
On the outbreak of World War II, there were about 14,000 Jews in Rzeszow. The German army entered the city on Sept. 10, 1939, and the anti-Jewish reign of terror began. In December 1941 a closed ghetto was established in Rzeszow. On July 7–13, 1942, the first mass deportation took place: about 14,000 Jews from the entire district of Rzeszow were concentrated in the ghetto and immediately deported together with some 8,000 Jews from the city to the *Belzec death camp. At the time of the deportation, 238 Jews were shot for offering passive resistance, while another 1,000 were taken to the nearby Rudna Forest and executed there. On Aug. 8, 1942, about 1,000 women and children were deported from the ghetto to the Peikinia concentration camp, where all of them were exterminated shortly afterward. In November 1942 only about 3,000 Jews still remained in the ghetto, which was transformed into a forced-labor camp and divided into two isolated parts: "A" for slave laborers, and "B" for members of their families. In September 1943 part A was transferred to the forced-labor camp of Szebnia, where the majority of the inmates met their death; part B was liquidated in November 1943, when all the inmates were deported to *Auschwitz and exterminated. Only about 600 Jews remained in a local forced-labor camp until July 1944. Some of them succeeded in escaping and hiding themselves in the nearby forests; others were deported to Germany. Jewish life was not reconstituted in Rzeszow after the war.