In the city of the Bishop of Cracow, Kielce, it was maintained that there was a ban on Jewish settlement. This changed in 1862, and the number of Jewish residents grew rapidly, so that by the outbreak of World War II it was already 21,000 people: almost a third of the city's population.
Shortly after the Germans entered Kielce in September 1939, they directed repression against the Jews. On April 1, they established a ghetto, and from August 19-24, 1942, they murdered more than 25,000 Jews from the Kielce ghetto.
On July 4, 1946 an inflamed mob, sparked by allegations of blood libel and accompanied by soldiers and militiamen, attacked their Jewish neighbors. The city authorities did not react, nor did their to fellow citizens. Over 42 Jews were brutally murdered, 80 were injured.
Restoring the memory of the pogrom, the history of the Kielce Jewish community and its Holocaust is a long and complicated process, unfinished to this day . It was undertaken by people affiliated with the Jan Karski Association.
