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 teacher. Other executed…

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 days later, the…

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 Krakow Foundation and…

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 hiding after the…