The Nowy Sącz Ghetto known in German as Ghetto von Neu-Sandez and in Yiddish as צאנז (Tsanz; Zanc) or נײ-סאנץ (Nay-Sants; Nojzanc) was a World War II ghetto set up by Nazi Germany for the purpose of persecution and exploitation of Polish Jews in the city of Nowy Sącz during the occupation of Poland (1939–45). The relocation of Jews continued ever since the German army rolled into Nowy Sącz on 6 September 1939 in the first week of the invasion of Poland. Synagogues and prayer houses were devastated and turned into storehouses. The Ghetto was filled with 18,000 prisoners from the city and all neighbouring settlements and closed off from the outside officially in June 1941. It was liquidated one year later with all Jewish men, women and children rounded up and sent aboard Holocaust trains to Bełżec extermination camp in late August 1942. Background According to records, historic Nowy Sącz was populated by the Jews at least since 1469. Throughout centuries Jews contributed greatly to the town's overall economy. Most Jewish families lived in the Zakamienica neighbourhood by the Kamienica river. The first brick-and-mortar synagogue was built at Nowy Sącz in 1699, tax-exempt. Nowy Sącz was an influential centre of Hasidic Judaism and the Zionist movement dating back to the 19th century. Some 30% of the total population of 34,000 residents of Nowy Sącz were Jewish before the German-Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939. In the city centre 90% of tenement houses were owned by Jews. On 6 September 1939 the Germans took over Nowy Sącz and renamed it Neu-Sandez. The command of the city was given to SS-Obersturmführer Heinrich Hamann (de) (pl) from the Gestapo. Nowy Sącz became the seat of Kreis Neu-Sandez in Distrikt Krakau of the General Government, in line with the Nazi-Soviet pact against Poland. The persecution of Jews began soon thereafter. The new German administration ordered all Jewish businesses closed pending confiscation proceedings. In the spring of 1940 the Judenrat was formed on German orders. The first mass execution of Jews and Poles took place in May 1940, in the course of the German AB-Aktion in Poland. The city block surrounding the German office of Sicherheitspolizei was cleared of all so-called undesirables. Nearly 1,000 people were murdered. Ghetto history Dispossessed Jews were resettled to Nowy Sącz in several major deportation actions from the neighbouring towns of Muszyna, Krynica (1,000–1,200), Piwniczna, but also from Łódź,