Starachowice, on the Kamienna River, began in the middle ages as a mining and metallurgy settlement. The city became part of Poland after the Partition of 1815 and its steelworks were taken over by the government. More heavy industry was added over the 19th and early 20th centuries. With partition, Jews began to settle in nearby Wierzbnik, once owned by the Benedictine abbey of Świętokrzyskie. Tradition holds that this town was named for its many willow trees (wierzba).

In the interwar period, Wierzbnik was annexed to its powerhouse neighbor, and the new town named Wierzbnik-Starachowice. By the 1930s, Jewish-owned factories here were producing flour, glass, ceramics, farm tools, iron, lumber, and building materials. There were more than 130 Jewish shops and stores. The community had 3 cheders, a public school, a Zionist primary school, a synagogue, a mikvah, several Hassidic shtiblech, and a cemetery. By 1935 the town had a population of 8000, where Jews were about 31 percent.

On September 9, 1939, the city was occupied by the Germans. In February 1941, they established a ghetto in Wierzbnik, to which Jews from various towns were sent. The ghetto was liquidated on October 27, 1942, and many of its prisoners sent to the Treblinka death camp. The remaining Jewish residents were sent to labor camps in the area and, when those were liquidated, to Auschwitz, where most died.

The Jewish community of Wierzbnik-Starachowice is no more. This book, originally written in Hebrew and Yiddish by emigrés and survivors, shows what it was like and bears witness to its destruction.

Let us never forget.

Wierzbnik [Pol], Vierzhbinik [Yid], Vyerzhbnik [Rus], Wierzbnik-Starachowice [Pol, 1939-1952], Starachowice, Starakhovits, Strachovitza, Verzhbnik, Wierzbnik Starachow, Verzhbnik Starakhov, Vyerzbnik, Vyerzhbanik