Born on 18th April 1921 in Zabłocie, Renata Zisman, née  Springut, was a pianist and a long-term teacher. Zisman was a graduate of the State College of Music in both Krakow and Wroclaw.  She spent the war in the Krakow getto as well as in the Płaszow, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Ravensbrück and Neustadt-Glewe camps, living to see the liberation in the latter. After the war Zisman worked as both a school principal and a teacher at the Witold Rowicki 1st Degree State College of Music in Żywiec. She was a teacher in the grand piano and conducting class. Next, Renata Zisman took up another teaching job at the Władysław Żeleński Secondary State School of Music in Krakow where she lived to her retirement in 1995. She was awarded Gold…

On 11th April1943 the Transocean Agency informed about ”discovering a mass grave with the remains of 3,000 Polish officers”. It was the first official German announcement regarding the Katyn massacre.  In April 1949 NKVD began mass executions of Polish officers who were captured after 17th September 1939. The lowest estimated number of people executed by the Soviets during the Katyn massacre is around 20,000. The group executed by NKVD  consisted of 500 Jews, soldiers of the pre-war Polish Army including Baruch Steinberg (Chief Rabbi of the Polish Army), Mieczysław Birnbaum (a translator and a publicist), well-known Warsaw doctors: Henryk Brendel (GP and gynaecologist), Bronisław Karbowski (otolaryngologist)  as well as Maksymilian Landau  – a legionnaire, a participant of the Poish-Soviet war, but most importantly, a Polish and German…

A dedication ceremony of the New Jewish Cemetery located at Abrahama 3 Street in Krakow took place on 6th April 1932. The first piece of land dedicated to the cemetery was purchased in 1919, followed by another one in 1923. A decision to build a monumental pre-burial house was made quickly. The person made responsible for it was a Krakow architect, engineer Adolf Siódmak. Moreover, the plan provided for a building dedicated to a Chevra Kadisha funeral society (known as ”Szary Domek”). Due to red tape and financial difficulties, the works strang out until 1932 when the cemetery was opened. From1941 the cemetery at Abrahama 3 was the only burial place for Krakow Jews. During WWII the cemetery was completely ruined, while the pre-burial house was blown up.  Two…

Born on 4th April 1881 in Dębica, Rudolf  Reder together with Chaim Hirszman constitute the only two fully documented cases of people who managed to escape the Bełżec camp and survived the German occupation. Historians estimate that around 450,000 people were murdered in Bełżec. In November 1942 Reder was sent to Lviv to help with the purchase of sheet metal. Taking advantage of the German guard’s distraction  Reder managed to run away. After the end of the war, thanks to the efforts of the Regional Jewish Historical Commission in Krakow, Reder’s account was published under the title ”Bełżec” and included an introduction by dr Nella Rost. However, the book came out in a rather limited volume. In 1999 however, this harrowing memoir was re-issued thanks to Judaica, a…

Jerzy Gert, byname of Józef Gaertner, a conductor and a composer, a son of Henryk, was born on 31st March 1908. He got the musical preparation at his family home. Gert played the violin and the grand piano. He was a student of  the Neues Wiener Conservatoire and Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst where he got his education under the supervision of Hanns Eisler, Josef Polnauer, Arnold Schönberg as well as Alban Berg. After returning to Poland in 1933, Gert took up a job as a music director at a record company called ”Odeon” in Warsaw. What is more, he conducted the record company’s orchestra. He left for Lviv in 1939 where he worked as a conductor of the Lviv Philharmonic until 1941. Gert went into…

24th March marks the birthday of  Mieczysław Pemper. Born in 1920 in Cracow, Pemper was remembered by Aleksander Skotnicki in Dziennik Polski in the 16th June 2011 issue. ”He came from an assimilated Jewish family. During the German occupation, he went through the Krakow getto first, followed by the camp in Płaszów, where he was hired as a secretary of Chief Amon Goethe. Pemper’s  position allowed him to observe the violence and impunity of the guards, the labour camp and the concentration camp’s staff. Being Oscar Schindler’s  secret collaborator, he contributed to saving over 1,000 Cracow residents of Jewish background . First, from the Lipowa 4 camp, followed by Brűnnlitz in Moravia. In 1946, after WWII, Mieczysław Pemper was a witness at the trial of Amon Goethe…

Józef Michał Rosenblatt, a councillor, lawyer, professor of the Jagiellonian University in Cracow, the son of Joachim and Karolina, née Einblid, was born on 19th March 1853 in Cracow. A graduate of St. Ann’s Gymnasium in Cracow and the Jagiellonian University at the Law Department. In 1876, Rosenblatt obtained his PhD title in Law. The government scholarship enabled him to participate in lectures and seminars in Berlin, Leipzig and Munchen. In 1877, after his return to Cracow , he obtained his postdoctorial degree and started  his academic and didactic work on criminal law and criminal trial at the Jagiellonian University. Rosenblatt  obtained the title of Associate Professor in 1884, only to become a Professor in 1893. Between 1877-1882, he worked at a law office, mosty as an…

Dawid Kahane, born on 15th March 1903 in Grzymałów, was a rabbi with the rank of lieutenant colonel of the Polish Army and a chairman of The Supreme Religious Council in Poland.   He came from a family of rabbis who raised him in traditional religious spirit.   Kahane studied in Berlin, Wrocław and Vienna, where he obtained his PhD title in Philosophy. He was a student of Israelitisch-Theologische Lehranstalt, too. After his return to Poland, he settled in Lviv. During the war, Dawid Kahane was a member of the Lviv rabbinate, while working at the religious department of  Judenrat at the same time. He was a prisoner of the Janovski camp in Lviv. Kahane was saved thanks to Andrzej Szeptycki, the Greek-Catholic Metropolitan. After the war, he…

On Saturday, 13th March 1943, the Germans began the final liquidation of the Krakow ghetto. First, the ghetto was cordoned off by SS divisions, Police, Sonderdienst and the Blue police. Jews from the A ghetto were supposed to walk to Płaszów, while those from ghetto B were to be killed, despite being  promised a relocation to Julag I. During the two-day operation, the SS men murdered a few hundred people located in shelters, hospitals and orphanages. Their corpses were transported to Płaszów, where other people, considered ”useless”, were being shot dead. The official total number of 2,000 victims killed in both, the ghetto as well as in Płaszów, does not seem to be exaggerrated, as the original number of 8,000 people who arrived at the camp increased…

12th March 1682, marked in history as ”der grosjer Schülergeläuf”, was a day of serious anti-Jewish riots in Cracow. Janina Bieniarzówna thoroughy described these events in Volume 2 of  Dzieje Krakowa (The history of Cracow) as well Majer Bałaban, in Volume 2 of  Historia Żydów w Krakowie i na Kazimierzu 1304-1868 (The history of Jews in Cracow and in the Kazimierz District 1304-1868) It all stemmed from a Szachna who was sentenced to death by hanging, as a consequence of buying stolen ecclesiastical silverware. After executing the sentence, a group of students attacked and severly beat the Jews. Soon after that, other anti-Jewish riots broke out. The Jews took shelter in the Szara tenement house, while students, supported by local thugs, tried to break in there. As…