previous year. Friday 200, Saturday 600 people. [One had] To present oneself
immediately. The labour camps are located near Kielce in stone quarries.
⁵⁸³ Last year, the treatment was relatively humane – barracks. If one did
not present oneself, hostages were taken. No way out; difficult mood in town,
17–18 years-old [?].
Jews in Kielce actually already in the quarter,⁵⁸⁴ not sealed and in the end
not determined – 30,000 Jews.⁵⁸⁵ At the Hitler-Platz⁵⁸⁶ the Jews can live on the
side of the Jewish area – but not to leave [from the] front – labyrinth – exits.
In the train compartment, a conversation that only eggs – sorting –
purchase still remained in Jewish hands – specialists. A joke with the
eggs – rooster – levy – for not fulfilling the levy (grain, eggs, furs) depending
on [number of] hectares – sabotage – resettled – even more in Lublin
district.
In Kielce, a great crowd – culturally very neglected – the representative
of the Judenrat – Cytryn. Occupies himself with these issues. One could do
something, but the initiative is lacking. After a certain time, gave permission
for a school, but the premises [were] taken by the Germans, and because
of that, nothing. He was in an institution for orphans, very backward, the
teachers not professional, the headmistress does not agree to teach history.
Only now they started to teach Yiddish and Hebrew songs – children [speak]
Polish among themselves.
In Kielce and the area – strained relations between Poles and Jews –
everywhere cleared of the Polish intelligentsia.⁵⁸⁷
583 There were several quarries in Kielce: Czarnów-Ślichowice, Sitkówka-Nowiny, Wietrznia, Kadzielnia. During the war, they were managed by German commissioners. Until 1942, they employed Jewish squads from the Kielce ghetto. See Krzysztof Urbański, Leksykon dziejów ludności żydowskiej Kielc 1789–1999 (Kraków, 2000), pp. 111–113.
584 The establishment of the ghetto in Kielce was based on a decree of 1 April 1941. The big ghetto was demarcated by the streets: Orla, Piotrkowska, Starozagnańska, Pocieszki i Radomska; the small ghetto, by Bodzentyńska Street, Św. Wojciecha Street and Św. Wojciecha Square. See K. Urbański, Leksykon, p. 89.
585 There were between 25,000 and 27,000 Jews in the Kielce ghetto. Ibidem.
586 Św. Wojciecha Square.
587 From May to July 1940, approximately 6,500 members of the Polish intelligentsia were murdered within the framework of Aktion AB (the Ausserordentliche Befriedungsaktion, or Extraordinary Pacification Operation).
