Monuments on the graves of Jews killed in Gniewczyna Łańcucka and Kańczuga were unveiled in Jagiełła-Niechciałka on Sunday.

The monument initiators, members of the Jewish Community of Warsaw, and officials representing local authorities, the Institute of National Remembrance, and the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews all came to the wartime cemetery in the forest. The attendees also included Catholic priests, residents of nearby towns and villages, and firemen.

In 1942, a group of firemen apprehended 11 hiding Jews, including the family of Lejb Trynczer, in Gniewczyna Łańcucka. They tortured them, and then gave them away to the Germans, who executed all the Jews. In Kańczuga, a group of Jewish Holocaust survivors was killed in unexplained circumstances in March 1945, after the town had been taken over by the Red Army.

Only recently have these two events gained publicity. They were described by Witold Piecuch in the Gazeta Wyborcza daily, and in a book by Alina Skibińska and Tadeusz Markiel titled „Jakie to ma znaczenie czy zrobili to z chciwości...” Zagłada domu Trynczerów („Does It Really Matter Whether They Did It out of Greed...” The Annihilation of the Trynczers' Home). Thanks to the involvement of Alina Skibińska and Łukasz Biedka, it was possible to establish that the victims' bodies were exhumed after the war and buried in a wartime cemetery in Jagiełła-Niechciałka. The graves were marked with plaques with no names on them.

"We agreed that the moral obligation that we undertook by presenting historical knowledge to the public should be completed with restoring the first and last names on the burial site of the victims we had described", Jakub Petelewicz of the Polish Center for Holocaust Research said yesterday.

Two huge stone blocks bearing the names of the killed were unveiled yesterday on the graves which for years only had metal plates with exhumation document numbers and the words "A collective grave of 26 Jews".

"This initiative was started by Łukasz Biedka and Alina Skibińska, but the monuments were erected thanks to the public collection and private funds offered by various people", Jakub Petelewicz stressed. "We were also supported by the Jewish Historical Institute Association".

"I can ensure you that our school will take care of these graves and that we will continue to tell the next generations that people should live in peace", said Ryszard Jędruch, the Tryńcza commune head. He stressed that other inhabitants in his commune had saved Jews during the war.

Alina Skibińska stressed that Poles had committed or helped to commit the Gniewczyna Łańcucka and Kańczuga crimes.

"More Jews were killed in Gniewczyna and nearby villages", Alina Skibińska added. "Their bodies have not been exhumed until this day".

Psalms, Kaddish and El male rachamim were said at the victims' graves. After the ceremony, a candle was also lit at property 110 in Gniewczyna Łańcucka, where the crime termed The Annihilation of the Trynczers' Home was committed in 1942.

Source: own information