It was built in 1913 by Rufin Beckerman, who, according to the wishes of his parents, Samuel and Sarah, had allocated a portion of the funds from their inheritance. The house was supposed to be manager by the Backerman Foundation, founded by Rufin, which had 30,000 rubles at its disposal.. During WW I the building housed a temporary infectious disease hospital for Jews. Since 1925, the Home for the Old shared the premises with the Jewish Orphanage, which provided shelter for as many as 70 children aged 2-18. Older students attended the school and learned a profession in a school workshop. In 1927 the assets of the Foundation and the House were taken over by the Radom Jewish Community.
In the interwar period, the Jewish soldiers of the 72nd Infantry Regiment, stationed in Radom met there to pray. During WWII, after the Germans seized the city, the House was closed. In 1940 the occupying forces ordered the establishment of a infectious disease hospital for Jews in the building. In August 1942, when the ghetto was liquidated, the hospital's residents were murdered. The ruined building was renovated after the war and now it is a school.
"In April 1940 the building of the orphanage became a hospital for infecious diseases. (...). The rooms were ruined, dirty and had no beds. The first patients were placed on a straw floor (...). Due to lack of space, women and men shared the same rooms because they were assigned to them according to the diseases - one for typhus, another for dysentery, etc. (...). Within a relatively short period of time, by the summer of 1942, the hospital had treated over four thousand patients. The hospital was so crowded that two adult patients or four children were placed in one bed. In 1942 almost all members of the staff fell ill and those who miraculously survived were extremely exhausted and overworked (...). On teh 18 August the children from the orphanage were taken straight from their beds to waiting trucks and transported to the railway station, accompanied by the elderly and the hospital staff with their families. Immediately afterwards, the Germans entered the part of the building occupied by the hospital and shot all the people there." (The Book of Radom; The Story of a Jewish Community in Poland Destroyed by the Nazis)
Bibliography:
The Book of Radom; The Story of a Jewish Community in Poland Destroyed by the Nazis, USA 1963; J. Sekulski, Encyklopedia Radomia, Radom 2009.
Photos:
1. The Home and its residents in the interwar period, (from The Book of Radom; The Story of a Jewish Community in Poland Destroyed by the Nazis, USA 1963