Holocaust Memorial Education Center

FORTHCOMING

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• Interview: Locations

 SOSNOWIEC

Before the war, there were about 30,000 Jews in Sosnowiec, making up about 20% of the town’s population.[5] Over the next two years the Germans resettled thousands of Jews from smaller towns to Sosnowiec, temporarily increasing the size of the local Jewish community to 45,000. By late 1942, Będzin and nearby Sosnowiec (which bordered Będzin), became the only two cities in the Zagłębie Dąbrowskie region that were still inhabited by Jews.

The city, located on the pre-war Polish-German border, was taken over by the Germans on the first day of the invasion of Poland.[7] Arrests and beatings among more prominent Jews began the next morning. On 9 September 1939 the Great Synagogue in Sosnowiec was burned.[8] Local Jews were being evicted from better homes and terrorized on the streets. Jewish businesses were plundered by individual soldiers and closed by the Nazis pending confiscation proceedings. Shootings and first mass executions followed soon afterwards. Forced relocations into crowded tenements slowly created a ghetto.

Judenrat and the Jewish police were soon established on German orders; the head of the Sosnowiec Judenrat was Moshe Merin (Mojżesz Merin in Polish). Food rationing was introduced. The Jews were prohibited from buying anything outside their own community. In the first months of 1940 the Zentrale der Jüdischen Ältestenräte in Oberschlesien (Central Office of the Jewish Councils of Elders in Upper Silesia), headed by Merin, was created in Sosnowiec, representing about 45 communities. For a time, Merin became infamous as the dictator of the Jews of the Zaglebie region, with the power of life and death over local Jews. A labour camp was established for the Jews deported to Sosnowiec from Czechoslovakia to work at the factory of the Shine brothers. Numerous forced labour facilities were established for the locals; making uniforms, underwear, corsets, bags, leather handbags, and military boots.[6][12] In 1940 some 2,592 German war profiteers arrived in the city. By 1942, their number rose to 10,749 settlers, constituting 10% of the general population.

Ever since the ghetto was established, numerous deportation actions were organized by the Germans with the help of the Judenrat and Merin, selecting healthy men for slave labor at the camps. Large transfers of Jews took part in May (1,500) and June 1942 (2,000). Around October 1942 – January 1943 the ghetto was moved to the Środula district. Środula also bordered the site of the Będzin Ghetto. At this point about 13,000 Jews still lived in Sosnowiec. The creation of the Sosnowiec ghetto ended on 10 March 1943, when it was finally closed off from the outside world.

Thousands of Jews were deported from Sosnowiec to Auschwitz in June 1943 during the major deportation action extending to nearby Będzin.[17] The ghetto was liquidated two months later in August, whereas almost all remaining Jews were also deported to Auschwitz.[18] A few hundred Jews remained in the Środula ghetto, which was liquidated in January 1944 Retrieved USHMM Aug 2023

UPRISING

There had been considerable underground activity among the Jews in Sosnowiec and Będzin Ghetto nearby, organized by the youth organizations Ha-No’ar ha-Ziyyoni, Gordonia, and Ha-Shomer ha-Za’ir. During the final major deportation push in August 1943, the Jewish Combat Organization (Polish: Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa, ŻOB) in Będzin and Sosnowiec staged an uprising against the Germans. The uprising, which began on 3 August 1943, was led by Cwi (Tzvi) Brandes, Frumka Płotnicka, and the Kożuch brothers. It was the final act of defiance of the local population with no chance of success. Most of the young Jewish fighters perished (400 killed in action), fighting the overwhelming German forces. The last Holocaust transport to Auschwitz-Birkenau with Jews forced to bury the dead, left Sosnowiec on 15 January 1944.

Credits:

The SSBJCC Holocaust Memorial and Education Center gratefully acknowledges the donation by Susan Greenstein of digital copies of  family photographs and historic documents of her survivor parents.