The Biecz Synagogue is a former synagogue in

Biecz Biecz () () is a town and municipality in southeastern Poland, in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, Gorlice County. It is in the Carpathian Mountains, in the Doły Jasielsko-Sanockie, by the Ropa (river), Ropa River. Due to its rich history, it is often ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

. It is located on the main square of the town. Built in 1903, it is now used as a public library.

History

The synagogue was built in 1903, with two separate entrances: one for men, which leads to the ground floor, and another one for women, which leads to the first floor. By the early 1930s, the town of Biecz was home to 500 Jews, making up 15% of the entire population. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, the Nazis established a Jewish ghetto around the synagogue. Eventually, they killed 150 Jews and

deported Deportation is the expulsion of a person or group of people by a state from its Sovereignty, sovereign territory. The actual definition changes depending on the place and context, and it also changes over time. A person who has been deported or ...

the remaining Jews to the

Bełżec extermination camp Belzec (English: or , Polish: , approximately ) was a Nazi German extermination camp in occupied Poland. It was built by the SS for the purpose of implementing the secretive Operation Reinhard, the plan to murder all Polish Jews, a major ...

. In the 1990s, the US-based Society of Jews from Biecz in New York added a commemorative plaque to the building.

References

External links

Biecz, Poland, A house that once served as a synagogue.
on the

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem (; ) is Israel's official memorial institution to the victims of Holocaust, the Holocaust known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (). It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; echoing the stories of the ...

website Former synagogues in Poland Synagogues completed in 1903 Public libraries in Poland 20th-century synagogues in Poland {{Poland-synagogue-stub