On July 31, 1940, German military police officers and SS intelligence officers surveilled Jews in Orkusz, Poland, forcing them to lie face down in the central square during registration. Two Jews and a Jewish-American were beaten and slaughtered, and the incident was dubbed "Bloody Wednesday. It was called "Bloody Wednesday".
The Germans invaded the city of Orkusz in southwestern Poland on September 5, 1939, and by March 1940, about 3,000 Jews, including many refugees from other regions, were living in Orkusz, accounting for about 25% of the total population. It was named Irkenau by the occupying German authorities and annexed by the German Empire as part of the city of Śląsk region. The occupying Germans began to persecute the Jews, looting and confiscating their property. They were not allowed to go out on the main streets and were forced to wear identification marks. A small number of Jews, mostly young men, fled to the Soviet-controlled territories in the east. No ghettoes had yet been established, and a Jewish Council was organized in the fall of 1939. From the very early stages of the occupation, the Jews of Orkush were subject to various decrees.
On July 16, 1940, a German policeman, Ernest Kadatz, was murdered by members of the Polish underground state. A German police unit arrived in Orkush on July 31, 1940 to retaliate and gathered all male residents between the ages of 14 and 55, including Jewish males, in three central squares. While German policemen and SS intelligence officers registered the Jews, they forced them to lie face down on the ground. To further humiliate the Jews lying on the ground, Rabbi Moshe Yitzhak Hagerman, a Jewish priest, made them stand barefoot wearing Jewish tallit (prayer shawl) and dirty tefillin (scripture box). We were forced to pray next to some Jews who were lying face down on the ground. Throughout the day, German policemen kicked Jewish men and beat them with the butt of their rifles. Tadeusz Rupa, a Jewish electrical engineer, could no longer bear the suffering and tried to flee. The officers shot and killed him. The Germans often justified executions by reporting them as "preventing escape. The incident was dubbed "Bloody Wednesday" because two people, a Jew and a Jewish-American, were beaten and slaughtered.
In the fall of 1940, they were sent to forced labor camps farther away. In September 1941, the Jews of Orkush were transferred to a ghetto on the outskirts of the city. Jewish councils were organized in residential apartments in the designated ghetto areas. The ghettoes were not fenced, but residents were not allowed to leave without being escorted. Overcrowding was severe, food rations were meager, and it was strictly forbidden to purchase food from the Poles. On March 2, 1942, three Jews accused of smuggling food were publicly executed, and food smuggling was banned.
On June 13, 1942, Jews from Orkush and the surrounding villages were deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp, most of them massacred, according to a list of frail Jews prepared by the Jewish Council. On June 13, 1942, Jews from Orkush and surrounding villages were deported to Auschwitz. On June 13, 1942, Jews from Orkush and surrounding villages were deported to Auschwitz, but about 200 to 300 Jewish Council officials, police and medical personnel were able to remain in Orkush, and only about 155 survived until after the war. The majority of the Jews in the photo did not survive the Holocaust. The priest was massacred in Maidanek in 1942.
