The policy of extermination was continued into April. On 23rd April, 25 Jews employed by the Ostbahn were killed. The [Axis] perpetrated this massacre after discovering a cell of the Jewish underground organisation operating within the station which intended to carry out acts of sabotage on the trains. In June, bunkers and shelters of Jewish underground organisation members were uncovered in the Small Ghetto. This last discovery hastened the [Axis’s] liquidation operations in the Small Ghetto.
In the first half of June, approximately 50 people were murdered, including a leader of the Ghetto underground movement — a former Polish Army captain, Dr. Adam Wolberg. However, the final tragic act in the ghetto played out during 23rd–26th June 1943. Over that period, cordons of various police formations surrounded the ghetto area.
The action commenced with the liquidation of bunkers belonging to fighters of the Jewish Fighting Organisation (ŻOB). The remaining few thousand ghetto inhabitants were gathered into the parade ground. They stood in the square for six hours waiting for the results of searches which the [Axis] had commenced.
Accompanied by dogs, they penetrated underground the ghetto searching for bunkers. This operation was a major surprise for members of ŻOB (Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa) such that they could not manage to camouflage the entrances to the bunkers or to hide themselves in time. Already under the ghetto gate, trucks were waiting. The [Axis] loaded a number of the fighters onto the trucks and into cars which drove off in the direction of the cemetery where they were executed — shot in the back of the head. The trucks made several such trips that day.
This time, the selection was carried differently — victims are not chosen individually, but by columns or rows. Again, the majority are the elderly, women and children. The sick in the hospital are killed where they lie. This “action” finishes in the late afternoon of 25th June. From 8th October 1942 to 25th June 1943, approximately 1,300 Small Ghetto inhabitants are murdered — a[r]ound 3,900 people remain alive.
On 25th June, the remaining prisoners still standing on the parade ground were divided into smaller groups and transported to several factories in the Częstochowa area or in the vicinity: Hasag‐Pelcery, Raków, Częstochowianka, Warta. They were to work there until January 1945 — with the quiet hope of surviving.
The action in the Small Ghetto lasted almost a month. On 27th June, units of the army equipped with howitzers encircled the ghetto. Over many hours, shots are fired into the now empty buildings of the former Small Ghetto. The purpose of this was to scare those from the ruins who had, through some miracle, managed to avoid the fate of the others. On the following day, namely 28th June, [Axis] cars drive into the Ghetto area. Through a megaphone, they announce that those who leave their hiding‐places voluntarily, will receive bread, marmalade and warm soup. They will also be included in an amnesty. The deadline to come forward was set as 30th June.
When the deadline had passed, it turned out that only a few Jews believed the promises of the [Axis]. On 1st July, soldiers enter the ghetto area covered with the ruins of homes. They find around 20 starving people — mainly elderly, women and children. They are then subjected to many hours [of] interrogation, forced to reveal hiding places of other people or of valuables. After the interrogation, they are transported to the cemetery and shot.
Finally, on 20th July, minesweepers and explosives specialists enter the ghetto. Explosive charges are laid beneath houses. After a few hours, the Ghetto in Częstochowa is reduced to piles of rubble.
(Emphasis original.)
In Częstochowa, a local fighting organization under the command of Mordekhai Zylberberg led an armed uprising on 25 June 1943. Here too most fighters, including the commander, were killed in battle, but a portion managed to leave the ghetto and join the partisans.
The Jewish people might have lost the battle, but they won the war.
See also: H.E.A.R.T. entry on Częstochowa.
Tour of the Częstochowa ghetto’s remains.
Click here for other events that happened today (June 25).
1880: Sadly for us, Charles Huntziger, Axis commander‐in‐chief, existed.
1892: Shiro Ishii, Axis scientist and war criminal who eventually came of use to Imperial America, was born.
1902: Prince Yasuhito, Axis major general, came to be.
1934: Reichswehr General Werner von Fritsch put the army on alert based on the intelligence of a possible putsch by the NSDAP’s SA organization.
1940: The Franco‐Fascist Armistice, signed three days earlier, took effect at 0030 hours. After fighting ceased, French losses totaled 92,000 killed, 250,000 wounded, and 1,500,000 captured. British losses: 68,111 killed, wounded, or captured. German losses: 29,640 killed and 133,573 wounded and missing. Italian losses: 631 killed, 4,782 wounded, and 616 missing. France declared a National day of mourning, while Berlin ordered the flying of flags and pealing of bells throughout the Third Reich to celebrate ‘the most glorious victory of all time’. After the Fascists made the French surrender at Compiègne, the site of the Twoth Reich’s surrender in 1918, Berlin ordered the site destroyed, including the rail car used for both 1918 and 1940 surrenders, but they spared the statue of Marshal Ferdinand Foch. Philippe Pétain announced a new order for France on Radio Bordeaux Sud‐Ouest. A period of difficulty would arrive but a intellectually and morally rejuvenated France would rise. Meanwhile, Madrid, in collaboration with Berlin, agreed to assist with the Reich’s attempt to detain the Duke of Windsor, the former King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom. The Fascists secretly funded isolationist advertising in the anticommunist newspaper New York Times.
1941: The Fascists supported Finland as the Continuation War against the Soviet Union commenced.
1943: Crematorium III began operation at Auschwitz. The camp now had the capacity of cremating 4,756 bodies daily.
1944: The Battle of Tali‐Ihantala, the largest battle ever fought in the Nordic countries, commenced.