CZESTOCHOWA

The city of Czestochowa has long been considered the spiritual capital of Poland. Situated on the Jasna Gora (Bright Mountain), the Pauline monastery's Basilica of the Virgin Mary is the sight of several annual festivals attracting Catholic pilgrims from all over the world. The Basilica houses the legendary icon called the Black Madonna. Brought from Jerusalem in 1384, the icon is considered by the faithful to be the work of St. Luke the Evangelist, painted on cypress wood from a table used by the Virgin Mary.

The Jewish community in Czestochowa dates back to 1765. By the start of World War Two, close to thirty thousand Jews lived there, participating in every economic activity of the wealthy industrialized city. When the Germans took political control shortly after the September 1, 1939 invasion of Poland, the persecution of Jews began immediately, following the same pattern practiced throughout Poland: denial of civil rights, confiscation of property, harrassment, confinement to ghettos, and deportation.

Chronology of Events During the Nazi Occupation of Czestochowa

August 1940: One thousand Jews sent to forced labor camps at Ciechanow.

August 23, 1941: Twenty thousand Jews from other Polish towns and villages forced into the sealed off Czestochowa ghetto.

September 22 - October 8, 1942: Thirty-nine thousand Jews deported from Czestochowa ghetto to Treblinka death camp. Residents of orphanages and old age homes killed before deportation.

September, 1942 - January 1945: Three forced labor camps in the region around Czestochowa supplied ten thousand Jews from Poland, Germany, Austria, and Slovakia to work in three German munitions factories, and a steel mill. Few survived the ordeal.

December 1942: A branch of the Jewish resistance group, ZOB (Jewish Fighting Organization) formed, with three hundred members. Attempting resistance to a German raid in January 1943, severe reprisals resulted in many Jewish deaths and deportations.

June 1943: Another ZOB group resisted liquidation of the Czestochowa ghetto.


Source: Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, Israel Gutman, Editor in Chief, Macmillan Publishing Company: New York, 1990


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