Thanks to the efforts of Forum’s Leader of Dialogue, Ireneusz Socha, and with the support of the Mayor, on July 21st, 2017, Dębica commemorated the 75th Anniversary of the Liquidation of the Dębica Ghetto. The people gathered at the ceremony honored the memory of the 500 Jews executed and then buried in a mass grave in July 1942, as well as those who perished in death camps. They also paid tribute to Leokadia and Aleksander Mikołajków, Righteous Among the Nations, who help save local Jews during the occupation.
The ceremony’s importance was recognized by representatives of Polish and international Jewish community, with the presence of Tadeusz Jakubowicz, the President of the Kraków Jewish Community, Rabbi Avi Baumol from Krakow, whose parents came from Dębica and were killed there, as well as professor Jonathan Webber, whose family came from the nearby Brzostek, and who has been involved in the restoration of the Jewish cemetery there. There was also a group from Israel, among them representatives of the Association of Former Residents of Debica: Nova Rotenberg and Esther Meyer, the daughter of Meir Goldman, son of the penultimate president of Dębica’s kehilla. The event was also well-attended by Dębica residents and representatives of local government, and written up in the local press.
