Częstochowa launches a project on the town’s Righteous

The project, by the Jan Długosz Academy and the World Association of Częstochowa Jews and their Descendants, is addressed to students of several of the town’s secondary schools.

They are to carry out archival research, gather documentary material and conduct interviews with surviving Righteous and their descendants.

In an interview for the Polish Press Agency, Małgorzata Łącka-Małecka of the Jan Długosz Academy said: “We want to honour those inhabitants of our town, who, in a tragic period of our history, rescued Jews.”

She also stressed the educational aspect of the project. “It’s a lesson in history and in sensitivity to human problems,” she said.

The collection of the Yad Vashem Institute in Jerusalem contains testimonies of 72 Jews from Częstochowa who were saved by Polish Righteous Gentiles.

According to Dr Juliusz Sętowski of the local museum, over 140 residents of Częstochowa were involved in sheltering Jews. A handful of them are still alive.

The results of students’ research will be published in book form and presented during an international conference during a congress of the World Association of Częstochowa Jews and their Descendants in September.

Before World War II, about a third of the town’s population was Jewish. After the Germans invaded Poland in September 1939, they confined the Jews to a ghetto and later, starting in September 1942, deported 40,000 of them to the concentration camp in Treblinka.

In 2009, a monument commemorating the victims of the deportations was erected in the town thanks to the donation from Zygmunt Rolat, a New York-based businessman, patron of the arts and philanthropist, who was born in Częstochowa in 1930. (mk/rg)