How the City of Radom Died.

PERSECUTION of Jews; NAZI persecution; JEWISH ghettos; NAZIS; POLICE; LABOR supply

RADOM (Wojewodztwo Mazowieckie, Poland); POLANDReport Available; GERMANYReport Available

The article describes an incidence of Nazi persecution of Jews in Radom, Poland, on August 16, 1942. The Nazis began their slaughter in the city of 35,000 Jewish people. It was early morning when the SS, the quasi-military unit of the Nazi party, and the Polish police came into the Jewish ghetto. They moved from house to house, pounding on the doors with long metal bars, and forcing residents out of their homes, chasing them down the streets, beating them with sticks and instruments. The SS directed the flow of the crowds to the marketplace. The SS chased everyone with dogs, constantly pushing and hitting, shoving toward the marketplace. Shots resounded through the streets. The sick, the elderly, the slow, were killed, at times kicked to death by the SS, who smiled even as they did this. The SS and the Polish police gathered the dead into a single place, a growing mountain of bodies. Some of the dying but still alive were among them. These people were shot in the head. The Germans were sending people to the east to work for the army, claiming they needed more manpower.