The Jewish community was established in 1834; previously, the Jews of Radomsko belonged to the community in Przedbórz. In the 19th century, the town became a lively centre of Hasidism. From 1843, Salomon Rabinowicz, a recognized tzadik, had his court here; later, other members of this family acted as spiritual leaders.

In 1897 there were 11,767 Jews living in Radomsko. It was an important trade and craft center. Jews had, among others: hotels and restaurants, they ran a factory called artificial wool (i.e. waste wool yarn) and an American upholstered furniture factory.

During the Second Polish Republic, the town's population decreased and its economic situation worsened. Nevertheless, there were two synagogues, two Talmudic schools, a private Hebrew school, a Jewish junior high school and a library. In 1939, the Jewish community in Radomsko numbered approx. 10,000 people.

After the outbreak of World War II, Radomsko found itself under German occupation. The Germans quickly started repression and ordered the establishment of a Judenrat. They created a ghetto where sanitary conditions were very difficult and a typhus epidemic was spreading. Some Jews were deported to forced labor camps, among others, in Skarżysko-Kamienna. Most of the prisoners were murdered in 1942 in the German Nazi extermination camp in Treblinka. The ghetto was full again at the end of 1942, but at that time it was only a transit facility. Between 200-300 Jews from Radomsko survived the war. In 1947, only three Jewish families lived in the town.

The Description

The Jewish cemetery in Radomsko was founded in 1816. It is located on Przedborska 196. Despite the devastation caused by the Germans during World War II and their crime of genocide (over 1.5 thousand Jews were shot here in the years 1940–1943), a very valuable complex of tombstones, consisting of over 2,700 monuments, has been preserved here, spread over a large area of 2.7 hectares. The tombstones come in various forms: stelae, monuments with fences, obelisks and metal matzevas, rare in the Łódź Voivodeship. The oldest one dates back to 1831. In the northern part of the cemetery there is an ohel of the tzadiks from the Rabinowicz family. Burials at the cemetery continued in the 1990s.

In 2002, school children from Poland and Israel carried out clean-up works as part of the 'Antyschematy' project, which were continued in subsequent years. In 2014, the cemetery was included in the project 'Radomsko – the First Open Jewish Museum in the World.' This year, there was also an inventory of tombstones carried out by the Foundation for the Documentation of Jewish Cemeteries. Since 2017, there has been a Hasidic pilgrimage center at the cemetery, serving teh ohel of Rabinowicz tzadiks.

Author of the note: Magda Lucima

Właściciel praw autorskich do opisu: Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich POLIN.