Most of the able-bodied poor were forced to work in German military factories before being transported aboard Holocaust trains to the nearby concentration camp at Auschwitz where they were exterminated.

[7] The Order Police battalions began to deport Jewish families from all neighbouring communities of the Zagłębie Dąbrowskie region into Będzin.

[8] From October 1940 to May 1942, about 4,000 Jewish people were deported from Będzin to serve as slave labour in the rapidly growing number of camps.

The area was defined by the neighbourhoods of Kamionka and Mała Środula bordering the Sosnowiec Ghetto, with the Jewish police placed by the SS along the perimeter.

[9] As was the case in other ghettoes across occupied Poland, German authorities exterminated most of the Jews of Będzin during the murderous Operation Reinhard, deporting them to Nazi death camps, primarily to nearby Auschwitz-Birkenau for gassing.

[8] Major deportation actions, commanded by SS-Standartenführer Alexander von Woedtke,[10] took place in 1942 with 2,000 Jews sent to be murdered in Auschwitz in May and 5,000 in August.

[6] During the final deportation action of early August 1943, the Jewish Combat Organization (ŻOB) in Będzin staged an uprising against the Germans (as in nearby Sosnowiec).

A group of partisans barricaded themselves in the bunker at Podsiadły Street along with their female leader, Frumka Płotnicka, age 29,[10] who fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising several weeks earlier.

[12] All of them were killed by the German forces once they ran out of bullets, but the fighting, which began on 3 August 1943, lasted for several days.

[9] Most of the remaining Jews perished soon thereafter, when the ghetto was liquidated,[6][8] although the deportations had to be extended from a few days to two weeks and the SS from Auschwitz (45 km distance) was summoned to assist.

[10] Posthumously, Frumka Płotnicka received the Order of the Cross of Grunwald from the Polish Committee of National Liberation on 19 April 1945.

When on 8 September 1939 the Synagogue was set on fire by the SS with a crowd of Jewish worshippers inside, the Catholic priest, Father Mieczysław Zawadzki (pl), opened the gates of his church at Góra Zamkowa for all runaways seeking refuge.

They were rescued by Dr. Tadeusz Kosibowicz, director of the state hospital in Będzin, aided by Dr. Ryszard Nyc and Sister Rufina Świrska.

[15] The survivors were smuggled out of the bunkers in small groups by ŻOB members: Fela Kac, Schmuel Ron and Kasia Szancer.

Wanda and Kazimierz Kafarski were awarded recognition as Righteous in 2004, long after Stanisław Grzybowski died of old age.

Found guilty of helping the Nazis by ensuring that Jews selected for the death camps did not escape, Barenblat was sentenced to five years in prison.

On May 1, 1964, having served three months of the sentence, Barenblat was absolved of the charge, freed and Israel's Supreme Court quashed his conviction.