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On March 9, 1942, the Jewish community of Mielec, Poland, ceased to exist. The Nazis dismantled the entire town in a single day, executing the elderly, deporting the able-bodied for slave labor, and transporting the rest to the Lublin district, where they were later murdered in Sobibor and Belzec. The Germans had taken over a Polish aircraft factory on the outskirts of Mielec, where they manufactured Heinkel 111 bomber planes for the Nazi war machine. Following the March 9, 1942, deportation, the factory complex became part of the Mielec Nazi slave labor camp, later a concentration camp. Using rare photographs and records, Nazi documents, witness statements, survivor interviews, and war criminal trial transcripts, Rochelle G. Saidel tells the story of the flourishing Mielec Jewish community, the unusual way it was wiped out by the Nazis, the few survivors who managed to run and hide, and the almost unknown brutal Mielec slave labor camp that operated from March 1942 until July 1944. This illuminating study gives Mielec its due place in Holocaust history.
Preface ix
Chapter 1 Mielec Today and Before World War II 1
Photo Gallery 1 Pre-World War II Mielec 11
Chapter 2 The Mielec Jewish Community under Nazi Rule 17
Chapter 3 The Mielec Deportation Begins: March 9, 1942 40
Photo Gallery 2 Mielec from September 1939 to the March 9,1942, Deportation 59
Chapter 4 Mielec Jews in the Lublin District 65
Chapter 5 The Many Who Were Murdered, the Few Who Escaped 86
Chapter 6 Missing the Roundup, Running, and Hiding .97
Chapter 7 The Mielec Slave Labor Camp 119
Chapter 8 The Mielec Concentration Camp 140
Photo Gallery 3 Exile in the Lublin District, Slave Labor in Mielec, and Mielec Today. 157
Chapter 9 Post-World War II Nazi War Criminal Trials 165
Acknowledgments 184
Appendix
Jewish Life in Mielec: Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries 187
References 210
About the Author 219
Index 220
Anonymous
Posted June 22, 2012
This was a great book to read. It really explained everything about the different periods of Mielec and how it has transformed. I read this right before I went to visit to see where my grandparents used to live.
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Overview
On March 9, 1942, the Jewish community of Mielec, Poland, ceased to exist. The Nazis dismantled the entire town in a single day, executing the elderly, deporting the able-bodied for slave labor, and transporting the rest to the Lublin district, where they were later murdered in Sobibor and Belzec. The Germans had taken over a Polish aircraft factory on the outskirts of Mielec, where they manufactured Heinkel 111 bomber planes for the Nazi war machine. Following the March 9, 1942, deportation, the factory complex ...