Of 2,312 Jews living in Gombin in 1939, 212 survived the Holocaust. The majority were exterminated in the first Nazi death camp, Chelmno. Today, there are no Jews living in Gombin.

The Chelmno Death Camp

Immediately after the war, the provisional Polish government created the Central Commision for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, whose main task was to establish what had happened and prepare the evidence for the Nuremberg trial and for subsequent trials of German war criminals in Poland. The Commission collected documents and testimonies and began to publish them in 1946. The main report, published under the title German Crimes in Poland, gave the first general overview of the main concentration and extermination camps...

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Gombin Children in Nazi Camps, testimony by Jack Frankel

I was ten years old when the war broke out in 1939, Henry Frankel was twelve and Sam Frankel was fifteen. Our father was a cap maker in Gombin. There were seven children in the family, all boys. Three of whom survived, the three mentioned above. The story about to unfold relates how myself and my two brothers managed to live through the period of the war, a period fought with peril for all Jews, without exception, and children in particular.

I remember when the Germans first occupied Gombin. During the first few days the German soldiers called for some young men for work detail. After a few days the Gestapo arrived, and everything changed. They chased all the Jews out of their homes and assembled them in the market place where they were guarded. Then they started to pour gasoline on the homes near the Temple (which was one of the oldest in Poland, artists came before the war from all over Europe to paint our Temple), and lit a match to start a fire...

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In the Gombin Ghetto and in the Nazi Camps, testimony by Ben Guyer

I was mustered into the Polish Army in March, 1939, and served in the 21st Infantry Regiment, in Warsaw. During that period my family was spread out all over the world. My father, three brothers and one sister were in America. My mother died in 1934. I lived in Gombin with my older brother, Joseph, who had a wife and a little girl of two.

I served in the Warsaw Regiment till the end of August when general mobilization was instituted and Poland was expecting a momentary attack on the part of the Nazi armies. We were sent on foot in the direction of Malva, near the Prussian border...

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