The official order for the creation of the Ghetto in Częstochowa was issued on 9 April 1941 by Stadthauptmann Richard Wendler. In addition to Jews from Częstochowa, more Jews were brought in by rail from nearby towns and villages of the Generalgouvernement part of occupied south-western Second Polish Republic, including from Krzepice, Olsztyn, Mstów, Janów, and Przyrów, on top of expellees from Polish lands annexed into the Reich at the beginning of war, mostly from Płock and Łódź. The ghetto inmates were forced to work as slave labour in the armaments industry, a majority of them in the expanded Polish foundry "Metalurgia" located on Krotka Street as well as in other local factories or workshops. The Nazis began liquidating the ghetto on 22 September 1942 during Operation Reinhard. The first wave of deportations concluded on the night of 7 October. The action was carried out by German units together with their Ukrainian and Latvian auxiliaries, known as Trawniki men, under the command of captain of the Schupo police, Paul Degenhardt. Every day, the Jews were being assembled on Daszyński square for "resettlement" and then transported by the Holocaust freight trains – men, women and children – to Treblinka extermination camp: around 40,000 victims in total.
The uprising
Those who survived the main thrust of ghetto liquidation were put in the so-called Small Ghetto for the Hugo Schneider munitions factory. There, 850 Jews were executed. Soon, a clandestine Jewish Fighting Organisation was formed by Mordechaj Zilberberg, Sumek Abramowicz and Heniek Pesak among others. The organization consisted of 300 members. When the Germans moved in to liquidate the Small Ghetto on 26 June 1943 the Częstochowa Ghetto Uprising erupted. Zylberberg committed suicide when the Germans stormed his bunker. 1,500 Jews died in the fighting. On 30 June the resistance was suppressed with additional 500 Jews burned alive or buried beneath the rubble. 3,900 Jews were captured and put to work in labour camps Apparatebau, Warthewerk and Eisenhütte. 400 people were shot following a selection. In December that year 1,200 prisoners were transported to Germany. The men were sent to Buchenwald, the women to Dachau. However, the much needed foundry camps were revived in the second half of 1944 with around 10,000 new workers sent in from Łódź, Kielce, Radomsk and Skarżysko-Kamienna. On 15 and 16 January 1945, ahead of the Soviet advance, about 3,000 prisoners were sent to the Third Reich; all perished. The remaining 5,200 Jews employed in Częstochowa slave-labor camps were liberated by the Red Army.
Rescue efforts
There were numerous escape and rescue attempts made during the ghetto existence and its murderous liquidation. Righteous Among the Nations who helped Grodno Ghetto's Jews included Helena Sitkowska, the Koźmiński family the Klewicki family, and the Sikora family. However, not all rescue efforts were equally successful. Librowski family was executed alongside the two Jewish families, Chęcińscy and Bugajcy they attempted to shelter. Some rescuers were punished by death, including Karolina Owczarek, age 38, executed on 2 November 1944 by decree of Częstochowa Sondergericht for helping Jews, Jan Obarski, who provided Jews with false documents, executed by a firing squad, and Jan Brust from Żegota, who was shot in the first half of 1944 for delivering food to the Jewish inmates of the slave labour facility. Other members of the Brust family in Częstochowa helped to aid and shelter Jews, and after the war received the Righteous award.
