The Gestapo was following the extermination plan of the Jews in Europe. In their master plan there was no place for so many productive Jews concentrated in the heart of Galicia. The Government-General in Krakow was behind the workshops and supported their existence but finally the Gestapo got the upper hand. On Friday evening, August 21st 1942 all the Jews of the Bochnia district were rounded up and on the following morning they were transferred to the Bochnia. All Polish peasants had to report with their horse-pulled wagons for duty. The local Jews with their belongings were loaded on the wagons and were transported to Bochnia. The convoy was guarded by Germans assisted by local Polish police forces. The entire Wisznica Jewish community (1,500 people) were transferred to ghetto Bochnia along with Jews from the village of Breshnov (Brzeznica), Kopalina (TST1-5/TST5-7)) and from other villages with smaller Jewish communities. Thousands of Jews in long convoys of horse-drawn wagons came flocking into ghetto Bochnia. They were ordered to move to Bochnia where they were promised housing in apartments (DTS-156). The Jews came with their children and elders and brought with them all of what was left of their possessions. The convoy was directed to the railroad station where all the people were settled "temporarily" in large barracks. It was quite obvious that the new coming influx of Jews was destined for extermination. The Bochnia ghetto was already populated above its capacity and vacating a living space for this huge crowd was unfeasible. The temporary shelter near the train station just made it easier to transport all the members of the convoy on short notice. While passing through the narrow streets of the ghetto many Jews jumped off the wagons in spite of the guards assigned to the convoy. They blended into the ghetto crowd and found shelter with local Jewish families. On Saturday August 22 the Germans drafted peasants 18 to 25 years of age from Nw. Wisnicz. They were drafted to what the Germans called "bau-dienst" - construction crew. About 100 to 150 young gentiles had to dig a large grave pit in the woods near the village of Bochkov (10 km north of Bochnia).
The large scale relocation of Jews into Bochnia by the Nazi's authorities caused panic in the ghetto. Concentration of all the Jews of the district into the central ghetto was always a sign for a large scale expulsion (see page .....................). On the next day the district governor of Krakow arranged for food distribution and housing arrangements for the new refugees. These arrangements calmed down the fear in the hearts of the Jewish community of Bochnia. Unfortunately it was just an act of deception orchestrated by the Gestapo. The manager of the Government-General's affiliated textiles company, came to the ghetto with new production orders. He reassured ghetto Bochnia's residence that in spite of the large scale extermination process that was conducted in the area, the local community would be spared. However, only a few days later, on August 25 1942 a mass expulsion was carried out.
Like in many other ghettos, the Jews of Bochnia received
advanced warning of an impending Aktion by people with connections to the
SS. The people in the ghetto were informed of the special train that pulled
into the station and realized for whom it was designated. In spite of all
this, most of the Jewish population of Bochnia still believed that they would
survive this ordeal. The large number of Jews employed in the workshops felt
secure due to their productive contribution to the war efforts. The local
Jews also knew
|that the first people to go on the pending transport would be the
Jews from the district surrounding Bochnia. It was just natural that the
Judenrat would send on a transport the non local Jews first. These Jews were
not employed in any "productive work" and had no ties to the local Judenrat.
This kind of pattern (sending the non local Jews on the first transport)
was recorded in other ghettos like Przemysl, Rzeszow and more. However the
intended candidates for deportation were fully aware of the situation. They
hid in bunkers, in non- Jewish friends houses, in the forests and in the
fields. They all realized what is awaiting them in Bochnia and therefore
attempted to avoid being transferred there. The Jewish families in the Bochnia
district knew that they would not be able to hold on hiding for a long time.
Nevertheless a few days were all that was needed to save their lives. After
the completion of the anticipated Aktion in Bochnia, it would have been quite
safe to move into the ghetto. Some Bochnia residents managed to escape to
other surrounding villages for the duration of the Aktion and many others
hid themselves in bunkers. Certain German employers hid their employees with
their families in their workshops until the end of the Aktion (TST7-2). Due
to this situation many local people, including residence with workers permits,
were taken on August 25 for extermination.
Ghetto Bochnia was surrounded by a 7 foot high fence. This fence separated the ghetto from the "Aryan" section of the city but it did not present a deterrent form escaping. Any person, even an elderly women, could (and actually did) remove boards from the fence and flee out of the ghetto. People remained in the ghetto due to lack of other alternatives. However during an aktion, facing a threat of immediate death, the fence alone was not going to stop them trying to save themselves. For this reason, when the Nazis conducted an aktion in a ghetto they used to surround it with armed personnel as the first step. Most of their personnel was assigned to seal the ghetto while a relatively smaller force was conducting the roundups and the selection from within.
The extermination commission of the Gestapo came from
Krakow and the Aktion began while the workshops were in full production of
the new large order which had been recently received. The commission task
was to determine how many people out of every sector should be expelled for
extermination. They were followed shortly after by the storm troopers, the
German gendarmerie and the Ukrainian auxiliary police that executed these
quotas. The execution forces surrounded the ghetto to ensure that no one
would escape. The Jews within the ghetto were acting upon a false sense of
security. The employees in the workshops did not even consider the possibility
of hiding or escaping since in their perception the worker's certificate
ensured their existence.
The first aktion took place over three days, from Tuesday to Thursday (August 25 to 27). Prior to the aktion all the vital ghetto residents obtained a special stamp on their ouswice allowing them to remain in the ghetto. All other people in the ghetto (the majority) had to report to the kasserna by 8 o'clock in the morning of August 25. At first all the Jews from Nw. Wisnicz were rounded up and were taken away. Right after that the Einsatzgrupprn assisted by the Jewish police were pulling the residents out of their homes. Those who were unwilling or unable to follow their orders were shot in front of their families. The streets of the ghetto were packed with people, old and young women and children, all moving through the streets carrying their luggage. It was a scary sight. (TST5-7).
Workers were taken straight from the workshops and whole streets in the ghetto were emptied. There was no rule in the method of selection. All kinds of people were taken at random. Even Jews with special permits issued by the SS allowing them to stay in the ghetto were taken away. The shortage of deportees was so severe that policemen had to bring their own parents, wives and children to fill the deportation quota. Many old and sick people were shot during the search conducted in the ghetto by the Gestapo. The number of people murdered in the ghetto during this Aktion is estimated by the hundreds. Many buildings within the ghetto looked like slaughterhouses with their walls all splattered with blood. Garments and talleisim9 were scattered in the streets. Religious Jews waited for their death wearing their prayer shawls.
The people were taken to a gathering place (apellplatz) where the SS performed a selection. The children, the aged and the sick were marked to death. The physically fit were supposedly marked for hard labor. The first group with numerous elderly people, women and children were taken by trucks to the nearby village of Bochkov. All the patients of the Jewish hospital together with all the Jewish patients in the general hospital were taken there as well. Upon arrival they were all (1,200 people) machine gunned and their bodies were thrown into a large pit that had been prepared ahead of time for that purpose. The Germans buried them in this mass grave while many were still alive10 . The able-bodied people were marched in military formation to a waiting train. At the train station they were crammed into freight cars, one hundred people per car. By the train stood SS men and were tearing the children from their parents arms by their hands and feet. Every child was thrown with his head at the train and their heads broke into pieces. The mothers had to observe what was happening (TST4-8). The able-bodied people were shipped to Belzec death camp where all of them were murdered by means of carbon monoxide poisoning in gas chambers. Please refer to the Belzec appendix.
After the deadline the police took all the remaining people
in the ghetto to the Judenrat building. There they had to present their special
permits approved by the Gestapo. The Judenrat President informed the survivors
that they had to pay extortion money. The very few people that were left
in the ghetto were requested to pay for their right to survive (TST5-8).
In a cynical way people called it shechita gelt (slaughter money), as if
they were requested to reimburse the murderers for their expenses performing
10 - The aussiedlung in Wieliczka and in Bochnia took place simultaneously. Both were orchestrated by the same Nazi headquarters in Krakow and both were extremely similar in their method of execution. The description in TST10-15 of the murder of Jews in the woods near Grodkowice more than likely resembles the Murder of the Jews from Bochnia near the village of Bochkov.
| In the ghetto people hid anywhere they could, even under their
beds. Those who prepared a hiding place ahead of time had a better chance
for survival. As a matter of fact a large number of Jews did take shelter
in hiding places which had been prepared for this situation. In the meantime
the Jewish police using bullhorns announced that all people going voluntarily
on the transport will end up in a labor camp and all people caught in hiding
will be shot (TST1-7/DTS-166). Many Jews taking this announcement at face
value came out of their hiding and joined the transport voluntarily. People
went to the train hoping that in this way they were saving their lives but
instead they made the task of the Nazi murderers a lot easier. More then
5,000 human beings young and old were sent to Belzec death camp by train
never to be returned. German-patrols were searching the houses and all the
people that were found without legitimization were systematically shot (TST5-8).
On the last day of the Aktion the Town's Rabbi (Rabbi Halberstam) was taken
to the courtyard and was murdered with his wife.
Almost the whole Judenrat was taken to Belzec on the last transport. The fact that Judenrat members joined the transport convinced many people that it was safe. At that time the Nazis were sticking to their stories about sending people to new settlements in the East. Such an action came to reinforce their claim(TST6-4,5). Sala Grayver was shot to death by the SS on the first day of the Aktion. The German chief of labor in Bochnia was an SS man. Grayver did not pay any attention to him counting on his close contacts with the Wehrmacht headquarters in Krakow . During the Aktion when Grayver realized that his workers were going to be sent on a transport, he tried to call the Wehrmacht for help and as a result he was immediately executed. Upon completion of the expulsion quota the Bochnia ghetto was sealed off. The gates were guarded, armed German guards were posted on watchtowers and no one could leave without special permission. The general consensus in the ghetto was that the people who were shipped on the transport were taken to a labor camp. No one could believe the extent of cruelty that the Nazis were capable of. After the transport had left, local Poles discovered notes thrown by the victims and delivered them to the ghetto (TST1-7). One letter written by a deportee from Bochnia that was sent from Belzec death camp was received in ghetto Bochnia. This letter described the murder of all the people on that transport (TST7-3). Rumors started to circulate of people who were shipped to be killed. Still many people refused to face the horrible reality.
The big Aktion of August 1942 left ghetto Bochnia with
about a thousand people and aside from them there were 400 more Jews that
managed to hide from the Germans. As the rumor about the completion of the
Aktion in ghetto Bochnia started to spread around, thousand of Jews from
the close vicinity began to arrive at the ghetto. All the Jewish families
in the small communities, that hid before the big Aktion, knowing very well
that they will be the first ones to be selected, came now out of hiding.
The chief Gestapo officer in Bochnia - Schomburg, published a special permit
for all the arriving Jews and those who came out of hiding allowing them
to live in ghetto Bochnia. All the workshops were reopened. The local council
sold the whole operation (including their Jewish workers) to a few German
officers that ran the workshops as a private business. The number of Jews
residing in Bochnia grew to 8,000 and the number of Jews employed in the
workshops swelled to 3,000 workers. From December 1942 every Jewish worker
became the property of the SS. The new workshop owners had to pay the SS
for the Jewish slave labor they required (5 zlotys per person a day).
| Following the big Aktion of August 1942 the Gestapo in Bochnia
declared that the local Jewish community does not exist any more. The Bochnia
ghetto changed its status to a "labor camp". Oberstrumfuhrer
Muller11 was nominated as the new Lagerfuhrer. That change made
the existence of children within the ghetto boundaries illegal. Parents had
to hide their children from view since there was no place for them in a labor
12 - According to DTS-171 the transport to Rakowitz took place one day before the holiday of Sukkos. Sukkos 1942 came on September 26.
|of advantages. In addition to the freedom to move about in the district,
the Jews were safe from the periodical extermination aktions that took place
in the ghetto. The auslaenders (foreign citizens) enjoyed a better standard
of living since they could purchase all kind of food and other articles without
restrictions. They also did not have to reside in the crowded conditions
like their friends inside the ghetto.
Schomburg was very lenient in his method of verifying the authenticity of the documents presented to him. It seems that the monitory aspect of the approval was at the top of his priority list. Schomburg approved legitimate documents as well as forged one without asking too many questions. Every official Gestapo stamp on these documents provided him with $50 to $100. Many people that heard of Schomburg's leniency took advantage of the situation. In the process of obtaining such a document every applicant had to use people with connections who also profited from this process. A lot of money was changing hands until a person could find himself "legally" outside the ghetto. The auslaenders' community in Bochnia was not very big but it was noticeable enough to raise some eyebrows in the Nazi's headquarters in Krakow. Later on Schomburg was warned to stop approving so many applications. Many auslaenders were arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo in Krakow and the majority of them were executed. In addition to the auslaenders who lived outside the ghetto there were many Jews who obtained forged foreign documents with forged stamp of the Gestapo. These documents obviously were much cheaper than the ones with the official Gestapo stamp. However the people who obtained them kept residing inside the ghetto and kept them only for possible escape purposes.
The auslaenders' community was instrumental in maintaining contact between the ghetto residents to the outside world or to other ghettos. They helped by bringing different commodities into the ghetto and by that extended the ability of the local Jews to survive. They provided refuge to small children from the ghetto during extermination aktions (children were the first to go in any selection) and later on were active in arranging and running escape routes from Bochnia to Czechoslovakia and Hungary (TST3-8/ TST7-3/TST11-3/DTS-239,240).
The second Extermination
|random. At TST11-2,5 there is an indication of 1780 people that
were spared from this selection. Regardless of how we look at it this aktion
,which intended to be milder, turned out to be a massive one. Once it started
the bloodshed proceeded beyond control. The amount of deportees grew to more
than half of the ghetto residence. This time the Nazis did not even bother
to take the sick people from the hospitals to an execution ground. Instead
they shot and killed them in their beds. (TST7-2) The Einsatzgruppen searched
vigorously for Jews concealed in bunkers. Every person that was discovered
in a hiding place was shot on the spot. The streets were red with victims'
blood. Human bodies and body parts were scattered everywhere (DTS-204).
A short time after the second Aktion the Jewish population of ghetto Bochnia grew again until it reached about 5,000 people. In order to understand the phenomena of constant growth of the ghetto's population one must comprehend the Einsatzgruppen method of operation. This group of professional murderers numbering a few hundred people used to attack one population center at a time. Desperate Jewish families used to escape from one ghetto to another in attempt to avoid pending extermination. Since the Bochnia ghetto maintained its existence while many Jewish communities had vanished, it became the escape destination for many refugees (DTS-234,235). Another reason for ghetto Bochnia to be chosen as a preferred location was its SS commander. The Gestapo chief in Bochnia SS commandant Schoemburg, a 60 year old German, gave decent treatment to the Jews of Bochnia and did not show any anti-Semitic behavior. However when the order came to liquidate the ghetto he was very compliant.
Ghetto Bochnia as a Labor Camp
|Muller organized the labor force into three divisions. Wehrmacht-
the arm forces, Rustung - weapon's industry and Zwangsarbeit - forced labor.
The workers had to wear in addition to their Jewish identification armband
(on the right arm) a white worker patch on their left arm. The new patch
carried the letter "W" for Wehrmacht, "R" for Rustung and "Z" for Zwangsarbeit.
The white patch enabled the police to identify the person as a worker and
help workers to be spared during the frequent selections. A new industrial
plant for one thousand workers was opened. When all the new positions had
been filled the Lagerfuhrer took additional measures to convert ghetto "A"
into a full fledged labor camp. All husbands and wives were forbidden to
live under the same roof and were allowed to see each other for two hours
a day. Ghetto "A" was divided into a camp for men and a camp for women which
necessitated a new relocation of inmates within the camp. Private cooking
facilities were forbidden and all workers had to use the communal dining
room. A few houses in ghetto "B" were converted to children's homes to care
for children whose parents were employed in ghetto "A". Nevertheless, parents
and relatives of small children kept hiding them in ghetto "A". People did
not elude themselves about the meaning of these children's homes. The great
compassion of the Nazis toward Jewish children was well known. It was quite
obvious that placing children in these homes would single them out for
extermination (DTS- 232). The sale and exchange activities of articles with
the Poles on the other side of the fence was still in existence but on a
reduced scale. People approaching the ghetto's fence were facing the possibility
of being shot by the German guards in the observation posts. Due to that
risk people used brokers13 for the execution of all transactions.
The residence of ghetto "B" hardly got any food. The people without money
were facing severe starvation. During one hour a day, from 12 noon to 1 PM
the residence of ghetto "A" were allowed to go and visit in ghetto "B". At
that time people from ghetto "A", used to share their meager food rationing
with some of the less fortunate (TST11-4,5). The life in ghetto "A" was very
hectic. All workers had to be present for the morning roll call on Kowalska
St. and then were marched to work five abreast in a German military formation.
Coming home in the evening they collapsed exhausted from their intensive
hard work. The life in ghetto "B" was calm and undisturbed. People woke up
late and were socializing, attending prayer services and conducting their
lives without thinking of the inevitable.
|used as a cover for a weapon's training center during the war for
the JWO, was located near Bochnia. The Bochnia region was chosen as the refuge
location for all the remaining JWO members after the anticipated Cyganeria
operation. Bunkers were dug in the woods near Bochnia for that purpose and
plans for continuation of armed resistance from there were drawn. However
after the capture of most of the warriors, following the Cyganeria operation,
the Bochnia region become the only JWO center of armed resistance left.
Akiba members in Bochnia took part in the underground movement from the very beginning of its formation. Dolek Libeskind and Gola Mirra, from the leaders of JWO, pay visits to Bochnia and a constant contact was maintained by messengers (PHV3-68). From November 1942 the Bochnia underground Akiba cell was located in ghetto "B" (TST10-15). The operation of the Bochnia cell was documented in The Justina Diary and the document was hidden at the Montelupich prison in Krakow in April 1943. Unfortunately the part of the document covering the Bochnia operation got lost (JD-134). We do know however some details about its activities from other sources.
We are aware of underground activities in Bochnia from 1940 (TST1-3). Money and unknown articles (possibly false ID documents and weapons) were shipped from Krakow to Bochnia by messengers who used freight trains for transportation. After the Bochnia ghetto formation we know of recruitment of new members to the JWO within the ghetto residence. We also know of Aryan papers given to the underground members which enabled them to move freely outside the ghetto or to escape during an aktion (DTS-212). After November 1943 the underground cell members resided in ghetto "B" since they did not make any attempt to obtain work and as a result were not considered as productive Jews. They maintained contacts with Polish underground organizations. In the summer of 1942 the group dug a large underground bunker as a means of survival during an aktion. This bunker was camouflaged very well and was equipped with wooden bunks. The cell members had a plan to dig a tunnel from their residence under the ghetto wall to the Aryan side of town but it did not materialize. Some of the JWO's members from Krakow escaped after December 22 to Bochnia and found refuge there. We know of a young lady, an Akiba member, who resided on the Aryan side of Bochnia (possibly as an auslaender). She was taking care of Jews who were hidden in a bunker and (she) was killed in Bochnia on April 1943 (JD-148). The underground cell in Bochnia was discovered and most of its members were captured (TST10-15).
It was on Friday night February the 26, 1943
(DTS-207,212)14 . The Jewish police locked them in the Judenrat
prison in two separate cells (for men and women) and the JWO's members were
interrogated through the whole night by Simchah Shapiro, the head of the
Krakow district Jewish police. Savage beatings were inflicted on them in
attempt to force them to reveal the names of other JWO members. At 8 o'clock
Saturday morning (the next day)
|they were taken by bus and were delivered to the hands of the Germans.
Most of the prisoners perished but some survived the war. They were transferred
to the Montelupich prison in Krakow where they were investigated and tortured
by the Nazis. We know of three girls from this group that were put in Justina's
cell on March 13. These three girls told Justina about the activities of
the Bochnia's JWO cell and she documented it in her diary. We probably will
never know what was said in this chapter of the diary that got lost. I can
only speculate that since it was written in the same chapter which covered
the Cyganeria operation it more than likely revealed offensive operations
in Bochnia. The only information we know of is dealing with recruitment and
the preparation for the pending aktion. We also know that after the execution
of the Cyganeria operation (on December 22, 1942) Bochnia became the center
of JWO operation in Galicia.
The JWO commander responsible for the Bochnia - Wisnicz
area was Hillel Wodislawski. Hillel was also a member of the JWO headquarters.
On February 26 he was out of the bunker and was saved. The Bochnia cell did
not cease to exist and in May 1943 when Shimshon Deringer and Gusta Davidson
(Justina) escaped to Bochnia they gave them refuge. A short time after that
the JWO's leaders were transferred to a bunker in the woods near Bochnia.
From there the JWO kept its armed struggle for quite some time. Until the
liquidation of ghetto Bochnia the warriors in the forests maintained contact
with the Bochnia cell15 . For more details about Akiba and the
JWO operation in Krakow and Bochnia please refer to the