CHRYZANOW

CHRYZANOW (Pol. Chrzanów ), town near Cracow, S. Poland. In the 16^th century the Jewish community there was subject to the jurisdiction of the Cracow community. From 1682 it came under the jurisdiction of Olkusz. Following a *blood libel in Chrzanow in 1779, two of the community's leading members were arrested, and most of the Jews there fled to Olkusz. In 1780 the head of the Olkusz community protested over the case on behalf of Chryzanow Jewry to the permanent council of the kingdom. According to the census of 1765 there were 60 Jewish families (327 persons) in Chryzanow, occupying 65 houses of which 32 were owned by Jews. The community numbered 5,504 in 1900 (54% of the total population) and 6,328 in 1921 (45%), and some 8,000 in 1939.

Holocaust Period

The German Army entered on Sept. 4, 1939, and initiated the anti-Jewish terror. In the first months of German occupation, about 300 Jews succeeded in leaving for Soviet-held territory. In January 1940 a ghetto was established, and 3,000 Jews were sent in the first deportation for forced labor at the end of the year. In June 1942 the Germans rounded up about 4,000 Jews for deportation to *Auschwitz. The ghetto was then transformed into a slave labor camp, which was liquidated on Feb. 18, 1943, when all the remaining Jewish prisoners were deported to Auschwitz and murdered. Only a handful of Chryzanow's Jewish inhabitants survived the war, but the Jewish community in Chryzanow was not rebuilt.

[Stefan Krakowski]

bibliography:

M. Balaban, Historia żydów Krakowie i na Kazimierzu, 1 (1932), 351; 2 (1936), 254, 520–2, 642; R. Mahler, Yidn in Amolikn Poyln in Likht fun Tsifern (1958), tables 42, 64; M. Bachner (ed.), Sefer Chrzanow (Yid., 1949); Yad Vashem Archives, m–1/Q/72–76, and m–1/E/2219.