Grobstein

Before World War II, there were 24,000 Jews living in Kielce, about one-third of the population.
In September 1939, immediately after the German occupation, action have been taken against the Jews - fines, confiscation of property, forced labour, were forced on the Jews of Kielce.

In April 1941, the Kielce ghetto was established, and the Jews were forced to move into it.
Many of the Jews were forced labour at a German ammunition plant.

In August 1942, extermination of the Jewish ghetto began.
In 5 days, all the Jews in the ghetto were sent to the Treblinka extermination camp, except 2,000 Jews, who were sent to another forced labour camp.

On July 1, 1946, an eight-year-old Polish boy, Henryk Błaszczyk, was reported missing by his father Walenty.
Two days later, Henryk , his father and one of the neighbors went to a local police station, where Henryk falsely claimed that he had been kidnapped by Jews.
About 160 Jews were quartered in a building administered by the Jewish Committee of Kielce Voivodeship at 7 Planty Street, a small street in the center of the town, including former prisoners of concentration camps, and some relatively rich Soviet Jews on their way to Palestine.
Henryk accused the Jews of killing children for their blood and keeping the bodies in the cellar of the building on Planty Street.
On July 4, 1946, after some of the Jews returned to Kielce, allegations of blood libel spread, and 37 of the 200 Holocaust survivors were murdered by the local Polish gentiles.
A patrol of 14 uniformed and plainclothed MO officers was dispatched on foot to the Jewish house[clarification needed] by the station's new police chief.
They were joined by several groups of about 100 servicemen from various units and formations: Polish People's Army (LWP), Internal Security Corps and Main Directorate of Information, and some more policemen.
By noon, an estimated 600 to 1,000 workers from the nearby Ludwików steel mill arrived, led by members of the ORMO reserve police and activists of the PPR (Polish Workers' Party's) militia, which marked the beginning of the next phase of the pogrom, during which 20 Jews were killed, mostly with steelworks tools.
Wounded Jews, being transported to the hospital, were beaten and robbed by soldiers.
Trains passing through Kielce's main railway station were searched for Jews by civilians and railway guards, and two more Jews were killed.
Two or three Polish gentiles were killed by the Jews defending themselves, while nine were later sentenced to death.

The Kielce pogrom put an end to the hopes of many Jews that they would be able to resettle in Poland after the end of Nazi occupation, and precipitated a mass exodus of Polish Jewry.
Many were smuggled out illegally by the Brichah.