Radom Ghetto
Encyclopedia
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
in the city of Radom
Radom
Radom is a city in central Poland with 223,397 inhabitants . It is located on the Mleczna River in the Masovian Voivodeship , having previously been the capital of Radom Voivodeship ; 100 km south of Poland's capital, Warsaw.It is home to the biennial Radom Air Show, the largest and...
in occupied Poland, for the purpose of persecution and exploitation of the local Polish Jews
History of the Jews in Poland
The history of the Jews in Poland dates back over a millennium. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jewish community in the world. Poland was the centre of Jewish culture thanks to a long period of statutory religious tolerance and social autonomy. This ended with the...
. Liquidation of the ghetto began in August 1942 and ended in July 1944, with approximately 30,000–32,000 victims sent to their deaths in cattle trucks at the Treblinka extermination camp
Treblinka extermination camp
Treblinka was a Nazi extermination camp in occupied Poland during World War II near the village of Treblinka in the modern-day Masovian Voivodeship of Poland. The camp, which was constructed as part of Operation Reinhard, operated between and ,. During this time, approximately 850,000 men, women...
.
Background
The town of Radom was overrun by the Germans on September 8, 1939 during the Invasion of Poland. At that time the population of Radom was 81,000, out of which 25,000 were Jews. Many Jews were pressed into forced laborForced labor in Germany during World War II
The use of forced labour in Nazi Germany and throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II took place on an unprecedented scale. It was a vital part of the German economic exploitation of conquered territories. It also contributed to the mass extermination of populations in German-occupied...
, one of their first tasks being the rebuilding the local arms factory, which would serve as the major local employer throughout the war. The Germans also forced the Jews to pay contributions, and seized their property. Around September–October 1939 the Radom Synagogue was desecrated by the Nazis and its furnishings destroyed. A Judenrat
Judenrat
Judenräte were administrative bodies during the Second World War that the Germans required Jews to form in the German occupied territory of Poland, and later in the occupied territories of the Soviet Union It is the overall term for the enforcement bodies established by the Nazi occupiers to...
was established in Radom around December 1939 to January 1940 and played a major role as the intermediary between the Germans and the local Jewish community. Around late 1940 and early 1941 approximately 10,000 Jews were deported to other communities, and in turn, Radom received Jews deported from other settlements, including expellees from Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
. In the spring of 1941 there were about 32,000 Jews in Radom.
The Ghetto
An order to create the ghetto in Radom was issued by the German Governor-GeneralGeneral Government
The General Government was an area of Second Republic of Poland under Nazi German rule during World War II; designated as a separate region of the Third Reich between 1939–1945...
Hans Frank
Hans Frank
Hans Michael Frank was a German lawyer who worked for the Nazi party during the 1920s and 1930s and later became a high-ranking official in Nazi Germany...
in March 1941. At the same time a Jewish Ghetto Police
Jewish Ghetto Police
Jewish Ghetto Police , also known as the Jewish Police Service and referred to by the Jews as the Jewish Police, were the auxiliary police units organized in the Jewish ghettos of Europe by local Judenrat councils under orders of occupying German Nazis.Members of the did not have official...
force was created in Radom. The local Jews were given ten days in which to move into the areas allocated for the ghetto. The ghetto's gates were closed by April 7. About 33,000 local Polish Jews were gathered there. Most of the ghetto was not walled; the barriers were formed by buildings themselves, and the street exits were guarded by Jewish and Polish police
Blue Police
The Blue Police, more correctly translated as The Navy-Blue Police was the popular name of the collaborationist police in the German occupied area of the Second Polish Republic, known as General Government during the Second World War...
. Like in some other towns, the ghetto was split in two. The "large ghetto" was set up at Wałowa street in Śródmieście District and the "small ghetto" at Glinice District.
As with many other ghettos, starvation was not uncommon, as German-allotted rations for a person in the ghetto were 100 grams (3.5 oz) of bread per day. Nonetheless the conditions in the Radom Ghetto were on average better than in many other contemporary ghettos.
In the first months of 1942 the Germans carried out several actions, arresting or summarily executing various leaders of the Jewish community; this severely weakened the Judenrat. The Germans began to liquidate the Radom Ghetto in earnest, starting in August 1942 as part of Operation Reinhard
Operation Reinhard
Operation Reinhard was the code name given to the Nazi plan to murder Polish Jews in the General Government, and marked the most deadly phase of the Holocaust, the use of extermination camps...
. The first large deportation emptied the smaller Glinice ghetto. Later that month many Jews from the remaining larger ghetto were deported as well; hundreds were killed during the process. By the end of August approximately 2,000 Jews remained in Radom. The deported Jews were sent to extermination camps (primarily Treblinka and Auschwitz). The remnants of the Radom ghetto were turned into a temporary labor camp.
The last Radom Jews were evicted in June 1944, when on June 26 the last inhabitants were deported to Auschwitz. Only a few hundred Jews from Radom survived the war.
Further reading
- Sebastian Piątkowski, "Radom - zarys dziejów miasta", Radom 2000, ISBN 83-914912-0-X.
- Sebastian Piątkowski "Dni życia, dni śmierci. Ludność żydowska w Radomiu w latach 1918 - 1950", Naczelna Dyrekcja Archiwów Państwowych, Warszawa 2006, ISBN 83-89115-31-X