Kielce cemetery massacre

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Kielce Jewish Cemetery (2008)

The Kielce Cemetery Massacre describes the murder of 45 Jewish children between the ages of 15 months and 15 years, carried out by units of the German Ordnungspolizei on May 23, 1943 in the Kielce Jewish Cemetery . These children had previously survived the liquidation of the Kielce ghetto .

prehistory

When the Germans marched in on September 4, 1939, around 24,000 Jews lived in Kielce. Immediately afterwards, numerous racist steps were taken - expropriations, forced labor , hostage-taking, torture, murder. The chairman of the Judenrat , Moses Pelc, was deported immediately because he refused to obey orders from the SS . A ghetto was established in May 1941 and by the end of the year 27,000 Jews lived there. Men who were fit for work were forced to work in quarries. The inhabitants of the ghetto suffered from hunger, cold and typhus. Around 6,000 Jews were killed between April 1941 and August 1942.

Liquidation began on August 20, 1942. The sick and the children from the Jewish orphanage had already been murdered. 20,000 to 21,000 Jewish women, men and children were put in cattle wagons and deported to the Treblinka extermination camp . About 500 Jews managed to escape. Four days later there were only 2,000 young, healthy Jews in Kielce, including members of the Judenrat and some Jewish police officers. They were housed in a camp for forced laborers on Stolarska / Jasna in the small ghetto. Most of those who remained had not yet been deported to one of the extermination camps because, as forced laborers, they were indispensable for operations that were important to the war effort.

In May 1943 almost all Jews from Kielce were transferred to other labor camps in Starachowice , Skarżysko-Kamienna , Pionki and Bliżyn . The 45 children were then the only residents of the ghetto. They were taken to the cemetery and shot.

Commemoration

Memorial to the 45 murdered children of Kielce (2010)

A memorial for the 45 murdered children was erected in the Jewish cemetery in Kielce.

See also

Web links

Commons : Kielce Jewish Cemetery  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Theodor Joseph: Kielce - a shame for Poland , Jüdische Rundschau , December 4, 2015.
  2. ↑ PAP: 70 rocznica zamordowania 45 dzieci żydowskich w Kielcach ( Polish ) Portal historyczny Dzieje.pl . Polska Agencja Prasowa. May 23, 2013.
  3. ↑ Kielce . In: Virtual Shtetl . Museum of the History of Polish Jews . 2009-2015. Archived from the original on August 14, 2016.