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Article: Constructions of the Kielce pogrom.
- Article from:
- Midstream
- Article date:
- July 1, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 Theodor Herzl Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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While Americans were celebrating their first fourth of July in 1946 after the end of World War II with parades and hamburgers and hot dogs, forty-two Jews in the Polish city of Kielce met their deaths as the victims of the last pogrom in Europe. This startling massacre, which claimed the front page of The New York Times for several days, was triggered by a blood libel charge, an eight-year old boy's story that he had escaped from "the Jews" after being kidnapped and held for three days. The boy, Henryk Baszczyk, reportedly said that the Jews had taken him to the basement of their apartment building where he saw fifteen dead Christian children. (1) In fact, as the facts ...