The commemoration brought together representatives of Jewish communities, the authorities, clergy and civil society organisations.
The day began with an interfaith prayer service at the Jewish cemetery in Pakosz, where many of the victims are buried.
Małgorzata Kowalewska, head of the Jan Karski Association that organised the event, recalled that many of the murdered were Holocaust survivors who had returned to rebuild their lives or planned to emigrate to Israel.
“They all hoped for a safe future,” she said. “We are the guardians of their memory and the heirs to their hope.”
Representatives of Judaism, the Catholic Church, and the Evangelical Methodist Church joined the service.
Kowalewska urged those present to “pray not only for the souls of the victims, but for the strength to build a safer world, one that embraces diversity, beginning with our own surroundings.”
Speaking on behalf of the Jewish Religious Community of Katowice, Sławomir Pastuszka said the pain of the pogrom “does not fade with time.”
“It settles quietly in us, generation after generation, like ashes that never fall to the ground," he said. "How can we forget that, in broad daylight, a neighbour turned against their neighbour?”
Bishop Jan Piotrowski of Kielce addressed the historical context of the crime, describing it as “a bitter fruit of a Poland that was occupied, enslaved and deceived.”
He added: “What happened must not deprive us of hope.”
The commemoration continued at 7/9 Planty Street, the site of the massacre, where flowers were laid and candles lit. The names of the victims were read aloud.
A separate ceremony was also held there by the Świętokrzyskie branch of the Solidarity trade union, which has commemorated the pogrom every year since 1981. Its regional head, Waldemar Bartosz, said the group saw this as “a moral obligation.”
“This is about historical truth. It happened. And if it happened, we should not hide it,” Bartosz said. He added that under communist rule, the event was suppressed, and it was only after the rise of the Solidarity movement and the fall of the regime that it was openly acknowledged.
“The other reason we do this is to remember how badly people can be wronged,” he said.
Wreaths were also laid by representatives of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), local MPs, and county officials, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
Ryszard Śmietanka-Kruszelnicki from the IPN’s Kielce office, a long-time researcher of the pogrom, said the events of 1946 were complex and could not be solely attributed to antisemitism among local residents.
“The picture is more complicated,” he said. “There is strong evidence that provocations played a role in what happened both inside the building and on the street.”
He noted that the communist police and army were not only passive during the violence but allowed it to escalate, and in some cases, even provoked it.
He called for continued research, pointing to newly digitized archives that have revealed how limited earlier investigations were. These sources have confirmed cases of Jews being murdered on trains in the region and attacks at railway stations, including one in nearby Piekoszów, according to Śmietanka-Kruszelnicki.
On July 4, 1946, thirty-seven Jews and three non-Jews were killed in Kielce, with 35 Jews wounded. Other murders took place nearby that day, including the killing of a Jewish woman, Regina Fisz, and her infant daughter during an apparent robbery.
In the immediate aftermath, a rushed show trial sentenced nine of the 12 accused perpetrators to death.
(rt/gs)
Source: PAP