The First to be Destroyed: The Jewish Community of Kleczew and the Beginning of the Final Solution

The First to be Destroyed: The Jewish Community of Kleczew and the Beginning of the Final Solution

By Anetta Glowacka-Penczynska, Tomasz Kawski, Witold Medykowski
Edited by Tuvia Horev

The Jewish community of the city of Kleczew came into existence in the sixteenth century. It remained large and strong throughout the next four hundred years, and in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it constituted 40-60% of the total population. The German army entered Kleczew on September 15, 1939, shortly after the outbreak of World War II. The communities of Kleczew and the vicinity were among the first Jewish collectives in Europe to be totally destroyed. The events presented in this book reveal that the organization of deportations and the methods of mass murder conducted in this district, by Kommando Lange, served as a model that would be applied later in the death camps during the mass extermination of Polish and European Jewry. If so, it was in the woods near Kleczew that the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” began.

The book’s page on the publisher’s website: http://www.academicstudiespress.com/jewish-studies-books/the-first-to-be-destroyed-the-jewish-community-of-kleczew-and-the-beginning-of-the-final-solution

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2 Responses

  1. Steven Simon says:

    I am very glad to have recently purchased this book and am already on my second time reading it within a week. I am a descendant of Bert Gembicki who was mentioned in this book, as well as a page full of others including my mothers grandmother and family. I am trying to contact the authors of this book to gain more and give more information about my lineage, as well as help clarify some things. If anyone knows how to help me get in direct contact with someone related to this book, please let me know!

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