1 Sitio(s) de ejecución
Maria Ł., born in 1941: "I’ve always been interested in the history of the Jewish community from my village. Jews were very numerous in Czarny Dunajec. They lived mainly around the market square and the surrounding streets. Commerce was entirely in their hands, as there was only one Catholic-owned store. They were also professionals, working as doctors and lawyers in the town.
When the German occupation began, the Germans started humiliating and persecuting the Jews, forcing them into degrading acts. I know from my parents that they gathered young Jewish women at the outpost, ordered them to undress, and that a German with a whip stood in the middle and told them to dance. I also know from my mother’s testimony that a Jewish man named Lehrer was shot when the Germans came to arrest him; his daughter was killed alongside him.
After the war, I know that residents took matzevot (gravestones) from the Jewish cemetery. Today, many of the former Jewish houses still exist, mainly around the market square." (Witness N°1404P, interviewed in Czarny Dunajec, on October 14, 2022)
CZARNY DUNAJEC, Czarny Dunajec Municipality
July 1942 Gestapo functionaries shot 3 Jews in their apartment. These are the names of the deceased: Paconower Gustaw, Paconower Syda /wife/ Süsner /no first name/ The bodies were buried in the Jewish cemetery in Czarny Dunajec. [Source: AGK, ASG, sygn. 10, k. 501; AGK, Ankieta GK "Egzekucje" pow. Nowy Targ, woj. krakowskie.]
August 1942 Gestapo functionaries executed 13 residents of Czarny Dunajec, of Jewish nationality. These are the names of the deceased: Balitzer Henryk Balitzer /no first name/, wife of the above Balitzer Anna Balitzer Feliks Jonas Georg Jonas Salomea Kolber /no first name/, man Kolber /no first name/, wife of the above Kraus Nina Lehrer /no first name/, wife of Józef, who was shot on 20 V 1942 Midelgrün /no first name/, woman Neugewürtz Natan Neugewürtz /no first name/, wife of the above The bodies were buried in the Jewish cemetery in Czarny Dunajec. [Source: AGK, Ankieta GK "Egzekucje" Nowy Targ, woj. krakowskie; AGK, ASG, sygn. 10, k. 550; MHK: Karty ewidencyjne...]
III 1944 At the beginning of March, the Nazis executed 50 people of Jewish origin. [Source: AGK, Ankieta GK "Egzekucje" pow. Nowy Targ, woj. Krakowskie.]
Czarny Dunajec is a town located in southern Poland near the Polish–Slovak border, situated in a valley along the river of the same name. It is the seat of the gmina and belongs to Nowy Targ County in the Lesser Poland region.
The first documented mention of Jews in Czarny Dunajec dates back to the mid-19th century, although their settlement in the area may have begun earlier. The Jews of Czarny Dunajec were subordinated to the Jewish community (gmina) of Nowy Targ. Religious and social life centered around several houses of prayer, a ritual bath (mikveh), several chederim (traditional elementary schools), and a cemetery established on the outskirts of the town in the second half of the 19th century. The main synagogue, a brick structure built at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, was located near the market square, the focal point of community life. It could accommodate about 300 worshippers. Next to it stood a wooden prayer house, which was later burned down by the Germans. The vast majority of the local Jewish population were Hasidic or Orthodox.
The Jews of Czarny Dunajec were primarily involved in legal practice (lawyers, apprentice lawyers, legal clerks), trade, innkeeping, small crafts (such as tailoring, shoemaking, baking, and butchering), and local industry (including sawmill ownership and operation, as well as small entrepreneurial ventures).
In 1939, 405 Jews lived in Czarny Dunajec, constituting about 14% of the town’s total population.
Following the joint German–Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939, which marked the beginning of the Second World War, Czarny Dunajec was occupied by German forces. Early in the occupation, the Gestapo established its headquarters in a tenement house on the Market Square. During the destruction of the Jewish community, the local Gestapo was headed by Robert Weissmann, known as the “Executioner of Podhale.”
From the onset of occupation, the Jewish population of Czarny Dunajec was subjected to escalating persecution. By January 1940, restrictive measures were already in force: Jewish property rights were curtailed, movement was severely limited, the use of Hebrew was forbidden, and forced labor—mainly clean-up and maintenance work—was imposed. Ultimately, the Jews of the town were systematically deported to the ghetto established in Nowy Targ. According to surviving documentation, several dozen Jews were still living in Czarny Dunajec as late as 1942.
Throughout the occupation, isolated shootings of Jews took place in the town. The victims—both local residents and individuals brought from nearby areas—were buried in the local Jewish cemetery. According to historical records, on May 20, 1942, Gestapo officers shot and killed Józef Lehrer, a shop owner from the Market Square, his daughter Regina, and Karol Chraca, a farmer from Wróblówka. All were buried in the Jewish cemetery; in 1945, Chraca’s body was exhumed and reburied in the Catholic cemetery.
According to witness testimony from Stanisława W., born in 1937, shootings of Jews confined in the synagogue occurred regularly throughout the occupation. Stanisława’s family home stood directly beside the synagogue. She recalls Jewish men being led out ten at a time and shot against the wall of her house. These executions took place mainly on Saturdays, sometimes once or twice a month. The bodies were subsequently taken to the Jewish cemetery. She adds: “After the executions, the Germans ordered the blood to be washed off and the area cleaned, which I did with my mother and father.”
Stanisława also reported that the wooden synagogue on Sienkiewicza Street became the site of a mass murder of Jewish women and children. Members of the Gestapo outpost at the Market Square doused the building with gasoline, locked the doors, and set it on fire. All those inside were burned alive. Those who attempted to escape through the windows were shot.
The largest mass shootings in Czarny Dunajec took place in July and August 1942, coinciding with the launch of Operation Reinhardt. Among the victims was the Pacanower family. On August 24, at least 13 people were shot; twelve of the victims are known by name, including a two-year-old child. In August 1942, the final remaining Jews of Czarny Dunajec who had not been executed locally were deported to Nowy Targ. Two days later, they were sent to the Bełżec killing center.
Until 1943, a forced labor camp—known as the “Hobag” camp—operated in Czarny Dunajec near the railway station. It held approximately 90 Jewish prisoners, mainly from nearby towns such as Jordanów, Mszana Dolna, and Limanowa. Prisoners were forced to work at the sawmill, building hangars for the German air force. The camp was liquidated in May 1943, and its prisoners were also deported to the Bełżec killing center.
In addition to the victims of Operation Reinhardt, the Jewish cemetery in Czarny Dunajec is the burial place of Jewish forced laborers from the Hobag camp who were murdered in two separate shootings in November and December 1943. More than twenty people were killed; eight victims have been identified so far: Majer Bittersfeld, Abraham Knobler, Natan Knobler, Leopold Löwenberg, Józef Schön, Natan Statter, Fryderyk Silbiger, and Mojżesz Szaulewicz.
Today, a monument in the cemetery commemorates the 503 identified Jews from Czarny Dunajec and the surrounding area who were murdered during the Second World War.
Only a handful of Jews from Czarny Dunajec survived the occupation. Almost all of them emigrated from Poland after the war, mainly to Israel.
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