The Jewish community in Bochnia was established in the 15th century. It can be assumed that Jews settled in the town as early as the 13^th century, shortly after salt deposits had been discovered here in 1248. The 1407 town books mention a Jewish cloth trader called Jan. The next entry from 1445 is about three Jews who were beaten up by several townsmen[1.1]

Towards the end of the 15th century, Żydowska (Jewish) Street (the area of present Bracka Street) was already there in the town, and the fact is confirmed by sources from 1487.

The area populated by Jews extended gradually in the 16th century. They moved to the neighboring streets like Kowalska, Szewska (now Kraszewskiego Street), Solna Góra and Trudna. In the course of time, Jews played a more and more important role in the town and were active on the social scene, which is confirmed by the notes in the alderman's court books and the town council register[1.2].

At that time, the Jews dealt mostly with usury, trade and craft; they owned houses and squares and managed the local salt mine[1.1.2]. As early as 1386, the Polish King Kazimierz Wielki, appointed a Jew called Lewka for the position of a mining official and put him in charge of the salt mines in Wieliczka and Bochnia. Also Jew Abraham Niger rented salt mines in Bochnia and Wieliczka[1.3].

A Jewish quarter was established as early as the 15^th century within the area encompassing Żydowska Street and abovementioned Kowalska, Szewska (now Kraszewskiego Street), Solna Góra and Trudna Streets[1.4]. Jewish life concentrated within the quarter, where the Jews had their prayer houses, hospitals, mikvahs and slaughterhouses.

The Jewish quarter in Bochnia was overcrowded with people and houses and that was because often many families inhabited one building. It was also unfavorable that the Jewish district was located next to the lepers street, which was outside the town walls. That neighborhood combined with poor sanitation in the Jewish quarter posed a constant threat to the health of the inhabitants[1.5].

In 1555, the Bochnia Jews were granted a special privilege by King Zygmunt August, which put them outside the municipal jurisdiction. They were only under the authority of the province governor, and the royal law permitted them to have their internal cases adjudicated upon by their own court, whereas disputes with the townspeople were settled in the local governor's and alderman’s courts. A special official was appointed by the Kraków province governor to supervise the Jews’ proper behavior and their safety. He was called a Jewish judge (iudex Iudaeorum)[1.6].

The relations between the Christians and Jews were tense at that time, which probably resulted from the decrease in salt mining, which, in turn, impeded the town’s development, and caused degradation of the middle-class – especially the Christian one. The Jews were blamed for that situation. The Bochnia residents complained mainly about the Jewish usury practices and illegal alcohol sale. An earlier argument over economic issues between the Jewish butchers and the butchers’ guild was also well known. The guild wanted the Jewish butchers to contribute to the fees the guild paid to the Church. The efforts of the butchers’ guild in Bochnia resulted in a royal decree of 1583, which ordered the Jews to participate in the guild’s obligations. In return, the Jewish kehilla was permitted to build its own slaughterhouse. Unfortunately, both sides, which did not meet their obligations, remained in conflict[1.7].

In 1605, the Jews of Bochnia were falsely accused of profaning the Host[1.8]. Supposedly it was carried out of the church by two miners and sold to a Jaw called Jakub, who fled from the town. As a result of the alleged profanation, the residents of Bochnia pleaded with King Zygmunt III that he issued de non tolerandis Iudaeis, which he did on 23 November 1605, and by doing so he sentenced the whole Jewish kehilla to exile. The Bochnia Jews were supposed to leave the town in 12 weeks and could not settle within a radius of 2 miles from town[1.9]. The given time was supposed to be enough for them to close down their shops and settle all their ownership issues. After this time, their property was supposed to be confiscated. When the Jews left the town, the prayer houses and dwelling houses were demolished, and the cemetery was destroyed. Not a trace of this community has been preserved until this day. Most of the Bochnia Jews moved to Kazimierz and to Wiśnicz to the estates belonging to Stanisław Lubomirski[1.10].

The ban on the Jewish settlement in the town was lifted by the Austrian authorities in 1867 when Jews were granted equal rights in the Empire[1.11]. The first group of settlers comprised the Jews of Wiśnicz, who arrived in the town in 1863 after a fire in which they had lost their houses. The Hasidic dynasty of the Halberstams came to play an important role in the new community[1.1.11]. From the 19^th century on, Bochnia was a flourishing center, one of the reasons for that being the fact that the initiatives such as a road linking Kraków and Lwów as well as the Kraków – Tarnów – Dębica rail line were completed. That, too, contributed to the increase in the number of Jews living in Bochnia. At the turn of the 20^th century, there were 2,035 of them, which constituted 21.2 percent of the town’s total population (1900)[1.12].

However, the Jewish newcomers were strongly attached to Wiśnicz, which was evident, as they made no effort towards establishing their own cemetery in Bochnia.

The Jews of Bochnia did not have their own synagogue for a long time (not until 1847) and worshippers would meet in private houses. With the influx of Jews from Wiśnicz, a kehilla was again formed in the town. Initially, Jewish life focused in the old Jewish quarter (the area around Bracka Street) where public institutions, hosues of prayer, or a cheder were situated. The first president of the Bochnia kehilla in the 1860s and 1870s was Liebel Grunspan, a trader from Wiśnicz. During his office, a Jewish cemetery was opened and a pre-burial house was built next to it in 1873[1.13]. The next presidents were Paschie Schanzer and Moses Laub. When the latter held the office, the county authorities decided to dissolve the kehilla in 1902, probably because of the inner conflicts among its members. New elections were planned to be held as late as 1908, yet, all documents addressed to the Bochnia town authorities were signed by Laub, although the county authorities suspended him in his duties.

It should be noted that, in 1905, Laub turned to the Bochnia executive office for consent to build a poultry slaughterhouse on a piece of land that belonged to the Talmud Torah Society, which was located on Bracka Street. The town authorities refused to issue the consent due to sanitary conditions, as the place was right next to a school, a house of prayer and a dwelling house. The Jews found another place across the street.

In Bochnia, the Jews established a few houses of prayer, which, for the most part, were located in private houses. Initially, they occupied rooms on Trudna Street and a house on Sutoris Street[1.14]. A house of prayer, belonging to the “Chidushim” Society, where a few hundred worshippers prayed every day, was erected in the late 19th century[1.1.14]. Another house of prayer was built in its proximity. It belonged to the Halberstam Synagogue Society and was called “Zancer Szul”[1.15]. The only ones to pray and study there were the Hasidim of Bobowa. Yet another house of prayer, which was formed in 1922 on Bracka Street, was also associated with the Halberstam dynasty, as it was funded in Bochnia by the Rabin Halberstam Association of Bobowa[1.1.14]. Apart from the houses of prayer located in separate buildings, there were also the ones operating in private apartments, e.g. there were four batei midrashot in the “red tenement house” at the corner of Floris and Fischera Streets. Two others were located at 5 Kącik Street and at the corner of Kącik and Rzeźnicka Streets.

In the 1930s, the Jewish kehilla took the first steps towards building a new synagogue (13 Trudna Street). Its construction started in 1932 and lasted for a few years until the outbreak of the war stopped the work. Towards the end of the 1930s, the Jews were given the permission to use the synagogue. Today, a branch of PKO BP Bank is located in that building.

A mikvah – a ritual bathhouse, was a place of great importance to the Jews, who had to use the municipal bathhouse at first, but it did not meet their religious requirements. The information about a new bathhouse building comes from 1883, which, with the consent given by the town authorities, was transformed into a dwelling house in 1907. A new bathhouse was erected a year later (1908) near the Talmud Torah Society. Its location by the Babica stream always provided running water[1.16].

From the mid-19th century, the Jews dealt mostly with trade and owned many shops, restaurants, mills and craft workshops. The intelligentsia included doctors, teachers and lawyers, many of whom graduated from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. In the interwar period, most of the shops in the town center belonged to the Jews[1.17]. In pre-war Bochnia, of 272 registered traders, 239 were Jewish. They ran production plants that gave employment to the townspeople. The biggest factories were:

• Eksterna Brickyard – 100 employees,
• Henryk Munzer’s Stoneware Factory – 115 employees,
• Hochstein, Stillman & Stiglitz Company – 40 employees

What is more, the Jews opened the first gas station in the town (it belonged to Mendel Wienfield), as well as owned the first passenger car (whose owner was Samuel Silberring)[1.18]

The Bochnia Jews took an active part in municipal initiatives, such as volunteering in the Fire Brigade, of which they made up one third. Many of them sat on the town council; in 1894, of the total number of the Bochnia’s 44 councilors, three were Jewish. The councilors in the interwar period included, among others, Mojżesz Bribram – president of the Loan Cooperative Bank and Samuel Silbering – the founder and owner of the “Secesja” printing house, which operated from 1913 to the outbreak of the war[1.19]. The Jewish community participated in the celebrations of public holidays like 3 May, the Independence Day celebrations, or other occasions like the one commemorating King Kazimierz Wielki (1871 – the unveiling of a monument to the king, 17 September 1933 – the 600th anniversary of Kazimierz Wielki’s coronation as the King of Poland)[1.20]. The Jews also supported such organizations as the National Defense Fund.

The Polish-Jewish relations worsened in the 1930s, mainly because of the boycott of the Jewish shops by the National Democracy. It happened that the shopkeepers were attacked and beaten and anti-Semitic posters appeared on the walls. The hostile acts directed against the shopkeepers had been taking place until 1939. The Poles had a positive attitude towards the Jewish traders because of such factors as, for example, the fact that they could haggle over the price in their shops and buy after 6 p.m. The town law prohibited any shop to be open after 6 p.m., so trade at this time of day was informal. The Jews pretended they had already closed their shops, closed the blinds on the windows, but still waited for late customers. In 1936, as part of the protest against anti-Semitic actions, the Jews decided to close their shops in the afternoon hours despite the losses that they suffered because of that.

In 1939, there were approximately 3,000 Jews in Bochnia[1.21]. When the German occupation began, victimization of the Jews started as well, assuming different forms. They were forbidden to attend public schools, forced to wear marks by which they could be identified like bands with the Star of David on their arms, and their houses of prayer were closed.

It was as early as the fall of 1939 when the Germans established the Judenrat and the Jewish Police here, while people started to be sent to labor camps in 1940.

In April 1941, a ghetto was created in the town and throughout its existence 15,000 people from Bochnia, the surrounding villages, and even Kraków[1.22] and Mielec[1.23] passed through it. The ghetto area included the old Jewish quarter and encompassed Kowalska, Bracka, Niecała, Św. Leonarda, Solna Góra and Kraszewskiego Streets. At first, Trudna Street also belonged to the ghetto, but after some time, the displaced Poles were allowed to return to their houses located in this street[1.24]. That was the result of the fact that the number of residents in the Jewish quarter had been decreasing. German and Ukrainian units guarded the ghetto entrance[1.25]. Leaving the area without permission meant death by shooting. More than 300 people who disobeyed the prohibition were shot to death at the Jewish cemetery[1.26].

The Jews were employed in workshops situated outside the ghetto, in places like the military barracks on Kazimierza Wielkiego Street. The workshops were the only place where the Jews and the rest of inhabitants could stay in contact. There, Polish workers often helped their friends from the separated zone by sharing food and running errands for them in the town[1.27].

The Judenrat was the institution that supervised the ghetto inhabitants. It had 12-15 members[1.28] and gathered information about the number of the Jews living in the ghetto and dealt with collecting fees imposed on them by the Germans like the one they ordered to introduce in August 1942 for keeping the Jews safe, while not even a whole month later some people staying in the ghetto were taken to a death camp. The Jews were even supposed to pay for cartridges that were used for executing their fellow brothers[1.29].

In the spring of 1942, the ghetto was surrounded with a wooden fence, which was guarded by Polish police officers[1.1.26]. At first, the Germans did not realize that the closed area was not separated entirely from the rest of the town. Neither did they pay attention to the fact that the yards of the tenement houses on Kraszewskiego Street (ghetto’s southern border) were connected with the yards on the “Aryan side”. Until they were permanently separated from each other, this place was a site where communication between the “Aryan side” of the town and the ghetto was possible. Food was smuggled by the Poles, who were allowed to stay in this area[1.30].

The first action aiming at dissolving the ghetto was conducted in August, the second one in November 1942 (Action I and Action II) and in September 1943. Before the first Action, Jews from many surrounding localities like Brzeżany, Nowy Wiśnicz, Bogucice, or Lipnica Murowana were brought to the town. Some of the inhabitants hid, while awaiting deportation. As a result the lists of the people who were supposed to be sent away missed names, so the Jewish police officers had to deport their own families and death was also the fate of those who had special work permits[1.1.26]. As part of Action I, on 25 August, approximately 500 people were shot to death in the nearby Niepołomice Forest (Polish: Puszcza Niepołomicka) in Baczków. The people killed there were mostly the old, the patients from the ghetto hospital, and children – the inhabitants who were unable to survive the transportation to the camp in Bełżec. At that time, approximately 2,000 people who did not have permits to work in Bochnia were shipped off[1.31]. The place has been commemorated with a mass grave, which is taken care of by the students from the Primary School in Baczków. The inscriptions on the tombstones list the names of some of the killed: Chaja Symcha Banach, Samson Brerman, Chaja Rachel (illegible surname), Szloma Erlich, Ita Ebner, Jehuda Leib Feinger, Samuel Feniger, a women by the name of Frager and her daughter, Chaim Samson Garfunkel, Natan Genger, Aron and Chana Greiwer, Alster Leib Gutfreund, Regina Gutfreund, Sara Landerer, Lernerowie, Jehuda and Małka Matzner, Mendel Brauch Nabel, Eliezer Plaster, Helena Reich, Reizl Gisl, Abraham’s daughter, Neftali Herz Rosner with his wife Rachel, Akpiba Rotkopf, Chaim Szehnberg, Icchek and Pesil Ulman, Rebeka Weinfeld. Many names are not correct and many are missing as the list was said from memory[1.32]. At that time, many Jews in the very ghetto were killed by shooting too. Additional executions took place at the municipal cemetery where approximately 30 people were shot to death. The 5,000 people who were supposed to be deported were taken to the Bełżec death camp[1.33].

Then, the ghetto was divided into sections A and B. The first section was provided for people working in separate male and female barracks. The ghetto B was prepared for the elderly, the sick and children. During Action II, which was carried out in the spring of 1943, one hundred Jews were sent to the labor camp in Płaszów. 

The final dissolution of the ghetto took place in early September 1943. Those who were too weak to get through the journey, mostly people from Ghetto B (60 people) were shot dead at the municipal cemetery. They included mainly, just like during the previous action, the old, the sick, children and Jewish police officers. Their bodies were put at stake and burned. Those who remained were taken to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp[1.34]. The one thousand people who remained were transported to the labor camp in Szebnie, where most of them perished.

Approximately 250 people remained in the ghetto under a watchful eye of the Ukrainians whose duty was to clear up and search the ghetto area so that the hidden property was discovered. The things that were found were taken to the Reich. These people worked until 1943 after which they were deported to Płaszów or the labor camp in Szebnie[1.35].

In the Bochnia ghetto, the members of the pre-war Zionist organization Akiba attempted to organize a resistance movement[1.1.35]. An underground unit cooperating with the Jewish Combat Organization in Kraków was active in Bochnia until November 1943[1.36]. They got false identity cars, prepared bunkers in the forest, which those who survived went to in February 1943[1.37].

There were Poles in Bochnia who helped the Jews hide. For example Mrs Ludwika Płachcińska rescued a Jewish boy and provided shelter for other Jews in a bunker situated in her barn. Stanisław Wójtowicz, a priest, found shelter for Jews, where they could wait out the roundups[1.38].

Following World War II, those who had survived began returning to Bochnia. They came from death camps, the USSR or Hungary where whey escaped in search of protection. Shortly after the war, 30 Jews arrived in the town and they started their business in illegal trade (only two had a special license) and real estate sales. They sought help with the Jewish Committee in America. At the same time, they established a County Jewish Committee and a Jewish Religious Association[1.39].

Thirty Jews inhabiting the surrounding territories wanted to move to Bochnia, but they did not receive a special permit from the mayor. In June 1945, there were 100 Jewish residents in the town (according to the report issued by the County Authority Office), in September the number decreased to 40-50 people, while in July 1947, Bochnia had as few as 12 Jewish inhabitants. The information provided by the sources reveals that the Jews only passed through Bochnia in June and July 1949, whereas they were registered for permanent residence in Kraków. A number of Bochnia Jews went to the USA, western European countries and Israel where they founded the “Association of the Jews of Bochnia and the Surroundings” which still exists and has about 80 members. Every year, to mark the anniversary of the annihilation of the Bochnia Jews, the association organizes a mourning ceremony called Hazakra. The monuments at the cemetery located in Tel-Aviv and Mount Sinai pay tribute to the victims from Bochnia and the surrounding towns.

In 2006, a monument commemorating the victims of the Bochnia ghetto was unveiled in the square at the intersection of Niecała and Solna Góra Streets. The ceremony was attended by the representatives of the Association of the Jews of Bochnia from Israel.