(Section 3 of Traveling Exhibit)
After placing the Jewish population into ghettos, the Nazi regime began operating extermination camps in December of 1941. At the Wannsee Conference, the policy of annihilation was fully implemented. Plans for the Final Solution to what the Nazi called “the problem of European Jewry” were created and new restrictions on Jewish life quickly spread through Nazi-occupied Europe. For the Jewish population of Będzin, this meant further constraints on everyday life and eventual removal to a nearby area called Kamionka. Kamionka became Będzin’s ghetto, where Jews were now entirely separated from the Polish population.
Life in the ghetto was harsh. Residents were subjected to poor living conditions, food shortages, a lack of medical care, and the constant physical abuse. As a result, disease and starvation ran rampant in the ghetto. Nazis forced many Jews into manual and slave labor and enforced harsh restrictions and curfews. Jewish social engagements and cultural traditions were all but silenced and generally moved into the privacy of homes or underground.
Despite the bleakness of ghetto life, residents carried on with their lives. As the deportations to “unknown” destinations began in 1942, some Jewish people resisted, especially youth. Resistance took on many forms in the ghetto, including obtaining false papers, defying German orders, or taking up arms. Many Jews formed underground social and resistance groups to fight back against the Nazi perpetrators. In the end, little could stop the Nazi plan for the mass killings of Jews.
Final liquidation of the Będzin ghetto and its occupants began in 1943. Nazi officials sent most Jewish residents of Będzin to nearby Auschwitz-Birkenau where they were either killed upon arrival or selected for labor inside the camp or in one of its satellite factories. About fifty Jews remained in Będzin to work in tailor shops, while a few hid in the Kamionka ghetto. Once caught, those in hiding were forced to clean up the ghetto, then sent to their death in Auschwitz.
Final deportations from Będzin to Auschwitz-Birkenau began in the summer of 1943. The once-flourishing Jewish community of Będzin ceased to exist.