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1 Killing site(s)
Józef W., born in 1934: "I was born in Rzezawa, a small village about 7 km from Bochnia. We had a large family. There were seven of us children in total, six siblings besides me. My father worked on the railway. In Rzezawa, there were only a few Jewish families, five or six at most. Everyone knew each other. One of the Jewish men was a carpenter, and I remember the sound of his work, steady and familiar. Two Jewish women, Esta and Berta, used to come to our house to buy milk. They came regularly, and there was nothing unusual about it as it was simply part of life back then. The Jewish families had a small house of prayer where they would meet. It wasn’t large or grand, just a modest place, like everything else in the village. There was no Jewish cemetery in Rzezawa, and when someone died, they had to be buried in Bochnia." (Witness N°1077P, interviewed in Bochnia, on June 25, 2019)
"August or September 1943. Rzezawa: The German police shot 18 Poles of Jewish origin who had been captured on the Bochnia-Tarnów road. The bodies were buried in the cemetery." [Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Poland, Bulletin Vol. IX (Warsaw, 1957); J. Kaczmarczyk, July 20, 1961; Prosecutor’s Office of Kraków (Bochnia), P1010311–P1010316.]
Rzezawa is a village in Bochnia County, Lesser Poland Voivodeship, in southern Poland. The Jewish community of Rzezawa was small, consisting of approximately five or six families. They were well integrated into village life. For example, a Jewish carpenter worked in the village, and women named Esta and Berta regularly visited local homes to purchase milk. The community maintained a modest house of prayer for their gatherings. As there was no Jewish cemetery in Rzezawa, deceased members of the community were taken to nearby Bochnia for burial.
Rzezawa, along with the rest of Bochnia County, was occupied by German forces on September 3, 1939. Shortly thereafter, a new administrative structure was established, including a German military post stationed in the local school building and the formation of an auxiliary police unit.
According to Yahad witness Józef W., born in 1934, the Jewish residents of Rzezawa were initially able to live and engage in trade with relative freedom for a period following the start of the war. However, the destruction of the community began in August 1942. On the evening of Friday, August 21, all Jewish residents in the district, including those from Rzezawa and several surrounding villages, were rounded up and transferred the following morning to the Bochnia ghetto. During the first major Aktion on August 25, 1942, between 2,000 and 3,000 Jews were deported from Bochnia to the Bełżec killing center. Those deemed “unfit” for transport, including the elderly, women, and young children, were taken to the edge of the Niepołomice Forest in Baczków, where they were killed.
According to archival records, in August or September 1943, German police shot 18 Jews in Rzezawa who had been captured on the Bochnia–Tarnów road. This event is corroborated by the testimony of Józef W., who recalled the arrival of two or three horse-drawn carts at the Catholic cemetery, carrying a group of men, women, and children. Local accounts suggest these victims may have originally been from the nearby town of Brzesko.
Upon arrival at the cemetery, the group was divided, with the women and children placed on one side and the men on the other. All were shot on site and subsequently buried, likely by the local gravedigger with the assistance of other village residents. To this day, the burial site within the cemetery remains uncommemorated.
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