Czestochowa, Poland

Resurrection and Destruction in Ghetto Czestochowa
(Częstochowa, Poland)
50°48' / 19°07'

Translation of
Viderstand un Umkum in Czenstochower Ghetto

Edited by: L. Brener

Published: Poland before 1952

Acknowledgments
Project Coordinator and Translator

This is a translation from: Viderstand un Umkum in Czenstochower Ghetto (Resurrection and Destruction in Ghetto Czestochowa),
edited by L. Brener, published in Poland before 1952 by The Jewish Historical Institute of Poland, 177 pages (Y)

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The First Tortures 5

The Judenrat and Its Authority 11

The Ghetto 20

Forced Labor 25

Jews Would Escape from the Collection Point 32

The Jewish Police 35

The Economic Situation of the Jews in the Ghetto 39

Special Help 43

Cultural Activity 51

The Underground Movement in the Ghetto 58

Demographic Relationships 65

On the Eve of Liquidation 70

The Large Liquidation 76

The Small Ghetto 89

The Resistance Movement in the Small Ghetto 113

In the HASAG Camp 138

Underground Work in HASAG and in the Koniecpoler Forests 157

The Last Days of the Czenstochower HASAG Camps 166

List of Jewish Doctors in Czenstochow Who Perished During the German Occupation 174

Map of Czestochowa

Names Index

Introduction

This work by Liber Brener, Viderstand un Umkum in Czenstochower Ghetto [Resurrection and Destruction in Ghetto Czestochowa], is an expansion and reworking of a diary which the author continued for a long time in the ghetto and in the camp. After the liberation, L. Brener restored his memories and verified and completed them with a series of German, Polish and Yiddish documents as well as testimony from other Jewish survivors of the Czenstochower ghetto. The subjective element, those who themselves lived through it and, as matter of fact, the specific nature of the events – places a seal on the book and is the reason that the author does not pretend to have exhaustively [covered everything] and answered every problem that emerged in connection with the events in the large and small Czenstochower ghettos and in the H.A.S.A.G. camp.* As a matter of fact, this book does not pretend to be a thoroughly rigorous scientific study. Therefore, Brener's book presents itself as an important and worthwhile material collection, which will serve as a basis for research and scientific synthesis by the future historian of the ghettos and resistance movement and as a source for creating materials for illuminating those basic problems for which this book does not give a completely clear answer.

*[Translator's note: H.A.S.A.G. is the acronym for a German metal goods manufacturer, Hugo Schneider Metallwarenfabrik Aktiengesellschaft. A H.A.S.A.G. factory was established in the Czenstochower ghetto and “employed” forced labor or prisoners from concentration camps.]

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