Radom

Origins of the Community

Radom became a town in the early 13^th century, and its Jewish community is mentioned for the time in the 17^th century. As part of the Polish government's efforts to reinforce the town's status in the area south of Warsaw, Radom was granted municipal economic rights. These rights did not apply to Jews, and for nearly 200 years, the authorities in Radom tried to forbid Jews to reside in the town. Jewish merchants continued to visit Radom, and many of them also went on to live there, but the efforts to expel them from the town never ceased. The court in Warsaw ruled in the 18^th century that the Jews should be expelled from Radom, but the statistics nevertheless show that this order was not enforced.

In the mid-17^th century, during the war between Poland and Sweden, Radom suffered heavy damage that destroyed it almost completely. The Swedes burned the town to the ground, and over 90% of the homes there were destroyed. The few Jews living in the town left for nearby villages and neighboring towns. Only in the early 19th was the town was rebuilt under the Austro-Hungarian regime. This was also the period when Jews began moving back to the town. In 1826, there were already over 1,000 Jews in Radom.

The Jewish community in Radom was an Orthodox religiously observant community that made its living mostly from commerce, handicrafts, and working in industrial enterprises. The Jewish working class that developed in the town was the opening for the ideas of the new Jewish Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment), such as socialism and Zionism, which found supporters in Radom. Nevertheless, most of the Jewish population was still religiously observant, and in the elections to the community board, a majority of the votes went to the Agudat Israel list. Only towards the end of the 1930s were the religiously observant supports of Agudat Israel and the socialists from the Bund movement almost equal in number.

Following WWI, the Jews of Radom, like the rest of the population in the area, were in dire economic straits. Nevertheless, in 1922, when the economic situation stabilized, positive changes began in the community. Schools of the various Jewish educational networks were established. The Zionist youth movements operated in the town, and the socialist movements also founded libraries and youth clubs. The economic situation of the Jews was improving.

At the same time, anti-Semitism reared its ugly head again in the 1930s. Many Jews were harassed by anti-Semitic hooligans, the rightwing Polish parties called for an economic boycott of the Jews, the Polish police suspected young socialist Jews of spying for the Soviet Union, and various efforts were made to incriminate Jews for severe crimes they had not committed. Vandalism against Jewish stores and breaking of their display windows were everyday occurrences.

WWII and the Holocaust

Radom was occupied by the Germans on September 8, and they expelled hundreds of Jews from the homes they lived in. As soon as the Germans entered the town, they began humiliating and abusing Jews, especially religiously observant Jews. By the end of October, the Germans had already taken over all of the Jewish assets in Radom.

One of the unusual stories of heroism among Polish Jewry was the saga of 120 young men and women from the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement chapter in Radom. The German army ordered them to leave their club in order to enable German soldiers to move in there. The young people sent letters to the Hashomer Hatzair offices in Warsaw with a request for guidance. They waited a weekfor an answer, and after realizing that the mail would not arrive in time, they independently decided to leave. They walked in the direction of Warsaw, and some of them also took part in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in the spring of 1943.

The Hashomer Hatzair activists who remained in Radom suffered a bitter fate. In April 1940, when the Germans realized that activists of the socialist parties, mainly the Bund and Hashomer Hatzair, were trying to organize Jewish resistance in the town, hundreds of activists in the various leftwing organizations were arrested, both Jews and Poles. They were executed.

The Germans established a Judenrat in Radom, headed by Josef Diament. The Judenrat was responsible for collecting money and valuables, arranging housing for Jewish refugees, and supplying Jews for forced labor.

The Radom ghetto was established in April 1941. The Judenrat founded a Jewish "police service" that supervised the process of entering the ghetto. On April 7, 1941, the ghetto was closed with 27,000 Jews inside it, almost all of them refugees from nearby villages, towns, and cities. The Judenrat tried to ease life in the ghetto somewhat by opening an elementary school there, but the Germans refused to approve the existence of the school. In addition, courses were set up for professional training in order to prevent the kidnapping of young people for forced labor. A hospital was also maintained in the ghetto, managed by an experienced Jewish physician named Dr. Kleinberger.

The first "action" in the Radom ghetto was conducted in February 1942, and included 40 activists in leftwing parties. Two months later, several dozen leftist activists were again deported to Auschwitz. The Germans also decided to dismantle the Judenrat. These measures were aimed at preventing any possibility of organized Jewish resistance in the ghetto.

The largest and most important deportation of Jews from the Radom ghetto began on August 16, 1942. At the end of August, only 2,500 Jews were left in the ghetto. For all intents and purposes, the small ghetto became a labor camp. Between August 1942 and June 26, 1944, the Germans systematically murdered all the Jews in Radom. Some of them were sent to the extermination camps or to forced labor camps, while others were murdered by the Polish and Ukrainian policemen. The few Jews remaining in the town in June 1944 were executed by the SS.