Four teenage boys wearing Jewish badges in Sosnowiec.
Overview
- Caption
- Four teenage boys wearing Jewish badges in Sosnowiec.
Pictured are David and Aaron Jakobowicz (center) with two friends. - Date
-
Circa 1942
- Locale
- Sosnowiec, [Katowice; Zaglebie] Poland
- Variant Locale
- Sosnovets
Sosnowitz - Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Eva Tuchsznajder Lang
- Event History
- Bedzin, Sosnowiec, and Dabrowa Gornicza are three neighboring towns located in the Zaglebie district in southwest Poland. On the eve of World War II, Bedzin and Sosnowiec supported Jewish communities of approximately 28,000 each, while Dabrowa had 5,000. The Germans occupied the towns on September 4, 1939. Five days later they set fire to the Great Synagogue in Bedzin. The flames quickly spread and engulfed fifty adjacent houses. Physical attacks were accompanied by repressive economic legislation which forced the Jewish population to relinquish their businesses and personal property. In the first days of the occupation, separate Jewish Councils were appointed in Bedzin and Sosnowiec, but early in 1940 the Bedzin council was subordinated to the Zentrale der Juedischen Aeltestenraete (Central Office of the Jewish Councils of Elders in Upper Silesia), established in Sosnowiec and headed by the increasingly autocratic Moshe Merin. This council represented some forty-five communities in the area and operated its own Jewish police force.
During 1940-41 the situation in Bedzin, Sosnowiec and Dabrowa was considered somewhat better than elsewhere in occupied Poland. There, the Jews resided in open ghettos and their lives retained a semblance of normalcy. As a result, thousands of Jews from central Poland sought refuge there. In addition to this influx, several thousand Jews from the district were forcibly resettled in Bedzin and Sosnowiec at this time, among them the Jews from Oswiecim, who arrived in the spring of 1941 prior to the opening of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The Sosnowiec Jewish Council was responsible for drawing up lists of local Jews to be sent to forced labor camps in Germany and Eastern Upper Silesia established under the Organisation Schmelt program. Jews selected for forced labor had to report to the local transit camp, known as the "Dulag." Failure to comply resulted in their arrest and the withdrawal of their family's ration cards. Transports to labor camps began in 1940 but were greatly expanded in the spring of 1941, after Himmler decided to use labor from the Organisation Schmelt camps for constructing large factories to support German war production. The Jewish Council was also involved in establishing German-owned workshops which employed Jews. The largest of these was the Rosner Fabrik, a network of workshops which produced military uniforms and other goods and services for the German army. From a workshop employing a few dozen people, it grew into a factory complex with three thousand workers. Those fortunate enough to get positions in these enterprises were exempt (for the time being) from deportation to labor camps. Unlike the typical German overseer, Rosner treated his employees with respect and fought to protect them. He even warned them of impending actions. The Rosner Fabrik remained in operation until Rosner's arrest and execution in January 1944. When the schools were closed the local Zionist youth organizations took over the task of instructing the children. They also engaged in agricultural training on small plots on the outskirts of town. In Bedzin the local Zionist youth were allocated a hundred acre plot which was known as the "Farma" and became a focus of youth activity. The first round of deportations to death camps occurred in May 1942, when 1500 Jews were sent to Auschwitz. The following month another 2,000 were deported. Then, on August 12, all the remaining Jews in the three towns were ordered to report to the soccer field in Sosnowiec, ostensibly to have their papers revalidated. Instead, a large selection ensued resulting in the deportation of 8,000 to Auschwitz. The youth movements under the leadership of Hashomer Hatzair activist Zvi Dunski, conducted a campaign urging their fellow Jews not to report for the deportations. They also began to organize underground resistance units. The "Farma" became the headquarters of the Jewish underground and was the site of clandestine meetings with Mordechai Anielewicz, Arie Wilner and other leaders of the Jewish Fighting Organization in the Warsaw Ghetto. The underground concentrated its efforts on acquiring weapons and constructing bunkers in preparation for a revolt. But opinions were divided between those who favored resistance in the ghetto and those who stressed the search for escape routes out of the ghetto. In the spring of 1943, the remaining Jews in Bedzin were confined to a ghetto set up in Kamionka, while those remaining in Dabrowa and Sosnowiec were concentrated in Srodula. The two sites bordered on one another and operated as a single ghetto. On August 1, 1943 the final liquidation of the ghetto began. Zionist youth offered armed resistance in several bunkers which hampered the Germans and forced them to spend almost two weeks clearing the ghetto. Some one thousand Jews remained after the liquidation. Most were settled in the Sosnowiec labor camp, established on the site of the Srodula ghetto. These Jews labored in workshops as tailors, cobblers and carpenters. The camp was finally liquidated on January 13, 1944 and its prisoners sent to Auschwitz.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/german-administration-of-poland. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/ghettos-in-poland.
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumProvenance: Eva Tuchsznajder Lang
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Biography
- Eva Tuchsznajder is the daughter of Zacharia and Esther (Erlich) Tuchsznajder, who had emigrated to Belgium from Poland in 1927. She was born July 23, 1930 in Brussels, where her father earned his living as a leather manufacturer. Eva had four siblings: Sarah (b.1924), Michael (b.1922), Rivka (b.1935) and Malka (b.1936). In 1940, following the German invasion of Belgium, the Tuchsznajders fled to France by train. For a time they found refuge in the town of Moulins-Hautes in southern France, but soon were interned by the French in the Agde camp. After a fire destroyed part of the internment camp, the Tuchsznajders were transferred to Rivesaltes, where conditions were much worse. Eva and Rivka were later released from the camp with a group of children who were given permission to move to OSE [Oeuvre de secours aux enfants] homes elsewhere in France. The group was taken first to St. Jean de Vedas, then to Palavas-les-Flots, and then back to St. Jean. From here they were transferred to the children's home in Izieu. Eva and Rivka, however, left the group at this time and were taken (at the request of their father) to a home for orthodox girls at Le Couret. This request saved them from the fate of the children of Izieu, who were arrested in 1944 on orders from Klaus Barbie and sent to their death in Auschwitz. In 1943 the OSE went underground and began dispersing Jewish children to convents and homes around France. Eva and Rivka were given the aliases of Yvonne and Raymonde Drapier and sent to the children's home at Les Basses-Fontaines, where only the director knew their true identity. The girls were told to talk as little as possible among themselves and not to call attention to themselves in class. Following a police raid on the home, the girls were temporarily moved to a new hiding place, at Le Coudray, until it was safe to return to Les Basses-Fontaines. Eva was liberated at the age of fourteen on June 6, 1944. Soon after, she met up with her brother Michael, who had joined the Maquis and taken part in the liberation of Dijon and Nancy. Eva's youngest sister, Malka, also survived in hiding. Her parents and older sister Sarah, however, perished in Auschwitz after being deported from Drancy. After the war, Eva lived for a time in the children's home in Sevres (near Paris), before joining a Youth Aliyah group and immigrating to Palestine. She left France in September 1945, sailing aboard the legal immigration ship, the Mataroa. In 1951 Eva married Aaron Jakobowicz, a survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald from Sosnowiec. Like Eva, Aaron came to Palestine in September 1945 on board the Mataroa. His father, Hershel Zvi Jakobowicz, brother David, and sisters Salah and Hanna immigrated with him. His mother, Judith, and sister, Rivka, perished in Auschwitz.
- Record last modified:
- 2003-11-18 00:00:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1112055
