Brzesko | Lesser Poland Voivodeship

"The Jewish cemetery in Brzesko is located at the intersection of Czarnowiejska, Brzoskowa, and Feliksa Dzierżyński streets. The section of the cemetery where Jews were shot is situated in the southwestern part. The execution, witnessed by Józef Nawalany, took place in an area measuring 22 by 17 meters.

The southeastern edge of the cemetery borders Czarnowiejska Street. At this location, the cemetery is enclosed by a brick palisade, measuring 1.5 meters high in the corner and 2 meters high on the western side. On the west side, bushes now grow about 11 meters from the palisade—vegetation that did not exist at the time of the 1942 shooting." [Prosecutor Krakow/Brzesko/ DSC01950 Report of May 31, 1968, on the prosecutor’s visit to the Jewish cemetery, where shootings of Jews took place, as part of the investigation into crimes committed by officials of the German gendarmerie against Polish citizens of Polish and Jewish nationality between 1942-1944. (...)]

Brzesko is a town in southern Poland, in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship. It lies approximately 25 km (16 miles) west of Tarnów and 50 km (31 miles) east of the regional capital, Kraków.

The Jewish presence in Brzesko likely dates back to the 16th or 17th century. By 1765, around 180 Jews over the age of one lived in the town. In 1820, Jewish residents owned 59 of the 149 houses classified as burgher properties. Throughout the 19th century, the Jewish community played a dominant role in local trade, and by 1867 nearly all commercial enterprises were operated by Jews.

By the late 1800s, the community had established several institutions, including a hospital for the poor and a charitable sick fund located in the Small Market Square. They also maintained a ritual bath (mikveh), a religious school, two synagogues, and two cemeteries—an older one on Głowackiego Street and a newer burial ground on Czarnowiejska Street. In addition, several smaller prayer houses continued to function up until the outbreak of World War II.

The First World War and the years that followed were challenging for the residents of Brzesko. During this period, anti-Jewish violence erupted, including a pogrom in 1918 in which at least six Jews were killed. The interwar years also brought economic hardship. Most Jewish residents earned their living through small-scale trade and peddling. By 1921, Brzesko had around 70 workshops and small state-run businesses employing 114 people—mainly the owners and their families—specializing in tailoring, metalwork, food production, and construction. Many Jews also worked in liquor sales, the livestock and produce trade, and various crafts. The community included professionals such as judges, lawyers, doctors, and civil servants.

Religiously and ideologically, Brzesko’s Jews were diverse, with strong Hasidic traditions alongside progressive and Zionist movements.

On the eve of the Second World War in 1939, Brzesko was home to 2,119 Jewish residents, making up about half of the town’s total population.

Brzesko was occupied by Wehrmacht troops on September 5, 1939. Shortly afterward, Einsatzgruppe I arrived. A new German administration was established, and the town was incorporated into Tarnów County, part of the Kraków District within the General Government.

Anti-Jewish measures in Brzesko began immediately after the occupation. In September 1939, the synagogue on Asnyka Street was set on fire. Soon after, Jews were subjected to forced labor, financial levies, and the requirement to wear armbands with the Star of David. A Judenrat was created, overseeing local Jews as well as those from nearby Szczurowa and Borzęcin (239 Jews in 1940). In 1941, the old Jewish cemetery was destroyed; tombstones were removed by Jews under German orders and used to pave an alley in the town’s Market Square. Alongside these measures, Jews were routinely subjected to shootings by German forces.

In the fall of 1941, the Germans established an open ghetto in Brzesko, divided into two sections and marked by signs. By the summer of 1942, the ghetto held about 6,000 Jews from Brzesko and nearby villages, as well as deportees from Kraków and Germany. In the spring of 1942, six Jews were shot by the Germans in the town square. On April 13, 1942, German forces—including three local Order Police officers—shot about 50 Jews, who were buried in two mass graves, each measuring 4 by 5 meters, at the town’s Jewish cemetery. Another major Aktion followed on June 18, 1942, when German forces, assisted by Ukrainian auxiliaries, killed nearly 200 Jews at the same cemetery and deported over 400 others.

By the summer of 1942, the Brzesko ghetto was officially sealed. On July 23, additional Jews from the Tarnów district were relocated there. The ghetto’s final liquidation took place on September 17–18, 1942. All remaining Jews were gathered in the market square, stripped of their belongings, and deported to the Bełżec killing center. Those who were sick or unable to walk were shot on the spot. Around 70 Jews were temporarily spared to clear the ghetto, tasked with removing furniture from Jewish homes and placing it at the ghetto’s edge, where locals could buy it. Once the work was completed, they were transferred to the Tarnów ghetto.

A small number of Jews managed to escape the deportations to Bełżec, but most were later found and executed in numerous subsequent shootings. According to Yahad witness Janina K., born in 1914, the day after the ghetto’s liquidation, 17 Jews—including members of the Kringer family—were led to the Jewish cemetery, shot, and buried. On December 22, 1942, the Gestapo and gendarmerie killed several dozen more Jews, who were also buried in the cemetery. Known victims include Apel Chaim, Dora, Herman, Jakub, and Mendel; Chaim and Mendel Ebenholz; and Regina and Tobiasz Mikołajewicz. In 1943, another 28 Jews—likely those found in hiding—were executed at the same site. In total, only about 200 Jews from Brzesko survived the Holocaust.

In 1947, A. Grunberg and S. Bransdorfer initiated the erection of a monument at the Brzesko Jewish cemetery in memory of approximately 200 Jews killed there on June 18, 1942.

The cemetery also holds a mass grave of Jewish men, women, and children from the Zakliczyn ghetto. They were murdered in December 1942 and initially buried at the killing site; in 1947, their remains were exhumed and reinterred in Brzesko.