Zwola (Gniewoszów)

The Farmers from Zwola

During World War II, the Germans established a ghetto in Gniewoszów and the adjacent village of Granica, where approximately 6,500 Jews were confined—both local residents and those displaced from other areas of the General Government. In August 1942, the gradual liquidation of the ghetto began, and Jews were deported to extermination camps. Some of them escaped deportation thanks to the help of farmers from nearby villages, including Józef Suchecki and Jan Wolski from Zwola. They prepared hiding places in their farm buildings, where small groups of escapees from the Gniewoszów ghetto could periodically find shelter. Among those hiding were Eliezer Finkelman, Hersz Liebhaber, Moshe Holtzhandler, Mirl Reikh, and Pesach Tanenboim. For safety reasons, they changed their hiding places from time to time.

In the morning hours of August 17, 1943, likely as a result of a denunciation by German settlers from nearby Marianów, gendarmes from the station in Zwoleń entered the neighboring farms of Józef Suchecki and Jan Wolski. Although no one was hiding there at the time, both farmers were shot, and their families were beaten. During the raid conducted in the area, the Germans also captured and murdered the Jews who had been helped by the Suchecki and Wolski families. The bodies of Józef Suchecki and Jan Wolski were initially buried near the site of the execution, and after the war, they were exhumed and laid to rest in the cemetery in Oleksów.