Kielce Ghetto

Kielce Ghetto
Kielce Synagogue during the interwar period
Kielce location during the Holocaust in Poland
Location	Kielce, German-occupied Poland
Incident type	Imprisonment, forced labor, starvation, mass killing
Organizations	Schutzstaffel (SS)
Camp	Treblinka (see map)
Victims	25,000 ghettoized Jews,

The Kielce Ghetto (Polish: getto w Kielcach, German: Ghetto von Kielce) was a Jewish World War II ghetto created in 1941 by the Schutzstaffel (SS) in the Polish city of Kielce in the south-western region of the Second Polish Republic, occupied by German forces from 4 September 1939. Before the joint Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, Kielce was the capital of the Kielce Voivodeship. The Germans incorporated the city into Distrikt Radom of the semi-colonial General Government 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, and several thousands more shot, face-to-face.

There was a considerable Jewish presence in Kielce. The Kehilla operated two synagogues, a beth midrash house of learning, a mikveh, the cemetery with ohalim, an orphanage, a retirement home, three elementary schools, two high schools, a Talmudic college and a large Tarbut 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.

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 – a notorious Holocaust perpetrator – took over policing of his district. As in all Polish cities incorporated into the Nazi German General Government territory, the new administration ordered the creation of a Judenrat 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 on their outer garments. At the same time, Jewish–owned factories were confiscated by the Gestapo, 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.