In the months following the Holocaust, pogroms were perpetrated against Jews in Chelm, Rzherzhov and several other towns in Poland, as a result of blood libels.
On 1 July 1946, a nine-year-old Polish Christian boy from Kielce, Poland went missing. He had gone to visit friends in a different town, and on his return two days later, he told his father he had been kidnapped by Jews and held in the cellar of the Jewish community building, but managed to escape. His father filed a police report on 4 July, persuaded by a neighbor who had taken possession of houses owned by Jews before the war and was concerned that the Jews would return to claim their homes. Although a police investigation revealed that the building in question had no cellar, rumors about the apparent kidnapping were rife, and sparked a pogrom against the Jews of Kielce perpetrated by an angry mob, soldiers and policemen, including those sent to protect the Jews from attack.
36 Jews were murdered in their homes and on the streets. At least six more were murdered on the train passing through town. Amongst the victims were Regina Fisch and her three-week-old son, a 35-year-old woman in her sixth month of pregnancy and a 14-year-old girl.
The Jews were shot, stabbed, stoned, and beaten with planks, rifle butts and iron bars. One man was shot in the head by a Polish Army officer, while he was telephoning another officer asking for reinforcements to protect the Jews.
42 Jews were murdered in the pogrom, and some 80 more were wounded. On 6 July, many of the wounded, accompanied by other Jews were evacuated from Kielce on a train to Lodz. The Jews in the photograph are waiting to leave Kielce after the pogrom.
Although this was not the first pogrom to take place after the war, the relatively large number of victims in the Kielce pogrom caused the flight of tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors from Poland. Comprehending the deeply rooted antisemitism in Poland, many survivors realized they could not build a future in their homeland, and sought other places to settle and rebuild their lives.
A police investigation into the pogrom was opened, and between July 1946 and March 1947, some 40 rioters stood trial. Nine of them were sentenced to death on 10 July and executed the following day.
