Czestochowa is a city about 125 miles southwest of Warsaw. When the war broke out, there were about 28,500 Jews in the city. The Germans occupied the city on the third day of the war, with the ghetto being established on April 9, 1941. Some 20,000 Jews from other cities an villages were sent to the ghetto. Large scale deportations took place in the fall of 1942, with some 39,000 Jews sent to Treblinka. About 5,000 skilled Jews remained to work, principally at the HASAG Rakow steel mill and the HASAG Pelzery munitions factory. About 1,500 Jews were still in the city when liberated by the Russians in January, 1945.
Below are thumbnails of the front and back of a cover dated June 1941 from the ghetto in Czestochowa to Lisbon, Portugal. Please click on the thumbnail to see the full image, and then click your back key or "Cover" in the left frame to return.
Below are thumbnails of the front and back of a postcard sent by the Secretary General of the Judenrat in Czestochowa to the Judenrat in the Lodz Ghetto, postmarked July 11, 1941. The front and back of the card contain Judenrat cachets. The message in Polish inquires about a Rozia Najman. The handwritten reply frpm Lodz is in green. Please click on the thumbnail to see the full image, and then click your back key or "Postcard" in the left frame to return.
Encyclopedia Judaica, CD-Rom Edition, Keter Publishing
Spector, The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust (2001), P. 285-88
Copyright © 2003-06 Edward Victor