Sources: Jolanta Urbanska, Deputy Chair, Częstochowa City Council,

The Częstochowa City Council, today, unanimously passed a resolution declaring, in Częstochowa, 2021 as the Year of Remembrance of the Victims of the Częstochowa Ghetto. Adoption of the resolution is in connection with the 80th anniversary of the ghetto’s establishment.

On 9th April 1941, the German mayor of Częstochowa, Richard Wendler, proclaimed the establishment of a ghetto in the north-eastern part of the city. The Jews were given until 23rd April to move into the ghetto, an area from which 3,000 non-Jewish residents were evicted.

Following the mass deportations in September and October 1942, on 1st November 1942, a much smaller area near the Warta River was established. It became known as the “Small Ghetto”. It was surrounded with barbed wire and had only one gate. With the arrival of Jews from other labour camps, the “small Ghetto” had a population of more than 5,000.

In mid-1943, following further mass murders, the “Small Ghetto” was liquidated. The 4,000 remaining Jews were then sent to slave labour camps – 3,350 to HASAG-Pelcery and the remainder to HASAG-Warta.

Reference: The Yad Vashem Encyclopedia of the Ghettoes During the Holocaust, Vol.1, 2009.