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Chapter 4
The Leisten Family and the Holocaust
My wife Judi Leisten Bort was told as a child that many of her father’s relatives were lost in the
Holocaust, or Shoah as it is called in Hebrew. But she had no idea who or how many they were,
until now.
Before September 1939 more than 250,000 Jews lived in the County of Krakow. But with the
influx of people from Lodz and other cities, and the outflow of thousands of Jews to the Soviet
Union in the wake of the Nazi invasion of Poland, the Jewish population of Krakow County
declined to about 215,000 by April 1940. A year later the population of the county had further
declined to about 200,000, mainly from an out-migration to the Lublin area.
At the end of 1941 Krakow County was divided into the city of Krakow and twelve districts. Of
these districts Tarnow District had the largest Jewish population, with about 25,600 Jews living
in the city of Tarnow and another 6,000 Jews living in surrounding towns and villages.
The first ghetto of Krakow County was installed in the city of Krakow on March 21, 1941.
During 1941, the Jewish population of the county was either evacuated to towns in other regions
or concentrated into ghettos. Then in 1942 the evacuations became deportations for
extermination. In the selection process, Jews (and some Catholics and Poles) were divided into
groups of old and ill, or children, who were taken to the woods and shot. After the extermination
camp of Belzec had been established in March, 1942, the majority of the Jews from Krakow
County were sent there to be killed.
In April, 1942 in Krakow County and beyond, hundreds of people who were alleged to be
members of left-wing organizations were taken out of their homes and shot in cemeteries.
A month later, about 5,000 inhabitants of the Krakow Ghetto were deported to Belzec or
murdered before getting there, and in June, 1942, a part of the Jewish population of Tarnow and
vicinity was either shot in the cemetery or deported to Belzec. In July, 1942 some 11,000 people
were killed in Tarnow and more than 12,000 inhabitants of the ghettos in the Tarnow District
were deported to Belzec. The 7,000 to 8,000 Jews who remained in the seven ghettos of the
Tarnow District were deported to Belzec in September, 1942. Only a few Jews remained in the
Debica Ghetto and in some of the larger working camps in the Tarnow District. Between June
and November, 1942 the Germans exterminated about 100,000 Jews of Krakow County.
Tarnow was merely one of many districts, all of which suffered the same fate. From the middle
of July until November, 1942 the Nazis systematically liquidated all the ghettos by deporting
their inhabitants to extermination camps or shooting them in cemeteries or in neighboring woods.
The few remaining Jews were concentrated in five ghettos: in Krakow, Tarnow, Przemysl,
Bochnia, and Rzeszów. In 1943 and 1944 they were deported to working camps, including
Plaszów and others near Krakow, to Auschwitz, or to camps in Germany (Flossenburg), where
they were killed or died of starvation.
Chapter 4 - The Leisten Family and the Holocaust
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Few people survived the extermination camps or the other concentration camps in Germany and
Poland. Only those who fled into the woods had a chance to survive.
Those Leistens who left their Tarnow homeland well before World War II survived; but nearly
all of those who stayed in Tarnow or in the surrounding region perished. Relying on the work of
Jean Korn in The Korn Legacy, Volume III, we count at least 83 members of the Leisten family,
all of whom were direct descendants of Abraham Jacob and Rivka Sauermilch Leisten and their
spouses, who perished in the Holocaust. Undoubtedly there were more.
The reader may find it helpful to refer again to the diagram of the Leisten Family Tree to
understand the family lines discussed here.
Of the eight children of Abraham Jacob and Rivka Sauermilch Leisten, five had families with
children and grandchildren. Of these five “lines” of descendants, four suffered losses in the
Holocaust. The line of the eldest, Ethel Reisel Leisten, seems not to have lost any members. In
the four lines that lost members in the Holocaust, there were 117 descendants and their spouses
whom we have identified. Of those, at least 83 perished in the Holocaust, 15 died prior to the
Holocaust, and eight survived the period by either escaping their oppressors or having left
Poland well before Hitler’s rise to power. We have not been able to account for the fate of the
remaining 11 descendants and spouses in this group.
The lines of Isaac Leisten (b. 1836; d.1896) and his sister Sara Gittel Leisten (b. 1842; d. 1869)
were nearly decimated in the Holocaust. Isaac lost some 40 descendants and their spouses, of
whom 34 were descendants of Isaac’s son, Josef Yehezkel Leisten (b. 1860; d. 1925). In
addition, 34 descendants and their spouses of Sara Gittel Leisten and her husband Hersch Baruch
Hollander perished as well.
Another sibling, David Leisten (b. 1839; d. 1878), lost two children and their spouses, and two
grand children in the Holocaust, while yet another sibling, Yehezkel (Chaskel) Leisten (18411903), lost a son and a daughter and her husband in the Holocaust. As far as we know, there was
at least one loss among the descendants of Abraham-Jacob’s brother Herszel Leisten.
In memory of the Leisten family members who perished in the Holocaust, we list them here by
family line with their names in bold. Jean Korn identified the specific Nazi German camps where
many members of the Leisten family members met their deaths. Yet the actual locations where
many of the others died are not known. Accordingly, their deaths are noted here simply as “d.
Holocaust.” A description of each place where they were known to have died follows the list.
Chapter 4 - The Leisten Family and the Holocaust
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Line of Isac Leisten (1836-1898) and his wife Marjem (Miriam) Blima Salz
Family of Josef Yehezkel Leisten (1860-1925) and his wife Chaja Ester Spingarn
These victims were murdered or died of starvation or disease at various German Nazi camps,
including Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Harmeze Camp, Camp Pleczow, and near the town of
Niepolomice, Poland.
1
Solomon Schlomo Leisten b. 1879 Tarnow, Austria d. Bergen-Belsen
Spouse Hendshy Hannah Goldman b. 1883 Tyczin, Austria d. Bergen-Belsen
1 Miriam Leisten d. Holocaust
2 Sarah Leisten d. Holocaust
3 Rachel Leisten d. Holocaust
4 Isaak Yitzchuk Leisten d. Harmeze Camp
5 Luzer Leisten d. Harmeze Camp
6 Herschel Leisten d. Auschwitz
7 Fritz (Frank) Ephraim Leisten b. 1921 d. 1997 in Las Vegas, Nevada
Spouse Eleanor Ann Dvorkin b. 1940
8 5 additional children died prior to 1921
2
Rifka Leisten b. 1880 or 1881
Spouse Benjamin Leisten b. 1875 (son of Isac and Marjem (Miriam) Blima Salz Leisten)
1
Miriam Blima Leisten b. 1900 d. 1943 Auschwitz
Spouse Sissel Beitscher b. 1903 Krakow d. 10/13/1944 Auschwitz
1
Frumet Beitscher b. 1935 d. 1943 Auschwitz
2
Khaia (Chaja) Beitscher b. 1938 d.1943 Auschwitz
2 Rachel Leisten b. 1903
3 Abraham Leisten b. 1910
Spouse Mindel
1
Mira Leisten b. 1909
2
Rivka Leisten b. 1911
3
Isak Leisten b. 1913; d. 1983 in Israel
4
Josef Yehezkel Leisten b. 1927 d. Holocaust
4 Isaac Leisten
3
Avraham Hirsch Leisten b. 1883 d. Holocaust
Spouse Mindel Leisten d. Holocaust
1 Rivka Leisten b. 1911 d. Holocaust
2 Isak Leisten b. 1913 d. 1983
3 Holocaust Reisel (Rosa) Leisten b. 1919 d.
4 Holocaust Joseph Yehezkel Leisten b. 1921 d. Holocaust
Avraham Hirsch Leisten and his family (1929)
Top (left to right):
Rivka
Isac
Rosa (Reisel)
Bottom (left to right):
Mindel
Jossef Yehezkel
Avraham-Hirsch
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4 Leiser
(Eliezer) Leisten b. 1890 d. 1943 Camp Plaszow
Spouse: Rechel Weiss b. 1895 d. 1943 Camp Plaszow
1
Chaim Samuel Leisten b. 1915 d. Holocaust
2
Hena Leisten b. 1918 d. Holocaust
3
Miriam Leisten b. 1927 d. Holocaust
4
Masza Leisten b. 1931 d. Holocaust
5
Mosze Leisten b. 1933 d. Holocaust
5
Miriam-Mania Leisten b. 1893 d. 1921 Krakow
6 Pescil
Leisten b. 1897 Tarnow, Austria d. 1942 Niepolomice, Poland
Spouse Zeev Wolf Pinkesfeld b. 1889 d. Holocaust
1
Abraham Romek Peled Pinkesfeld b. 1921 Niepolomice Poland d. 1988 Israel
2
Lea Pinkesfeld b. 1932 d. 1942 Niepolomice, Poland
3
Mordechai Pinkesfeld b. 1936 d. 1942 Niepolomice, Poland
7
Jacob Isak Leisten b. 1901 Tarnow, Austria d. 1901 Tarnow, Austria
8
5 additional children of Joseph Yehezkel & Chaja Ester Spingarn Leisten d. Holocaust
Family of Haya-Perla Leisten (1877-1942) and her husband Abraham Faber
Haya-Perla Leisten b. 1877 d. 1942 Auschwitz
Spouse: Abraham Faber b. n.a. d. n.a.
1
Mania (Miriam) Faber b. 1900 d. 1942 Auschwitz
Spouse: Norbert Kudler b. 1895 d. 1943 Holocaust
2
Isaac Faber b. 1901 d. 1993
3
Chaim Faber b. 1902 d. 1941 Tarnow
4
Recha (Rachel) Faber b. 1905 d. Auschwitz
5
Leah Faber b. 1908 d. 1942 Auschwitz
6
Jusek (Joseph) Faber b. 1919 d. 2004
Line of David Leisten (1839-1873) and his wife Jutte Thaler Leisten
Sara Leisten Hoffert b. 1864 d. 1920
Spouse: Mordechai Zeev Wolf Hoffert
1
Abraham Jacob (Adolph) Leisten (b. 1891 d. Holocaust)
Spouse: Regina Feldenbach b. 1896, d. Holocaust
2
Ettel Reisel Leisten b. 1900 d. Holocaust.
Spouse: Samuel Reich b. 1890 d. Holocaust
1
Jujub Leisten Reich b. 1924 d. Holocaust
2
Helenka Reich b. 1929 d. Holocaust
Line of Yehezkel (Chaskel) Leisten (1841-1903) and Ruchel (Rachel) Wundohl Leisten
We know of only two descendants of Yehezkel (Chaskel) Leisten who died in the Holocaust, together with
one spouse. Please refer to page 71 for the story of the Weinmann family.
Rivka (Regina) Leisten b. 1880 d. 1943 Lodz Ghetto
Spouse Lemel Asher (Ludwig) Weinmann b. 1878, d. 1944 Lodz Ghetto
Mordechai Leisten b. 1872, d. Niepolomice
Line of Sara Gittel Leisten (1842 - n.a.) and her husband Hersch Baruch Hollander
Sara Gittel Leisten was the fifth child of Abraham-Jacob and Rivka Sauermilch Leisten. Sara
married Hersch Baruch Hollander and they had six children, five of whom survived childhood.
The line of Sara Gittel Leisten was decimated in the Holocaust, with the loss of at least 33 of her
Chapter 4 - The Leisten Family and the Holocaust
Page 42
41 descendants and their spouses who have been identified. Their names, death dates, and places
where they died are shown in bold. Those not in bold apparently did not perish in the Holocaust,
five of whom died prior to the Shoah, one who survived by migrating to Israel before the war,
and two whose fate is not known.
1
Pessel Ruchel Hollander b. 1865 d. 1942 Tarnow Ghetto
Spouse: Mordechai David Schiff b. 1859 d. (may have died prior to the Holocaust)
1
Szymon Schiff b. 1880 d. 1942 Sedziszow Camp
Spouse: Chana Schiff b. 1882 d. 1942 Sedziszow Camp
1
David Schiff b.1908 d.1942 Lodz Ghetto
Spouse: Ida Wizenfeld Schiff b. 1910 d.1942 Lodz Ghetto
2
Leon Schiff b. 1914 d. 1942 Sedziszow Camp
3
Cipora Schiff b. 1914 d. 1942 Katowice
2
Chana (Anna) Schiff b. 1886 d. 1942 Tarnow Ghetto or Belzec Camp (conflicting records).
3
Seril Schiff b. 1887 d. 1942 Katowice
Spouse: Herz-Elazer Zaliszyc d. 1942 Katowice
1
David Zaliszyc b. 1912 d. 1942) Katowice
2
Rachel Zaliszyc b. 1914 d. 1943 Brussels
Spouse: Jehoszua Fridman b. 1912 d. 1943 Brussels
3
Liza Zaliszyc b. 1917 d. n.a. Krakow
4
Ita Zaliszyc b. 1926 d. 1942 Katowice at age 16.
4
Siegmund Jehoszua Schiff b. 1888 d. 1942 Lwow
5
Perl April Schiff b. 1890 d. 1942 Tarnogrod
Spouse: Anzel Korensgold b. n.a. d. 1942 Tarnogrod
1
David Korensgold b. 1915 d. 1942 Tarnogrod
2
Malka Korensgold b. 1918 d. 1942 Tarnogrod
3
Chaim Korensgold b. 1923 d. 1942 Tarnogrod
6
Abraham Yacob (Adolf) Schiff b.1891 or 1894 d. 1944 Mauthausen Camp
2
Elimelich Hollander b.1867 d. 1869
3
Szmul (Samuel) Hollander b. 1868 d. prior to 1939
Spouse: Chana (Anna) Austern b. 1880 d. 1942 Tarnow
1
Meir Hollander b. 1900 d. ca. 1942 Zakliczyn Ghetto
Spouse: Chana Jakubovitch b. 1907 d. 1942 Zakliczyn Ghetto
Orna Hollander b 1930 d. 1942 Zakliczyn Ghetto
2
Isaak Hollander b. 1908 Tarnow d. 1942 Belzec Camp
Spouse: Erna-Ester Dreissinger b. 1907 d. 1942 (but details are not known)
Shmuel Hollander b. 1938 d. 1942 Tarnow Ghetto
3
Sabina Hollander b. 1916 d. n.a.
Spouse: Aharon (Arne) Miedzinski b. 1906 Tarnow d. 1942 Tarnow Ghetto
4
Eugenia Genendel Hollander b. 1918 d. 1942 Tarnow Ghetto
4
Chaskel Heinrich) Hollander b. 1870 d. 1933 died in Berlin in 1933 from blood poisoning.
Spouse: Freude Taichler b. 1862 d. 1936 Tarnow
5
Elias (Elijahu) Hollander b. 1875 or 1880 d. 1942 Tarnow
Spouse: Sima/Sabina Fissbein
Wolf Wilhelm Hollander b. 1906 d.1942 Tarnow
6
Moniek/Meir Hollander b. 1882 d. 1961 in Israel.
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Line of Herszel (Hersch) Leisten (1822-1903) and his wife Leie Goldmunz
Herszel (Hersch) Leisten
9
Alfred Leisten b. 1902 d. Holocaust
Others Named Leisten Who Perished in the Holocaust
There were numerous other people with the surname Leisten who had lived in or near Tarnow,
Poland and who perished in the Holocaust. While they do not appear to be descendants of Isaac
and Ethel Reisel Leisten, there is a possibility that they were perhaps descended from a brother
of Isaac Leisten.
The following information is based on pages of testimony submitted by relatives, including
Avraham Pinkesfeld, brother of Miriam Pinkesfeld Leisten, who was the wife of Zalman Leisten.
The pages of testimony can be found in the Yad Vashem Central Database of Shoah Victims'
Names at: http://db.yadvashem.org.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.
Zalman Leisten was born in Tarnow, Poland in 1896. He was married to Miriam (Marja) nee
Pinkesfeld who was born in Niepolomice, Poland in 1900 to Shaul and Bila Pinkesfeld.
Zalman. Miriam (Marja) nee Pinkesfeld may have been a sister of Zeev Wolf Pinkesfeld,
husband of Pescil Leisten Pinkesfeld. Pescil was the granddaughter of Isaac and Miriam
Blima nee Salz Leisten.
Zalman and Miriam (Marja) and their daughter Erna Leisten, who was born in 1930,
lived together in Tarnow and they were murdered/perished in 1942 in Belzec, Poland.
Zalman Shlomo Leisten was born circa 1907 in Tarnow, Poland. He was a merchant. He was
married to Malka Leisten (nee Pinkesfeld, b. circa 1909 in Niepolomice, Poland). She
was a housewife and sister of Zalman Leisten (b. 1896). Zalman Shlomo and Miriam
(Marja) Leisten were murdered/perished in Tarnow, Ghetto in 1942.
Ida Leisten (nee Guter) was born in Tarnow in 1902. She married Yitzkhak Leisten, and they
lived in Katowice, Poland with their two children, Stela Leisten (b. 1933) and an
unnamed Leisten child (b. 1938). They were murdered/perished in Katowice in the
Shoah.
Isaac Leisten (b. 1913) and Luzer Leisten (b. 1915) were brothers born in Tyczyn, Poland to
Shlomo and Khani Leisten. Isaac and Luzer were merchants in Tyczyn and lived there
during the war. Tyczyn, Poland is located about 50 miles east of Tarnow. Isaac was
murdered/perished in the Shoah in an unrecorded place, and Luzer was
murdered/perished in Kamieniec, Poland (formerly known as Kamenz, Germany prior to
1945).
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Nazi Camps
Between 1933 and 1945, Nazi Germany established about 42,5001 camps and ghettos to
imprison its many millions of victims. These camps and ghettos were used for a range of
purposes including forced-labor camps, transit camps that served as temporary way stations, and
extermination camps built primarily or exclusively for mass murder. These facilities collectively
were called “concentration camps” because those imprisoned there were physically
“concentrated” into one location.
After Germany's annexation of Austria in March 1938, the Nazis arrested German and Austrian
Jews and imprisoned them in the Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen concentration camps,
all located in Germany. After the violent Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass") pogrom in
November 1938, the Nazis conducted mass arrests of adult male Jews and incarcerated them in
camps for brief periods.
Forced-Labor and Prisoner-of-War Camps
Following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Nazis opened forcedlabor camps where thousands of prisoners died from exhaustion, starvation, and exposure. The
Nazi camp system expanded rapidly during World War II. Following the June 1941 German
invasion of the Soviet Union, the Nazis increased the number of prisoner-of-war (POW) camps
and built some new camps at existing concentration camp complexes (such as Auschwitz) in
occupied Poland. The camp at Lublin, later known as Majdanek, was established in the autumn
of 1941 as a POW camp and became a concentration camp in 1943. Thousands of Soviet
POWs were shot or gassed there.
Killing Centers
To facilitate the "Final Solution" (that is, Nazi Germany’s plan to annihilate the Jewish people in
continental Europe), the Nazis established killing centers in Poland, which had the largest Jewish
population. The killing centers were designed for efficient mass murder. Chelmno, which was
opened in December 1941, was the first killing center where Jews and Gypsies were gassed in
mobile gas vans. In 1942, the Nazis opened the Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka killing centers to
systematically murder the Jews who lived in the interior of occupied Poland.
The Nazis constructed gas chambers to increase killing efficiency and to make the process more
impersonal for the perpetrators. At the Auschwitz complex of camps, the Birkenau killing center
had four gas chambers. During the height of deportations to the camp, up to 6,000 Jews were
gassed there each day.
Millions of people were imprisoned and abused in the various types of Nazi camps where the
Germans and their collaborators murdered more than three million Jews in the killing centers
alone. Only a small fraction of those imprisoned in Nazi camps survived.
1
The New York Times, March 1, 2013, cited recent research by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to document
all ghettos, slave labor sites, concentration camps, and killing factories that the Nazis had set up throughout Europe.
Chapter 4 - The Leisten Family and the Holocaust
Page 45
Members of the Leisten family met their deaths in the Holocaust in the following places.
Auschwitz – Auschwitz was a network of concentration and extermination camps, which
included the Birkenau extermination camp. Auschwitz was the German name for
Oswiecim, the town surrounded by the camps about 80 miles west of Tarnow, Poland.
Bergen-Belsen – Bergen-Belsen was a camp located near the town of Bergen in northern
Germany, about 50 miles south of Hamburg. It is about 450 miles northwest of Tarnow.
Originally a camp for Soviet POWs, it became a civilian internment camp, and in April
1943 it became a part of the concentration camp system. It became a holding camp and
was divided into subsections for individual groups, including a "special camp" for Polish
Jews. The Jews were intended to be exchanged for German civilians interned in other
countries or for hard currency. Between the summer of 1943 and December 1944 at least
14,600 Jews, including 2,750 children, were transported to the Bergen-Belsen camp. In
effect it was a forced-labor camp, where inmates were made to work, many of them in the
"shoe commando," which salvaged usable pieces of leather from shoes collected and
brought to the camp from all over Germany and occupied Europe. In general the
prisoners of this part of the camp were treated less harshly than some other classes of
Bergen-Belsen prisoners until fairly late in the war due to their perceived potential
exchange value. However, only about 2,560 Jewish prisoners were ever actually released
from Bergen-Belsen and allowed to leave Germany.
In March 1944, part of the camp was re-designated as a "recovery camp," where
prisoners too sick to work were brought from other concentration camps. Supposedly,
they were in Bergen-Belsen to recover and then to return to their original camps to
resume work. However, a large number of them actually died of disease, starvation,
exhaustion, and lack of medical attention.
In January 1945, the SS increased the size of the concentration camp. As eastern
concentration camps were evacuated before the advance of the Red Army, at least 85,000
people were transported in cattle cars or marched to Bergen-Belsen. Severe overcrowding
led to a vast increase in deaths from disease (particularly typhus, tuberculosis, typhoid
fever, and dysentery) and malnutrition in a camp originally designed to hold about 10,000
inmates. At this point also, the special status of the exchange prisoners no longer applied.
All inmates were subject to starvation and epidemics.
There were no gas chambers at Bergen-Belsen, since the mass executions took place in
the camps further east. Nevertheless, an estimated 50,000 Jews, Czechs, Poles, anti-Nazi
Christians, homosexuals, and Gypsies died in the camp. The camp was liberated on April
15, 1945, when British and Canadian troops found thousands of unburied bodies and
(including the satellite camps) at least 53,000 inmates, most of whom were acutely sick
and starving.
Belzec – Belzec was the first of the Nazi German extermination camps created during the
Holocaust. Operating from March 17, 1942 to the end of December 1942, the camp was
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situated about 65 miles east of Tarnow near the border with Ukraine and about 1 km
south of the local railroad station of Belzec in the Lublin district. Between 430,000 and
500,000 Jews are believed to have been killed by German Nazis at Bełżec. The lack of
survivors who could have given testimony is the primary reason why this camp is so little
known despite the enormous number of victims.
Brussels, Belgium – Just before the Second World War, the Jewish community of Belgium was
at its peak of roughly 70,000 Jews, with 35,000 in Antwerp and 25,000 in Brussels.
Belgium was occupied by Nazi Germany between May 1940 and September 1944, and
anti-Semitic policies were adopted throughout Belgium, even though popular resistance
in some cities hindered their full application.
Approximately 45 percent of the Jews in Belgium were deported to concentration camps,
primarily Aushwitz, and only 1,200 of them survived the war. A total of 28,900 Belgian
Jews perished between 1942 and 1945, some of whom were killed on Belgian territory,
but many of whom were shipped off to the death camps in the East for their
extermination.
Harmeze – The small village of Harmeze was the location of a sub-camp of the Auschwitz
concentration camp network, located approximately 5 miles southwest of Oswiecim.
Katowice – Katowice is located about 45 miles west of Krakow (80 miles west of Tarnow). A
wave of Jewish settlers from other areas of Poland, particularly Galicia, arrived to the city
beginning in 1921 after a plebiscite decided that Katowice would become part of Poland
instead of Germany. After the 1939 invasion of Poland, in which the Germans had burned
the Great Synagogue, the town was annexed by Nazi Germany.
During the occupation, the Germans organized numerous public executions of civilians
and about 700 Poles were beheaded by guillotine. By the middle of 1941, most of the
Polish and Jewish population of the city had been expelled. Katowice was liberated by
Russia’s Red Army in January 1945.
Lodz Ghetto – The Lodz Ghetto was created in early 1940 for Jews and Gypsies in Nazioccupied Poland, and it became the second-largest ghetto after the Warsaw Ghetto.
Situated in the town of Lodz, Poland, and originally intended as a temporary
concentration point, the ghetto was transformed into a major industrial center, providing
much needed supplies for Nazi Germany, especially for the German Army.
In 1943, the Lodz Ghetto reportedly held more than 84,000 people, of whom 4,573 died
in the Ghetto; 27 of those were shot.
Because of its remarkable productivity, the Lodz Ghetto managed to survive until August
1944, when the ghetto’s remaining population was transported to Auschwitz and the
Chełmno extermination camp. It was the last ghetto in Poland to be liquidated.
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Page 47
Lwow – Lwow (since 1945 called Lviv, Ukraine) was home to more than 110,000 Jews in 1939.
Jews had fled for their lives from Nazi-occupied western Poland into the then relative
safety of Soviet-occupied eastern Poland, which included Lwow, causing the population
to increase to more than 220,000 Jews by the time the Nazis occupied the city in 1941.
In November, 1941 the Germans established the Lwow Ghetto, which was then in the
territory of German-occupied Poland and was one of the largest Jewish ghettos
established by Nazi Germany after the invasion of Poland.
All of the city's Jews were ordered to move into the ghetto and simultaneously all Poles
and Ukrainian were ordered to move out. German police also began a series of
"selections" in which 5,000 elderly and sick Jews were selected and shot as they were
moving into the ghetto. By December, between 110,000 and 120,000 Jews lived in the
overcrowded Lwow Ghetto in extremely poor living conditions.
The Lwow Ghetto was one of the first to have Jews transported to the death camps. In
March 1942, 15,000 Jews were deported to Belzec. About 86,000 Jews officially
remained in the ghetto following these initial deportations and they were ravaged by
disease and random shootings. During this period, many Jews were also forced to work
for the German armed forces.
In June, 1942, 2,000 Jews were taken to the nearby Janowska labor camp, but only 120
were used for forced labor, and all of the others were shot. In August, 1942, between
40,000 and 50,000 Jews were rounded up and moved to Janowska camp and then
deported to Belzec. Many who were not deported, including local orphans and hospital
inpatients, were shot. Around 65,000 Jews remained in the Lwow Ghetto as winter
approached with no heating or sanitation, which led to an outbreak of typhus.
Early in January, 1943, another 15,000-20,000 Jews were shot outside of the town.
Subsequently the ghetto was re-designated as Jewish Camp Lwow, a labor camp with
about 12,000 legal Jews able to work in the German war industry and several
thousand illegal Jews (mainly women, children and elderly) in hiding there.
In the beginning of June 1943 the Germans decided to finally close the Lwow Ghetto. As
Nazis entered the Ghetto most of the Jews were trying to hide in earlier prepared bunkers,
so the Nazis torched many buildings in order to "flush out" Jews from their hiding places.
Some Jews managed to escape or to conceal themselves in the sewer system, while the
rest were sent to their deaths at the Belzec extermination camp and the Janowska
concentration camp.
Mauthausen Camp - Mauthausen is located about 250 miles southwest of Krakow, across what
was then Czechoslavia, in the northwestern part of Austria, near the city of Linz.
Mauthausen Concentration Camp was built initially as a single camp in 1938, and by
1940 it had become one of the largest labor camp complexes in German-controlled
Europe. The camps were built around the villages of Mauthausen and Gusen and they
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were expanded over time. The complex used the inmates as slave labor in quarries,
munitions factories, mines, arms factories, and Messerschmitt fighter-plane assembly
plants. Inmates worked in the quarries and armament factories with their bare hands, and
the SS guards would kill those who fell behind or got worn out.
In January 1945, the camps contained roughly 85,000 inmates. The death toll remains
unknown, although most sources place it between 122,766 and 320,000 for the entire
complex. The Mauthausen and Gusen camps were the last ones to be liberated, in the last
week of the Second World War, in late April, 1945, by the Allies.
Mauthausen and Gusen were labeled as "Grade III" camps, which meant that they were
intended to be the toughest camps for the "Incorrigible Political Enemies of the Reich."
They were perhaps the most physically brutal concentration camps of the Nazi regime.
Unlike many other concentration camps, which were intended for all categories of
prisoners, Mauthausen was mostly used for extermination through labor of the
intelligentsia, who were educated people and members of the higher social classes in
countries subjugated by the Nazi regime during the war.
Plaszow – The Plaszow concentration camp was a Nazi German labor and concentration camp in
a southern suburb of Krakow. The Plaszow camp, originally intended as a forced labor
camp, was constructed on the grounds of two former Jewish cemeteries in the summer of
1942, with deportations of the Jews from the Krakow Ghetto beginning October 28,
1942. In 1943 the camp was expanded and turned into one of many concentration camps.
On March 13, 1943, the nearby Krakow Ghetto was liquidated and its Jewish inhabitants
were forced into the Plaszow camp. Those who were declared unfit for work were either
sent to Auschwitz or shot on the spot. The camp was a slave labor camp, supplying
manpower to several armament factories and a stone quarry. The death rate in the camp
was very high. Many prisoners, including many children and women, died of typhus,
starvation, and executions. Plaszow camp became particularly infamous for both
individual and mass shootings carried out there.
Niepołomice – The town of Niepołomice, Poland is located about 35 miles west of Tarnow on
the outskirts of Krakow. The town was well-known for its nearby forest, which was
largely destroyed by the Nazi Germans during their occupation in World War II. The
trees were cut indiscriminately and shipped to military bases and battle fronts across
Europe. Meanwhile, Poles and Jews from the town were murdered deep in the forest,
where there are numerous mass graves. These graves include those of Polish soldiers
from the 156th Infantry Regiment of Army Krakow who were killed during the German
invasion of Poland on September 8, 1939, as well as those of local partisans. Among
them were 40 hostages executed there on December 11, 1942.
Sedziszow Camp - Sedziszow is located about 30 miles due north of Krakow and about 50 miles
northwest of Tarnow. A ghetto was set up in Sedziszow in June or July 1942; Jews of the
villages of the region, and perhaps also from the nearby towns, were concentrated there.
Approximately 400 children and elderly and handicapped people were shot to death and
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buried in a common grave in Sedziszow. The remaining Jews were then deported from
Sedziszow to Ropczyce, only a few miles away, but the young women were sent by train
to the Belzec concentration camp. The train was carrying lime and all the women were
poisoned. The Sedziszow Ghetto, with its 1,900 people, was liquidated by the end of the
summer.
Tarnogrod – At the outbreak of World War II there were about 2,500 Jews in the small town of
Tarnogrod, located about 85 miles east of Tarnow. The Jewish youth in Tarnogrod briefly
led a resistance movement, even before the destruction and the annihilation occurred in
the ghettos of the larger cities. Immediately upon the entry of the Germans, however,
many sought to escape toward the woods in order to join the partisans; others joined the
Russian army to fight the Nazi invader.
The Tarnogrod Jewish community was liquidated on Nov. 2, 1942, when more than
1,000 Jews were murdered there near the Catholic cemetery and another 3,000 Jews from
Tarnogrod and its vicinity were deported to the Belzec death camp about 35 miles away.
Tarnow – In 1939, approximately 25,000 Jews made up half of Tarnow’s population, but during
World War II the Jewish population of Tarnow was reduced to next to nothing. The
historical record of Tarnow during that period provides us with some insight into the
probable circumstances of the death of each Leisten family member who perished there.
Jews were first transported from Tarnow to Auschwitz in June 1940, about nine months
after the German invasion of Poland. Then life for Tarnow Jews became increasingly
precarious. Roundups for labor camps became more frequent, and killings became more
commonplace and arbitrary.
Thousands of Jews were deported from Tarnow to the Belzec extermination camp
beginning in June 1942. During the deportation operations, German SS and police forces
massacred hundreds of Jews in the streets, in the marketplace, in the Jewish cemetery,
and in the woods outside the town. The Nazis brutally killed 7,000 Jews in Tarnow and
the surrounding area, and the victims were buried in large pits.
After the June 1942 deportations, the Germans fenced off an area to create the Tarnow
Ghetto and ordered the surviving Jews in Tarnow, along with thousands of Jews from
neighboring towns, into it. The population of the Ghetto rose to 40,000, and living
conditions there were poor, marked by severe food shortages, a lack of sanitary facilities,
and a forced-labor regimen in factories and workshops producing goods for the German
war machine. Famine prevailed in the ghetto. As part of the Nazi intimidation process,
Jews were ordered out of their houses in the ghetto and driven with rifle butts and whips
into the market square. Children were taken from their parents to a nearby shed and shot.
Some Jews were selected for forced labor; the rest were deported to Belzec.
In September 1942 about 8,000 Tarnow Ghetto residents who were deemed "unessential"
were selected out for deportation to Belzec. The brutality and murder continued over the
next two months as the remaining 9,000 Jews were organized into a forced labor
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workforce manufacturing clothing, crates, and other goods. Then in November 1942 the
Germans deported a group of 2,500; but thereafter deportations from Tarnow to
extermination camps continued sporadically.
In September 1943 the Germans decided to destroy the Tarnow Ghetto and deport the
surviving 10,000 Jews, 7,000 of them to Auschwitz and 3,000 to the Plaszow
concentration camp in Krakow. In late 1943, Tarnow was declared "free of Jews."
Zakliczyn - Zakliczyn is a village located about 12 miles from the city of Tarnow. In 1939 the
village of Zakliczyn had a population of approximately 2,000, about half of whom were
Jews. By 1941 the Jewish population had receded to approximately 330.
In June 1942, a ghetto was established in Zakliczyn, which held about 1,500 people from
Zakliczyn and the neighboring villages, including Jews and Poles. In September and
November 1942, the Nazis transported Jews from Zakliczyn to the extermination camp in
Bełżec. About 70 Jews were left in the city, only to be murdered a few months later, in
April 1943. The German armed forces retreated from Zakliczyn on January 17, 1945.
We remember those Jews, especially those Leisten family members,
who perished in the Holocaust.
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