Responding to the previous post about a new stone memorial being planned for those Jews murdered in Kańczuga in 1942 and after the war in 1945, Raphael Thurm sent some additional information. He pointed to the 2002 article in Polish – “Nikt ich nie tykał” which is referenced as a source in the post about the memorial project. That article explains the investigation into the massacre, and the unsuccessful attempt at figuring out who carried it out (basically the locals wouldn’t name names). He also pointed to the page about the massacre at the Virtual Shtetl web site – “The post-war murder place – Węgierska street, św. Barbary street“.

The source for the Virtual Shtetl page is the same article from 2002, which is why one anomaly in the story is the same on both pages. They say the massacre happened on March 31, 1945, which was the Easter Eve, or the night before Easter. The Virtual Shtetl page simply says it was Easter. What’s strange is that one of the victims of that massacre was in my own family, and her granddaughter recounted to me that the murders took place on the second night of Passover, at the second seder. The second night of Passover would have been March 30, not 31.

I don’t know what accounts for this discrepancy. Perhaps contemporary newspaper reports of the murders might shed some light on this, although maybe not. It seems the investigation done by a Polish journalist in 2002 went into many of these details, and determined it was March 31. Yad Vashem’s Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust simply says “Thirteen survivors were murdered in spring 1945 (during Passover) by Polish nationalists.” which is true in either case, it was still Passover on the 31st. Does anyone else have information on this event that might shed some light on when exactly it happened, or adds any other details?