[1] The liquidation of the ghetto took place in August 1942, with over 21,000 victims (men, women and children) deported to their deaths at the Treblinka extermination camp,[2] and several thousands more shot, face-to-face.

[1] Kielce was made into a county seat of the newly formed Distrikt Radom governed by Dr. Karl Lasch appointed from Berlin on 26 October 1939.

[4] As in all Polish cities incorporated into the Nazi German General Government territory, the new administration ordered the creation of a Judenrat in Kielce.

At the same time, Jewish–owned factories were confiscated by the Gestapo, stores and shops along the main thoroughfares liquidated,[6] and all wealthy houses plundered by the Nazi officials.

[5][8] Between the onset of war in September 1939 and March 1940, the Jewish population of Kielce expanded from 18,000,[9] to 25,400 (35% of all residents),[1] with trains of dispossessed Jews arriving under the escort of Ordnungspolizei from the Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany.

[5] However, Pelc found himself unable to deal with the German ransom demands, and in August 1940 proposed that the industrialist Herman Lewi (Hermann Levy) become his successor.

[11] On 31 March 1941, Reichsamtsleiter Lasch ordered the creation of the Kielce Ghetto surrounded by high fences, barbed wire, and guards.

[1] Several forced-labour enterprises were set up in the city by the SS, including Hasag Granat Werke with 400–500 Jews manufacturing munition, as well as the Ludwigshütte (prewar Ludwików foundry) with 200–300 slave labourers; the Henryków woodworking plant, and various workshops for German war economy.

[3] The Jewish clandestine resistance, under the leadership of Dawid Barwiner (Bachwiener) and Gerszon Lewkowicz, attempted to procure weapons, but they were largely unsuccessful.

The secret production of arms and ammunition for the planned uprising failed abruptly when the chief of Jewish police, Wahan Spiegl (Spiegel), informed the Gestapo on the goings-on in the German metal shops.

Within four days, 1,200 people including patients of the Jewish hospital were shot face-to-face and 20,000–21,000 Jews were led into waiting Holocaust trains, sent to Treblinka, and murdered in the gas chambers.

Helfand remembered stripping the bodies naked before burial on German orders and witnessed the terrorized Jews yanking gold teeth from the mouths of cadavers on pain of death.

The remaining skilled workers were sent to the Auschwitz complex and further to Buchenwald, including future Canadian artist Gershon Iskowitz.

Polish Home Army soldiers of the "Wybraniecki" unit, commanded by Marian Sołtysiak [pl] ("Barabasz"), murdered the hiding Jews and Sawa.