Radom, Chęciny and Opoczno counties. In 1795 the town was annexed by the Austrian Empire, and next year, the seat of the county was moved to Kielce. Most of this time, Jews were not permitted to live in Kielce, and had to find dwellings in nearby towns. By 1827 the (1740) Jews were 70% of the population. 70 years later they were 4,361, still 70%. A series of fires and recessions caused the Jewish population to dwindle to 61% in 1905, with 3,414 Jewish residents. By the end of World War I only 512 homes stood erect, and by 1921 there were only 2,825 Jewish residents, a mere 51%, living along the main road and around the town center. An account from the period depicts the town as being extremely unclean. At the end of 1939, after the invasion of Poland, a Judenrat and the Jewish Ghetto Police was established by the Nazi German occupiers. In the spring of 1940 several dozen Jews from the new ghetto were murdered in a forest on the outskirts of town. In June 1940 there were approximately 2,800 local Jews and another 1,000 refugees remaining in the ghetto. In January 1941 the Germans planned to move 5,000 Jews from the Kielce Ghetto to Chęciny in exchange for 2,500 Polish forced-labourers, but due to a typhus epidemic in the town, this plan was postponed. On July 5, 1941 the order was given to establish the ghetto and by July 22 it was resettled during the Jewish "3 weeks of mourning". The ghetto had no walls, due to a shortage in materials. Some 500 Jews mostly from poor families, were chosen by the Judenrat, under German orders and sent to the HASAG labour camp in April 1942. In June another 105 Jews were rounded up to be sent to the HASAG camps, but vanished, and were probably shot. 919 Jews from Luposzno were brought to the town in September 1942, and small groups of Jews were brought in from other nearby cities, with the population rising 4000. Under the orders of Gerulf Mayer, the local Gendarme commander, the ghetto was liquidated on September 12. The Jews were chased to the market square and marched to the Wolice train station away, where they were sent to the Treblinka death camp. Dozens were shot on the way during the assembly and march. 40 Jews "unfit for travel" remained