The first Jews settled in Wodzisław in the early 1600s when two Jewish families established a trade with the city of Kraków about 90 miles away. By the mid-1700s about 12 Jews lived in the village.

When the area around Wodzisław was incorporated into the Prussian (German) Empire in 1740 Jews faced a number of discriminatory measures. For example, in 1750 Prussian authorities issued regulations that limited the number of Jews legally allowed to live in the country and levied additional taxes on the Jewish community. A law passed in 1751 required all landowners to report any new Jewish settlement within 14 days.

Jews were banned from holding any jobs other than innkeepers, bakers and craftsmen in 1768. In attempt to control the Jewish population, all Jews were required to move to specific towns in 1779. This law was revoked in 1787 because towns and villages suffered economically following the departure of their Jewish residents.

In 1798 two members of the Jewish community donated land for the construction of a wooden synagogue in Wodzisław. Less than 25 years later the synagogue burned down in the devastating town fire of 1822. As a result, the Jewish community elected to build a more durable brick synagogue which was completed in 1826.

By 1840 the approximately 320 Jews of Wodzisław made up about 16 percent of the town’s total population. The Jewish community of Wodzisław established an official organization in 1854 and the city soon opened a Jewish school. Over the next hundred years Jewish men frequently served on the town council. Throughout this period Wodzisław relied on coal mining for economic growth.

After World War I (1914-1918) the Jewish population of Wodzisław reached about 500. In 1920 the region was asked to vote on whether it wanted to remain part of Germany or join the newly re-established country of Poland. Wodzisław was incorporated into Poland and many German-speaking Jews in the town decided to move to Germany. Meanwhile, a number of Polish-speaking Jews from areas farther east relocated to Wodzisław replenishing the Jewish population.

Survivor Leon Cooper was born in the village on September 13, 1929. Cooper remembered that his father worked as a merchant at a store. He added, “It was a specialty store… a tailor supply store” where “people bought material to make their suits.”

As antisemitism spread across Europe in the 1920s and 1930s Jews found themselves the victims of ever more frequent boycotts and violent attacks. Cooper recalled “lots of antisemitism over there in that region in Poland.” Many Jews decided to leave Wodzisław including the family of Leon Cooper. He said, “I don’t remember much about the little old town because when I was a youngster we moved to a town called Chorzów” about 30 miles away. By the 1930s only 100 Jews remained in Wodzisław.

After Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, the remaining Jews of Wodzisław were arrested and sent to ghettos before their final transport to concentration camps. In the Nazi death marches of January 1945 columns of 500 prisoners were marched from Auschwitz west through the town. No Jews remained in Wodzisław after World War II.