The March of Silence and Prayer passed along the streets of Kielce

KJ, 16 November 2016
The March of Silence and Prayer passed along the streets of Kielce on the 4th July. Its participants, among them guests from the USA and Israel, were honouring the memory of the 1946 Kielce pogrom. The march was organised by the Jan Karski Association.

Proceedings commenced with the lighting of a memorial menorah in memory of the 24,000 Kielce Jews who were murdered by the Nazis during World War II. Candles were lit and Jewish, Christian and Muslim prayers were recited.

March participants then moved to the site where the synagogue had once stood. There, before the Memorial to the Righteous Among the Nations, the honoured those residents of the Kielce region who had saved Jews from the Holocaust. A additional plaque was unveiled honoured the Righteous Honorata and  Wojciech Mucha from Bronowa, Maria and Andrzej Gałęziowski from Włochy near Pińczów, Zofia Bana from Włochy near Pińczów , as well as Leon Śliwiński from Kielce.

Near the tenement building at ul. Planty 7/9, where the pogrom had taken place in which 37 Jews had been murdered, in honour of their memory, empty chairs were set up bearing the names of these victims.