BS”D 18 Iyar 5781 Seven Jews were murdered in the night of 30 April 1946 (five men and two women). As we read in the report by the Commander of the People’s Militia (PM i.e. police) Station in Jurgow to the Commander of the PM in Nowy Targ in the same date: “the bodies lie on the road between Bialka and Gronie. One body lies in a field 50 metres from the main road. The bodies have been partially robbed. Next to one of them a ticket was found, dated 29 April 1946, Kraków-Zakopane. The bodies have bloodied heads, their faces towards the ground, just one body with the face upwards. The murders have been committed by shooting with automatic guns, since bullets of from a PPSh [submachine gun] have…

BS”D 18 Iyar 5781 On 30 April 1630 Izak Jakubowicz [IPA: /ja.kuˈbɔ.vʲit͡ʂ/] received permission from the king to build a synagogue. However, a few words should be written also about the Jakubowicz family, whose pride was Izak, called sometimes familiarly Reb Ayzik or Reb Yekeles. The cornerstone of the family was Moses Eberls, father of Yacob (reb Yekele) or Jakóbek [pron. “Yakoobek”] the Rich, who became an Elder in the Community and a member of the Codifying Committee (“Council of Seven”), which in 1595 prepared the Statutes of the Community. Jekele had two sons: Izak and Moses. Izak Jakubowicz was an Elder of the Community almost all his life (1608-1647), relinquishing power in his old age to his son Moses. Izak had various businesses: he had a pawn shop and…

BS”D 17 Iyar 5781 Oskar Schinder was born on 28 April 1908 in Zwittau in Moravia (at the time part of Austria-Hungary), now Svitavy in the Czech Republic. When he was 20 he married Emilie Pelzl, the daughter of rich farmers. Oskar worked in the farming machinery factory of his father up to its bankruptcy caused by the international economic crisis. He was then employed as a salesman of a factory from Brno. In 1935 he became a member of the German Sudeten Party (GSP) and later a member of the German Abwehr (intelligence and counter-intelligence). He was arrested in 1938 because of his activities in Czechoslovakia and Poland. He was quickly released after the annexation of the Sudeten by the Third Reich. He became then a Nazi member. After…