First mention of the town comes from 1241, when, during
first Mongol invasion of Poland, the village of Staszów was burned, together with its wooden parish church. In 1345, new stone church of St. Bartholomew was built, and in the 1440s, the village of Staszów was mentioned in
Jan Długosz's
Liber Beneficiorum Dioecesis Cracoviensis. In the early 16th century, Staszów had a market square with a town hall, surrounded by tenement houses. The first Jews settled in Staszów around the time it was awarded city status, in 1526, and a shortly after an organized Jewish community was established there. In 1580 it emerged as one of centers of
Protestant Reformation in
Lesser Poland, with
Polish Brethren active here. The town belonged to several noble families, including the Opaliński and the Tęczyński. In 1610 The Jewish inhabitants were accused of a
blood libel of
ritual murder. A trial took place, after which they were expelled from the city. Even after the deportation, several Jews remained, who also suffered from blood libels. In 1942 the Jędrusie resistance organization robbed a local
savings bank to raise funds for resistance activities. The Germans occupied Staszów in September 1939 and immediately began to rob and brutalize the Jewish population which then comprised about half of Staszów's 11,000 inhabitants. Jews from other towns, including from
Austria, were brought to Staszów. Both those Jews and local Jews were obligated to perform
forced labor for the Germans, building roads and draining swamps, among other tasks. The influx of people brought about epidemic diseases, including both
typhus and
typhoid. Beginning in January 1942, Jews were forbidden to leave the town. A two part
ghetto with more than 6,000 inhabitants was established in June 1942 and more Jews were brought there from around the region. News had spread about deportations to killing camps of other Jewish communities. Many Jews fled Staszów and others tried to
hide with Polish neighbors or in the forest. Attempts were made to develop an armed resistance, but Polish resistance forces would not arm Jews. In the evening of November 7, the town was surrounded by Germans, Ukrainian and Latvian auxiliaries, and Polish and Jewish police. The next day, around 6,000 Jews were marched to the train station. Hundreds were killed en route and others were beaten. The train took the rest to
Treblinka where they were murdered. This day is called "Black Sunday" by members of Staszów's Jewish community. After that, a search of Jewish houses began and those who were hiding were shot. Some hiding places were revealed by Polish townspeople. A few Poles hid Jews from the occupiers, including Maria Szczecinka, a widow who hid fourteen until liberation. Some Jews managed to escape in many ways into the Golieb forest outside of Staszów. These Jews became partisans and established camps, bunkers and raided Nazi supplies until the end of the war. The number of Staszów's Jewish survivors is unknown.
Black Sunday , in
Holon city's cemetery in
Israel Obersturmfuehrer Schild ordered the Jewish policemen to instruct all the Jews in town to be present by 8 o'clock in the morning at the marketplace. Anybody who did not obey this order would be shot. By 8 o'clock in the morning about 5,000 Jews, young and old, children and grown-ups, had assembled at the market place in order to begin their march to death. At 10 in the morning, Schild gave the order: “March!" And so the people started the march and as soon as they filed into Krakowska Street, the murderers shot into the mass of people, strewing the whole road with innocent victims. Blood ran from the Krakowska street down to the river. The march of the Staszów Jews took more than 1,000 of them through
Stopnica to
Belzec extermination camp and the majority marched up to
Szczucin where they were deported by train to
Treblinka extermination camp. On the way, in the village of Niziny, from Staszów, a mass grave was dug for 740 victims. Those who had not come at 8 AM to the marketplace were bestially murdered in their homes. All those killed in Staszów itself on the day of slaughter were buried in a single mass grave at the Jewish Cemetery. Many more Jews, who were retained for hard labor or who had hidden in bunkers, were subsequently killed or shipped to a concentration camp. The Germans retreated in January 1945, after the hostilities and aerial bombardment of the town, 80% of it was destroyed. == Points of interest ==