Wierzbnik-Starachowitz Memorial Book

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Starachowice, on the Kamienna River, became an important mining and industrial center during the 19th and 20th centuries. In the interwar period, it annexed its ancient neighbor, Wierzbnik, forming the town ot Wierzbnik-Starachowice. Jews, who began settling here in the early 19th century, by 1935 made up 31% of a population of about 8000. During the 1930s, Jewish-owned factories produced flour, glass, ceramics, farm tools, iron, lumber, plywood, and building materials. There were more than 130 Jewish shops and stores. The Jewish community supported 3 cheders, a public school, a Tarbut school, a yeshiva, a synagogue, a mikveh, several Hassidic shtiblech, and a cemetery.

On September 9, 1939, the city was occupied by the Germans. In February 1941, they established a ghetto in Wierzbnik, to which Jews from various towns were sent. The ghetto was liquidated on October 27, 1942, and many of its prisoners sent to the Treblinka death camp. The Jews who remained were sent to labor camps in the area and, finally, to Auschwitz.

The Jewish community of Wierzbnik-Starachowice is no more. This book, originally written in Hebrew and Yiddish by emmigrees and survivors, shows what it was like and bears witness to its destruction.