Full Name: Royal Free City of Sanok (Królewskie Wolne Miasto Sanok)

Yiddish: סאניק, Sonik

 

A town in southeastern Poland.

From 1772 until 1918 the town was part of the Austrian Empire, in the province of Galicia.

 

21^ST CENTURY

The Yad Charutzim synagogue (Franciskańskiej 5), which was originally built in 1897, was rebuilt after the war. Since 2012 it has been used for offices and apartments. A prayer house located on Rynek 10 that was built in 1924 managed to survive the war largely unscathed. It is used to store archives.

The new Jewish cemetery, which was originally consecrated during the 19^th century, was refurbished in 1988 and 2008. A few dozen tombstones have been preserved (others remain in the cemetery but are broken and overturned), and the cemetery also contains a Holocaust memorial. The cemetery can be accessed by obtaining the keys from employees of the municipal cemetery. A restaurant is located where the old Jewish cemetery once stood.

 

HISTORY

The remains of an ancient Jewish cemetery in the area indicate that a Jewish community existed in the during the second half of the 14th century, after Sanok was annexed to Poland by King Casimir III. Additionally, the names of some Jewish community members appear on a 1514 list made by the town’s craftsmen's guild. However, it was not until the end of the 16^th century that a Jewish community was officially organized; this new community came under the auspices of the Jewish community of Lesko (it would become independent in 1764).

In 1570, seventeen of the 200 families living in Sanok were Jewish. Most worked as wine and grain traders, while others made a living as furriers, tailors, and tanners.

Sanok’s Jewish community grew significantly at the beginning of the 18^th century, and eventually received privileges from King Augustus II in 1720 and King Augustus III in 1754. A synagogue was built during the 1720s. Records indicate that in 1765 there were 467 taxpaying Jews in Sanok and the surrounding area.

The Chasidic movement was very influential within Sanok. Towards the end of the 18^th century and through the 19^th century many of Sanok’s Jews affiliated with the Chasidic sects of Belz, Bobob, Nowy Sacz, or Sadgora.

Jews played an active and important role in the local economy during the 19^th century, and the local lumber and timber trades and cloth manufacturing was almost exclusively owned and operated by local Jews (Jewish prominence in the local economy was not always necessarily positive; 21 of the 37 registered beggars were Jewish). Additionally, at the end of the 19th century the Jews of Sanok spearheaded the development of oil production in the area. Beginning in 1868 the representatives from the local Jewish community also played important and active roles within municipal institutions.

Sanok’s Jews were also culturally active. Zionism became popular in Sanok at the beginning of the 20th century; a Hebrew school, Safah Berurah, was founded in 1909 by the teacher Tzevi Abt, and enrolled 77 students in 1911. The newspaper Folksfraynd was published weekly between 1910 and 1914.

The Jewish population grew substantially during the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. In 1880, there were 2,129 Jews living in Sanok (42% of the total population); by 1910 the population had jumped to 4,073 (38% of the total). In 1921 Sanok was home to 4,067 Jews (42% of the total population). In 1939 there were over 5,000 Jews living in Sanok.

Notable figures from Sanok include the Hebrew journalist and writer Benzion Katz, and the rabbi and rosh yeshiva (and inventor of the Daf Yomi course of study) Meir Shapiro, who served as the community’s rabbi from 1919 until 1921.

 

THE HOLOCAUST

The Germans occupied Sanok on September 8, 1939, and within days burned down the town’s three synagogues and library. Shortly thereafter, on October 27, the first mass execution took place in the Jewish cemetery, in which over 600 Jews were killed. A few hundred Jews were deported to the other side of the San River, which was then under Soviet rule.

In 1941 the remaining Jews were concentrated in a ghetto, which held about 8,000 people from Sanok and the surrounding towns and villages, and put to work as forced laborers. On September 10, 1942 most of Sanok’s Jews were deported to the concentration camp in Zaslaw. From there, a number of deportations took place sending the Jews to the Belzec death camp, while the old and sick were shot in the nearby forests.  

 

POSTWAR

A few hundred Jews from Sanok survived the war; most of the survivors had spent the war years in Soviet-occupied territory. Some who survived and came back to Sanok were killed by Poles. The Jewish community was not reestablished after the war.