• Memorials to the Victims of the Przemyśl Ghetto
Several memorials in east Polish Przemyśl, a town located in the foothills of the Carpathian mountains, honour the 24,000 Przemyśl Jews, whom the SS deported from the ghetto to Bełżec death camp in 1942. Members of an SS Einsatzgruppe shot about 600 Jews in Przemyśl already in 1939.
Image: Przemyśl, around 1910, The city's Old Synagogue seen from across the town square, Muzeum Narodowe Ziemi Przemyskiej
Przemyśl, around 1910, The city's Old Synagogue seen from across the town square, Muzeum Narodowe Ziemi Przemyskiej

Image: Przemyśl, 2009, School building on ulica Kopernika, Marek Król
Przemyśl, 2009, School building on ulica Kopernika, Marek Król
The Polish town of Przemyśl lies on the banks of the River San in eastern Galicia. Until World War I, Przemyśl was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. At the beginning of the 20th century, the town was turned into a fortress. During World War I, two major battles were fought over the Przemyśl fortress. After 1918, the town became Polish. At the time, about a third of the total population was Jewish; before World War II, the Jewish community had some 24,000 members. Following the German invasion of Poland in 1939, the Wehrmacht occupied Przemyśl. The River San was now the border between the German and Soviet occupation zones of Poland. In the autumn of 1939, Przemyśl was divided along the river: the area on river's eastern bank came under Soviet occupation in accordance with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Prior to this, members of SS Einsatzkommando I (SS mobile killing squad) shot about 600 Jews. The Germans forcibly moved all of the remaining Jews into the eastern part of Przemyśl. During the two years of Soviet occupation, about 7,000 Jews were arrested by the Soviet authorities and deported to the inner Soviet Union.
After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, all of Przemyśl came under German occupation. In autumn 1941, the German occupation authorities set up a ghetto for the 17,000 Jews in Przemyśl at the time. The ghetto was located in the eastern part of Przemyśl. In the summer of 1942, the SS murdered about 10,000 Jews from Przemyśl at the Bełżec extermination camp. By the end of 1943, nearly all of the Jews from Przemyśl and surrounding areas had been deported to various death camps via the Przemyśl ghetto. The SS also murdered several thousand Jews on site: in the summer, German units shot several hundred women, children and elderly in a nearby forest; on September 11, 1943, a further 1,500 Jews were shot in a school courtyard in the town centre. In February 1944, the ghetto was dismantled. Only about 500 Jews from Przemyśl survived the war in hiding.
Image: Przemyśl, around 1910, The city's Old Synagogue seen from across the town square, Muzeum Narodowe Ziemi Przemyskiej
Przemyśl, around 1910, The city's Old Synagogue seen from across the town square, Muzeum Narodowe Ziemi Przemyskiej

Image: Przemyśl, 2009, School building on ulica Kopernika, Marek Król
Przemyśl, 2009, School building on ulica Kopernika, Marek Król
Most probably 15,000 Jews were deported from Przemyśl to the Bełżec death camp in the summer of 1942 and murdered there. In November 1942, a further 4,000 Jews were taken to Bełżec. Most of the Jews originally came from Przemyśl itself, about 5,000 came from the surrounding areas. They had been forcibly resettled into the Przemyśl ghetto in the summer of 1942.
Image: Przemyśl, May or July 1942, Jews were forced to move into the ghetto, YIVO Archives
Przemyśl, May or July 1942, Jews were forced to move into the ghetto, YIVO Archives

Image: Przemyśl, 2009, Memorial plaque on the school building, Marek Król
Przemyśl, 2009, Memorial plaque on the school building, Marek Król
In 1956, the Jewish Social and Cultural Society (TSKŻ) set up a memorial in the school courtyard, in which over 1,500 had been shot in September 1943, in honour of the victims. A further memorial plaque in memory of the ghetto inmates was affixed to the front façade of the school building - during the war, the building housed the offices of the Judenrat. In 2002, a memorial stone in the forest near Grochowce outside of Przemyśl was dedicated to the Jews who were shot there in the summer of 1942 during the deportations. Further memorials on the Jewish cemetery honour the murdered Jews of Przemyśl. Most recently, a memorial plaque was set up at the former Scheinbach Synagogue in 2009.
Image: Przemyśl, 2008, 1956 memorial on the site of the mass shootings in the school yard, Marek Król
Przemyśl, 2008, 1956 memorial on the site of the mass shootings in the school yard, Marek Król

Image: Grochowce near Przemyśl, undated, Memorial stone on the site of mass shootings in the forest, Łukasz Biedka
Grochowce near Przemyśl, undated, Memorial stone on the site of mass shootings in the forest, Łukasz Biedka
Name
Pomniki ku czci ofiar getta w Przemyślu
Open
The memorials are always open to the public.