Tarnow Ghetto Personal Identity Form

Typewritten, tan document filled in with blue ink. Signature in black at bottom, and purple circular hand stamp. Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash: Personal identity document from the Judenrat in Tarnow with violet Der Judenrat/Tarnow cachet. Tarnow is a city in southern Poland, 45 miles east of Krakow. Prior to WWII more than half the population of Tarnow was Jewish. With the occupation on September 8, 1939, Jews were harassed, synagogues were burned, and in early November a Judenrat was established. Jews were taken for slave labor, producing goods for the German war industry, homes were evacuated, and valuables were seized, along with arrests and murder. In June 1942, deportations occurred to the Belzec extermination center. A ghetto was established, surrounded by a high wooden fence, with those able to work selected out from the continuing deportations of unessentials. The final liquidation of the ghetto occurred in early September 1942, with deportations to Auschwitz and Plaszow, the latter commanded by the infamous Amon Goeth.https://digital.kenyon.edu/bulmash/1189/thumbnail.jp