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Radom, Poland

Coordinates: 51° 25' 21° 09'

93.2 kilometers S of Warsaw

A Map

Dedicated to the memory of my cousin Rabbi Szaja Zlotnik of Radom and his family who were murdered by the Germans during WWII, and to the holy community of the town of Radom, Poland.

Photographs donated by Eva Floersheim from Shadmot Dvorah, Israel. The memorial is in the cemetery of Haifa, erected by the Organization of Jewish former residents of Radom in Haifa, Israel.

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RADOM

"RADOM" article in Yad Vashem's Communities Encyclopedia: Pinkas Hakehilot volume VOL VII - "Districts Lublin Kielce" pages 530-543

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The History of the Radom Jewry

Introduction from the Yizkor Book of Radom (Hebrew)

Radom Landsmanschaft

ארגון יוצאי ראדום והסביבה

 בישראל

בית ראדום""

רח' המסגר 68/70

תל אביב  67217

יו"ר: חיים קינצלר

Telephone – Fax: 00-972-3-5618704

The Organization of Former Jewish Residents of Radom and its Region

"Beit Radom"

68/70 Hamasger St.

Tel Aviv 67217

Israel

Chairman: Chaim Kincler

Telephone – Fax: 00-972-3-5618704

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The Communities of Radom & Environs

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Radom

Yad Vashem: Pinkas HaKehilot, Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities, Poland Vol. VII Districts Lublin · Kielce, Jerusalem 1999

 Pages 538-543

Written by Daniel Blatman

Translated from Hebrew by Alex P. Korn

Message from the translator Alex P. Korn:

I dedicate this translation to the memory of my mother's family, who fled to Radom from their hometown of Dzialoszyn at the outset of the war, and were later sent to the death camps (probably Treblinka).
My mother's father: Faivish Lapides, h"yd
My mother's mother: Shprintze nee Urbach Lapides, h"yd
My mother's brothers and sisters h"yd: Moshe, Boruch, Yehuda-Leib, Leah, Rivkah, Nacha, and Feygelle Lapides.

During the Second World War

September 1939 to Summer 1942

The Germans bombed Radom right at the outbreak of war because in and around the city there were several industrial plants for the production of military equipment and ammunition for the Polish army.  Many houses, both of Polish and Jewish townspeople, were damaged by the explosions, and there were also fatal casualties.  On the 6^th of September the Polish army withdrew from the city and from the surrounding region while many of the city’s administrators, as well as not a few of the town’s Jews, left as well.  Activists of the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) then set up a citizens’ council in order to administer the city.  Included in this council were several Jewish public figures: Yaakov Goldberg, Ignatz Goldberg and Yishaya Eiger.  There were also some Jews recruited into the civilian militia that was created by the citizens’ council.

At the time of the battles, members of Kibbutz Hachshara, the preparatory commune for Aliyah, “BaHazit” ("at the Front"), which belonged to HaShomer HaTza’ir - about 120 young men and women - were forced to vacate one of their houses in order to provide lodging for Polish soldiers.  A suggestion was raised that all members of the commune leave Radom and that they should make their way eastward.  They first turned to the central HaShomer HaTza’ir office in Warsaw to ask for instructions, but after 5 days had passed, during which time the Germans had already stationed themselves at the approaches to the city, and, with the instructions being late in coming, the young men and women decided on their own to leave, heading west in the direction of Warsaw.

On the 8^th of September, 1939, Radom fell into the hands of the Germans.  The conquerors took over all of the city’s public buildings and housed their soldiers in them.  The commander of the forces in Radom, together with his staff, used the city hall for their lodgings.  Several days later, SS units and police also entered the city.  Immediately upon their arrival acts of abuse against the Jews, especially against the religious ones, began.  Many Jews were grabbed for forced labour.  The first labourers were employed at reconstructing the weapons factory that was destroyed during the bombing so that production could be reestablished there for the German army.  Other groups of workers were employed with difficult and onerous service work: hauling coal, cleaning the streets, and repairing the roads damaged during the battles, and so on.

At the end of September, 1939, the military governor gathered 50 men from among the community’s leaders, and appointed them to be a temporary council for the Jews of Radom.  At the head of the council were Yaakov Goldberg and Yosef Diamant.  In October, 1939, two of the community activists, Moshe Bluman and Moshe Boim, were ordered to present to the Germans lists of the city’s Jews according to their ages and professions.

On Rosh HaShana and on Yom Kippur 5700 (September-October, 1939) SS men entered the synagogues and the shtiebels and took out the worshipers for work details all around the city.  The last leader of the Jewish community before the war, Yona Zylberberg, was dragged by the Germans in the streets and beaten within sight of passers-by, while they murdered the teacher, Chaim Shlomo Waks.  Subsequent to the removal of the worshipers from the prayer houses, the Germans took out the sacred articles and the holy books and desecrated them, shooting into the synagogues and destroying the furniture and furnishings.

At the beginning of October, 1939, the new German mayor, Schwizgabel, imposed upon the city’s Jews a “contribution” of 300,000 zlotys and 10,000 marks.  The Jewish council prepared lists of those obligated to pay, but succeeded in collecting only 200,000 zlotys and 10,000 marks.  At the end of that month an additional contribution was exacted, but the local governor, Dr. Karl Lasch, agreed to exchange it for 1,000 sets of linen and cots that the Jewish tailors would prepare for the SS men who lodged in the city.  The leaders of the Jewish council, Yosef Diamant, Moshe Landau, Hillel Goldberg and Itche Green, traveled to  Lódz  and brought back from there the cloths and the necessary sewing items, and, in a short time, the required quota was filled.

Towards the end of October the Germans began to seize control of the Jews’ properties.  Jewish businesses were expropriated for the benefit of the Reich, and German administrators were appointed over them.  Many of the business owners still continued to work in their businesses in exchange for a token wage.

In December, 1939, an SS commander, Fritz Katzmann, and the local police arrived in Radom.  Immediately afterward a notice was published concerning the preparations for a Judenrat.  The first Judenrat, consisting of 24 members, was also the main Judenrat for the entire region (“Oberjudenrat”), and the city’s chairman, Yosef Diamant, was also the chairman of that local Judenrat.  The offices of the Judenrat were located in the community hall.  According to a census taken at the beginning of 1940, there were about 280,000 Jews residing in the Radom region.

On the first of July, 1940, all the property of the Jews in the region was transferred to the German administrative office (“Treuhandstele”), which was headed by Felix Weinopfel.  The Judenrat of Radom was made responsible for the administration of the Jews’ property for the German administrative office, for the collection of rent payments on Jewish apartments, the maintenance of structures which the Germans requisitioned, and so on.  Also, after December, 1940, when a regulation was enforced that forbade Jews to use public transportation, the Judenrat was authorized to issue travel permits to the members of the Judenrat and to the region’s Jewish civil workers that would allow them to travel on public transit.  On December 1, 1941, Radom’s regional governor gave the instruction to the heads of the region’s Judenrat to issue special travel permits in order that they would be able to come to Radom for meetings between Diamant and members of the local Judenrat.

In the winter of 1941/1942, the Judenrat of Radom was ordered to transmit exacting instructions to the heads of the Judenrats in the region to prepare maps of the ghettos and up-to-date lists of their residents, indicating their ages and professions.  In the Judenrat of Radom a special department was established whose function was to maintain contact with the region’s Judenrats.  There was also a Department of Justice which was headed by the lawyer, Leon Sytner; a Department for Commerce and Labour which was responsible for the Jewish workshops; a Department of Documentation and Registration which, when necessary, provided Jews with exit passes and certificates to travel in the city during curfew hours (in exchange for these special certificates the Germans collected from the Judenrat 200 zlotys per certificate).  The central department of the Judenrat, the Department of Labour, provided the Germans with forced labour workers.  At first it was headed by Y. Worcman.  In the first months of the occupation the Germans demanded about 80-100 workers each and every day, but later they increased the daily quota to 500-600 people.

At first the recruitment for work was administered in an arbitrary manner.  Jews were kidnaped in the streets and from their homes and were sent to work in the city and in the surrounding areas.  The Judenrat made an effort to arrange the work egresses in an orderly fashion and to organize the workers.  After some months Joachim Geiger, a glazier by trade, was added to the Ministry of Labour, and he established good relations with the SS command in the city so much so that he was soon made the administrator for the Ministry of Labour.  In the summer of 1940, Geiger was put in charge of the entire system of forced labour of the Jews in Radom and in its vicinity, and the Department of Labour became an independent department which was subservient directly to the  Labour Office of the local government.  At the end of that year the department had already supplied 1,000 Jewish forced labourers each and every day.  In Radom, as well as in other places, forced labourers were recruited from among the poorest; those with means could free themselves from work in exchange for a levy, which served the Judenrat with which to pay wages to the forced labourers (2-10 zlotys for one day’s work).

In the spring of 1940, with the blessings of the Judenrat, the Kraków-based JSS (Jewish Self Aid Organization: Judische Soziale Selbsthilfe) set up in Radom a branch which took upon itself the responsibility for welfare and assistance activities in the city and environs.  At the head of the Radom branch of the JSS was Abraham Zalba, who was a member of Radom’s Judenrat and also a member of the central JSS administration.  He was aided in his JSS activities by three assistants and 10 clerks.  The Radom branch of the JSS opened several public kitchens: one in the Glinice suburb where every day about 1,200 meals were distributed, a second kitchen next to the synagogue where each day 2,500 meals were distributed, and a third kitchen on Rowanska Street.  The price per meal was a token 20 grósz, but children and those lacking the means were exempt from paying.  In July, 1940, the JSS established three additional kitchens which were intended for children only.  Free meals were distributed there every day to 400 children between the ages of 4 and 10.

In April, 1940, the Germans carried out widespread arrests among the left wing party activists in Radom.  Thirty-two men, most of them Jews, were summoned to report to the Gestapo offices in the city, but only 18 of them appeared.  They were imprisoned in the local jail and after a few days were taken outside of the city and shot to death.

In the summer of 1940, the Judenrat began to recruit workers who were intended to be sent to labour camps in the Lublin region.  On the twentieth of August, 1940, the first group of one thousand workers went there.  The Judenrat took it upon itself to take care of the Jews in the camps and sent them packages of food and clothing.  In the fall of 1940 the Judenrat spent seventy-five thousand zlotys to aid the Jews of Radom who worked in the Lublin area camps.  People were also able to free themselves from this recruitment in exchange for a levy of 400 zlotys for the Judenrat treasury.

In December, 1940, the governor of the General Gouvernment, Hans Frank, gave the order to deport from Radom ten thousand Jews to other locales in the region.  The Judenrat set up a special council of delegates which made efforts with the authorities to minimize the number of deportees, and its representatives traveled to various towns in the region in an effort to locate the places from where the deportees would be collected.  On the 18^th of December, 1940, based on lists that were prepared by the Judenrat, 1,840 of the first Jews were deported.¹⁾   Each deported family received from the Judenrat 300 zlotys for expenses.  In accordance with the demand of the Gestapo, included in the first deportation were families with many children, the elderly and the sick who could not be part of the labour force.  In January, 1941, the Germans demanded the deportation of an additional 2,000 Jews, but the second deportation was delayed for technical reasons, and in the end it was not carried out.

At about the same time, Jews who had been deported from Kraków and other places were brought into Radom.  Based on the Judenrat records, about 2,000 refugees from Kraków came at the beginning of December, and in the spring of 1941 hundreds of deportees from Przytyk and other towns were added.  In spite of efforts by the Judenrat to give assistance to the refugees and to locate places for them to live, they suffered from the difficult conditions and from the lack of sustenance in the difficult winter months.  In the spring of 1941, a short time before the ghettos in Radom were established, there were about thirty-two thousand Jews in Radom.

At the beginning of 1941, the Germans distributed to the Jews new identity certificates which were different in colour from those of the Polish residents.  In March, 1941, an announcement was made concerning the establishment of two ghettos: one within the city and the second, the smaller of the two, in the suburb of Glinice.  On the first of April, 1941, a week before the ghettos were created, the Judenrat was ordered to set up a Jewish “police service”.  The head of the Labour Department, Joachim Geiger, was appointed to be in command, and his lieutenant was the lawyer, Leon Sytner, a deportee from Kalisz.  The announcements that were posted in the streets called upon young Jewish men of 21 and above who had served in the Polish army to join the police force.  This body was divided into two departments which served in the two ghettos.  The policemen were equipped with red berets and yellow armbands on which was written “Jewish Police Force” in Polish and in German.  A jail was also set up for the imprisonment of people who shirked their required labour duty or of those who were caught committing various crimes in the ghetto.  Some time before the closing of the ghettos, a proclamation was made obliging Jews to wear armbands with a Magen David star. ²⁾

On the 7^th of April, 1941, the ghettos were closed.  In the large ghetto, which was located in the old quarter of the city, about twenty-seven thousand Jews resided.  About 5,000 people were transferred into the smaller ghetto located in the suburb.  The ghettos were not surrounded with walls; the houses on their perimeters designated the ghetto borders.  In the large ghetto 13 gates were built, and Jewish policemen armed with rubber batons, as well as Polish policemen, were stationed at the gates.  At the main entrance on the corner of Wawel and Lubelski Streets, a wall was built with three openings for pedestrians and for vehicles.  At all the gates were affixed signs with the inscription: “Danger of Contagious Diseases: Entry Forbidden”.

The living conditions in the two ghettos were not identical.  The ghetto in the Glinice suburb was less crowded, and the living conditions there were easier, but most of the Jews preferred to reside in the larger ghetto where all of the Judenrat aid and welfare institutions were located.  Upon moving into the ghettos the Judenrat reorganized its departments.  The Supply Department was expanded and became responsible for food warehousing, and the supplies were taken out of the city hall.  In the spring of 1941 the Judenrat received only 1.5 kilograms of flour per person per month.  The members of the Supply Department, Moshe Leslau, Yosef Stelman, Yeshaya Eiger, Yosef Blas and Hillel Goldberg, made great efforts to obtain additional supplies.  And, indeed, after some time, grits, sugar, salt, oil and jam were sent to the ghetto.  The department distributed special food cards to the ghetto residents, but the distribution of food was not orderly nor was it even equitable.  In spite of this, there were no instances of hunger nor of mass death in the ghettos of Radom; living conditions were reasonable in comparison with those in other ghettos.  In fact, in the years 1941-1942, upon the recommendations of their family members in Radom, not a few Jews from Warsaw came to Radom in the hope of improving their situation.

In June, 1941, the Germans instructed the Judenrat to update the lists of residents.  The Department of Records, under the directorship of Yaakov Fishbein, compiled name cards of the ghetto residents according to age, sex and profession.  The department endeavoured also to locate and to record the thousands of refugees that flowed into Radom.  They even recorded the beasts of burden and the carts that were in the ghetto.

An additional department that was set up during the ghetto period was the Mail Department.  It was headed by Isaac Brawerman and it distributed mail which arrived at the municipal post office to the Jews in the ghetto.  It also dealt with the exchange of monies which were sent to the residents of the ghetto (until that was forbidden).

At the end of March, 1941, the Judenrat decided to open a Jewish school for the children of the two ghettos and called upon the parents to register their children.  Within a short time about 2,000 children were registered, but the Germans refused to give their permission to the opening of a school.  In the end, the ghetto residents were forced to be content with informal and very limited educational activities.  Young men and women who were graduates of the Jewish high school in Radom and teachers residing in the ghetto gathered the children of kindergarten age and organized playing and reading groups for them.  In November, 1941, several of the engineers and technicians initiated the opening of courses for professional development: for carpentry, machinery, etc. with the aim of enabling the ghetto’s Jewish youth to participate in the work within and outside the ghetto.  Most of the courses took place in the Glinice ghetto.

Not all the Jewish institutions for relief and welfare were contained within the ghetto precincts.  While the Jewish hospital was situated in the large ghetto, the orphanage and the home for the aged - two of the most important institutions - remained outside.  Also, the Christian home for the aged and insane asylum were contained within the large ghetto.  The Judenrat’s Health Department, under the directorship of Dr. Szenderowicz, operated two hospitals, one in each ghetto, and it also had two ambulances.  Since April, 1940, the Jewish hospital in Radom had already been reorganized for the new conditions: The departments for contagious diseases and for intestinal illnesses were expanded; and a dental clinic, a disinfection room and a X-ray clinic were also opened.  The Germans instructed that all Jewish sick people who were hospitalized in the general hospital were to be transferred to the Jewish hospital, and, later, when the large ghetto was created, the Jewish hospital together with its equipment was transferred there.  Its long-time administrator, Dr. Kleinberger, remained in his position.  Until the fall of 1942, 3,000-4,000 people were hospitalized in the Jewish hospital, and many more were treated in their homes by the hospital doctors and nurses because of the shortage of space in the hospital.

In February, 1942, the Germans carried out the first akcja - “aktion” in the ghetto.  About 40 people, most of them former activists of the leftist parties, were arrested and sent to Auschwitz.  On the 28^th of April an additional aktion was carried out in the Radom ghetto, which earned the name, “Bloody Wednesday”.  The Germans’ goal was to eliminate the leaders and other people who were able to organize opposition as a preventative measure ahead of the imminent deportation of Radom’s Jews to the extermination camps.  In the morning of that day SS men came to the ghetto with a list of names in their hands and took out the wanted men from their homes.  Some of them were murdered at the entrances of their homes; the others were transported to the local prison.  Among the arrested were Bund activists and past members of the Communist Party, as well as the Judenrat head, Yosef Diamant, three of his senior aides, the commandant of the Jewish police and about 20 policemen.  All of them were deported to Auschwitz and found their deaths there.  The first Judenrat in Radom was effectively dismantled.

After the aktion of April, 1942, persistent rumors were spread in the ghetto that the deportation of the remaining Jews was imminent.  The demand for work placements grew because the ghetto residents regarded the holding of a work certificate as a door to redemption.  The most desirable places to work were the Wytwórnia armaments factories, the workshops for the repair of SS automobiles, and various “Szopie” ("Shops") that were set up in the ghetto for producing articles for the German army.  In the spring of 1942, the “Shops” employed about 300 workers.

The End of the Jews of Radom

At the beginning of the summer of 1942, the head of the SS and the Lublin region police and the head of staff of “Operation Reinhardt”, Odilo Glubocnik, sent the SS captain, (Sturmbannfuehrer) Wilhelm Blum to Radom, making him responsible for the planning and execution of the deportation of the Jews from the city and its vicinity.  Blum, who already had acquired experience in the organizing of mass deportations in other locales, was appointed to the SS staff and the police in Radom.  The direct responsibility for the operation was assigned to the SS captain with the rank of Untersturmfuehrer, Franz Schipers, from the police headquarters in Radom.  In May, 1942, the Germans demanded that the Jewish Labour Department send groups of workers to the Korona factory to empty it of the old equipment, with the goal of turning the structures into giant warehouses.  At about the same time the Judenrat made the engineer, Marek Koifman, responsible for the preparing of detailed maps for the Germans of the streets in the two ghettos of Radom, and to indicate in the maps the houses belonging to Jews, the equipment stores and the workshops, as well as the other places and structures that were important to the Germans.

On the fourth of August, 1942, late in the evening, the Jewish policemen were called to the police headquarters where several captains of the SD and the police instructed them to prepare all the males in the Glinice ghetto for their transfer to labour camps.  In the meantime SS men surrounded the small ghetto in the suburb, and at midnight the Jewish policemen took out all the residents from their homes and instructed them to present themselves for an inspection of work permits.  Owners of valid certificates were sent to Kuszno Street, and the others were taken to Graniczna Street.  At this stage the Jewish policemen were joined by the SS men, who mistreated the deportees and even killed many of them.  Wilhelm Blum, Paul Fuchs, Paul Feucht, and especially Franz Schipers supervised the deeds of cruelty.  About 60 Jews were killed on that night, about 1,000 workers with permits were transferred to the large ghetto, and the remaining, about 4,000, were transported from the Glinice ghetto to the train station.

In order to fill the predetermined quota the SS captain, Paul Feucht, instructed that another 2,000 Jews from the large ghetto be added to the deportees, so on the 5^th of August 6,000 Jews were sent from Radom to Treblinka.

Immediately after the small ghetto was emptied of its inhabitants Feucht instructed the Jewish police to remove the bodies of those who were killed from the streets and houses.  The Judenrat sent carts from the large ghetto to Glinice in order to gather the corpses and to bring them to the large ghetto.  However, the bodies were returned later to the suburb of Glinice, apparently by order of the Germans.  About 100 young men holding work permits were sent to the suburb and were ordered to bury those who had been killed in mass graves which were dug next to the Lenz factory.  When they completed the burial work the workers were taken to the ghetto and were ordered to gather the property of the deportees and to store it in the precincts of the Korona factory which had been emptied for that purpose.

After the deportation from Glinice a great panic spread in the large ghetto.  Many tried to find pla