Seven Friends Link Arms in the Ghetto
These were 7 of Rachel Sher’s young friends. This photograph was taken in the big Czestochowa ghettoCzestochowa Ghetto: established on April 9, 1941, it was sealed off on August 23, 1941. The ghetto population suffered from overcrowding, hunger and epidemics. On September 23, 1942 a large scale deportation (Aktion) began. By October 5, 1942, about 39,000 people had been deported to Treblinka extermination camp, while 2,000 had been executed on the spot.
The now diminished ghetto within new borders was called the “small ghetto.” A Jewish Fighting Organization was set up in December 1942. On January 4, 1943 it rose in armed resistance to the Nazis. The next day the Nazis shot 250 children and old people.
On June 26, 1943, the Germans began liquidating the “small ghetto.” The remaining 4,000 Jews were transferred to two slave labor camps organized at the city’s HASAG factories. Before leaving the city on January 17, 1945, the Germans managed to deport almost 6,000 inmates from the HASAG factories to concentration camps inside Germany. The 5,200 inmates who succeeded in hiding were liberated by the Soviet army.Source: Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. . They are wearing blue and white Star of David armbands to identify them as Jews. All of them perished.
