and destroyed.
Approximately 20 Jews remained in Kielce. Jews that certainly could not be recognized as Jews on the street. Where did these Jews live? No one knew. When I came to Kielce, a policeman on the street informed me that, if I was looking for Jews, they must live near the security forces, because they were afraid to live just anywhere in the city. And indeed, in a house near the police station, I found three apartments where Jews lived. In the small rooms were a bed with the table and oven together. There, in the evening, I had a meeting with the whole Jewish population of Kielce. I was not able to determine what held this score of Jews here. From one woman, I heard that she was there temporarily.
She was battling a Polish woman about her sister's child whom the Polish woman would not return. Several boys occupied themselves with selling Jewish houses. One young man declared to me that, in any case, the Jews have lost the war, so what difference does it make how one's few years end. Sitting here were a score of Jews, as in a train station. But these “passengers” were homeless as to where to go.
Characteristic of the Kielce Poles after the war, was to destroy what the Germans had not yet destroyed. The Germans had desecrated the Kielce cemetery. They had made it into an execution place. They had torn down parts of the fence with Jewish gravestones. After the German retreat, Polish hooligans took to the fence, and in the course of several days, completely wrecked it. Now the Jews had to build a new fence and erect a memorial for the murdered Jews during the German occupation and the pogrom.
The large beautiful synagogue that once existed, was converted by the Germans to a warehouse in which was found the bedding of the Jews after the “resettlement”. The entire huge building was filled with Jewish pillows and comforters. After liberation, the synagogue was converted by the Poles to a toilet for peasants who came to the large synagogue plaza with their wagons on market day. When I, with Isadore Cohen, went together to look at the synagogue, we found there a group of Polish schoolchildren who amused themselves by throwing stones at the remaining panes of glass in the windows.
The second synagogue in Kielce – Zagiski's synagogue – was converted to an iron warehouse.
All that happened in Kielce after liberation was a concerted effort to remove every trace of Jewish life in Kielce. The pogrom in Kielce was a continuation of the liquidation of the remainder of the once large Jewish community. Approximately 500 Jews returned to Kielce and the murderers attempted to destroy the surviving remnant. With that ended the history of Jewish existence in that city.
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