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Before the war, Mielec was a town with a peculiarly Jewish flavor. Once Jewish in majority,
right before WWII, about 1/3 of Mielec was Jewish, most practicing. In the Fall of 1939, the
Germans and the Soviets 'divided Poland, and the Nazis took Moravia. Over 250,000
Jews escaped to the Soviet side. On September 13th, of 1939,
the first Nazi Aktion began in Mielec at the time of Rosh Hashannah. While the
Jews were at prayer preparing for the High Holy Days, the Nazis brutally attacked, surrounding the
Mikvah(ritual baths), house of sacrifice and synagogue, burning them to the ground. Survivors
were machine-gunned.1 The Rabbi escaped, although he was later killed.The Nazis' interest in Mielec was strategic. The town sat amidst the border between the Soviets and Germans, and it was the location of a large aircraft factory which was quickly turned into a slave labor center. About 1-40, it achieved the status of a concentration camp as slave labor from 12 camps around Krakow sent prisoners there. The Nazis also determined to make Mielec utterly "Judenrein": not a Jew was to be left. So effective was this plan that this once largely Jewish community, even today has almost no Jews living there.
This obscure town's history is noted for the number of violent deaths: as many as 11,500 Mielec deaths occurred, although there is some overlap because killings related to Mielec were done at Belzec and German camps in 1944. SWC estimates 15 deaths per day at the Heinkel Airplane Factory. Some were sent to Cyranka, know for brutality, 700-800 died en route. Slaves from Mielec like Gross-Rosen and Plaszow were used in "Aktion 1005" the erasure of evidence of mass graves, and then killed. In January of 1945 there was a mass evacuation of Jewish slaves. January 23rd, 1945, one day after Auschwitz, Mielec was liberated by the Soviets, but the Jews were mostly gone and all Jewish buildings and cemetaries destroyed. Those who tried to return were met with such hatred, they made their way mostly to the US, Israel and Australia.
1 "Mielec", USHMM Learning Center/Archives.2 "Mielec", in www.gross-rosen.pl. 3 "Mielec", Jewish Gen: Forgotten Camps: . 4 "Mielec", Museum