Hadle Szklarskie | Subcarpathian

Hadle Szklarskie is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Jawornik Polski within Przeworsk County, Subcarpathian Voivodeship, in southeastern Poland. It lies approximately 22 km (14 mil) from Przeworsk and 25 km (16 mil) from the regional capital Rzeszów. Not much is known about the prewar Jewish community. Yahad witness, Franciszek S., born in 1935, interviewed by our team in May 2019, recalled that there were several Jewish families living in the village before the outbreak of the war. They were merchants and inn owners. The Jewish cemetery was in the nearby town of Jawornik Polski. We assume that the Jewish community from Hadle Szklarskie attended the synagogue in Jawornik Polski.

From the summer of 1942, a group of seven Jews hid in the forests of Hadle Szklarskie, near the village of Pantalowice: Judy, Jankiel, Chana, Józef, Brand, Berek and Małka Schönfeld. Many of the inhabitants of the village and surrounding settlements were involved in helping Jews by giving them temporary shelter in their farm buildings, helping them to find a hiding place in the forest and, above all, providing food. Three Dec brothers organized an underground bunker for the Jews in the forest, in which they spent the next few months. In November, a hunter came across a bunker and denounced the Jews to the gendarmes. On the morning of December 4, 1942, German military policemen from Łańcut, led by Anton Hachmann, arrived in the forest. The Jewish men managed to flee but the Germans arrested two Jewish women: Chana and Małka Schönfeld. Both women were interrogated by the Germans who wanted to discover the names of the Poles who were helping them. Chana Schönfeld, who refused to give away any names, was directly shot. Małka Schönfeld, exhausted and terrified after being tortured, gave away all the names she knew. All Poles from Pantalowice, involved in helping the fugitives, were then arrested, and shot. The deaths were: Władysław Dec, Wincenty Lewandowski with his wife Emilia, Jakub Kuszek with his wife Zofia and their daughter Justyna Kubicka. Then the gendarmes headed for the forester’s lodge near Hadle Szklarskie, where Władysław Dec’s brothers lived. On the night of December 4, 1942, Stanisław, Tadeusz and Bronisław Dec were shot by the Germans on the doorstep of their home. Furthermore, the Germans discovered that the inhabitants of the nearby village of Grzegorzówka also aided the Jews hiding in the Hadle Szklarskie forest. After being captured and tortured, Władysław Jasiński Sylwester Nycz, Grzegorz Wojturski, Henryk Gajda and Stanisław Pelc were also killed. The fate of five Jews who managed to flee the forest before the Germans arrival remains unknown. However, during Yahad - In Unum’s investigation in the Przeworsk region in May 2019, we managed to establish that another shooting of Jews took place in the Hadle Szklarskie forest. According to our witness, Franciszek S., born in 1935, in the summer of 1942 or 1943, seven Jews from Hadle Szklarskie (men, women and one child) were taken to the forest and shot by a German. Franciszek recognized one of the victims, a Jewish woman called Idka, well known by his mother. At the execution site, the Jews were ordered to lie down facing the ground near the pit that had been dug by three requisitioned villagers. They were subsequently all shot by the German in the back of the head. The victim’s bodies were then put into the pit, covered with a sheet, and buried by the same three local requisitioned men. Today, the mass grave of the seven Jews from Hadle Szklarskie remains without memorial, completely abandoned and very hard to access due to its location in very muddy terrain in the middle of the forest.