The Jewish Community of Zychlin

Abe Coleman (born Abba Kelmer) (1905-2007), professional wrestler, born in Żychlin, Poland (then part of the Russian Empire). In 1923 he emigrated to Winnipeg, Canada, and from there to New York, USA. Coleman fought, among others, at New York's Madison Square Garden, Sunnyside Arena in Queens and St. Nicholas Arena in Manhattan. He was one of the few Jewish wrestlers, nicknamed "Jewish Tarzan" and "Hebrew Hercules", and frequently encountered anti-Semitism. Coleman was never a champion but regarded as a solid mid-card standby and the inventor of dropkick, an attacking maneuver in professional wrestling. His opponents included Jim Londos, George Zaharias, and George Temple (brother of actress Shirley Temple). He fought a total of over two thousand fights. He ended his career at the age of 50 and became a professional wrestling referee. He also worked for the New York State Automobile Department as a license plate officer. Coleman died in Queens, NY, USA, before that he was thought be the oldest living wrestler in the world.

Kutno

A town in the Łódź Voivodeship, central Poland.

Jews lived in the town since its foundation in the 15th century and are mentioned in an official document of 1513. Between 1728 and 1738 the Jews paid 1,500 to 1,800 zlotys in poll tax.

In 1753 a fire destroyed the town, and all Jewish documents, including the community minute book Pinkas, were burned so that no sources remain which would throw light on Jewish activity there. The extent of the commercial activities of the Jews there may be indicated by the surnames Kutnis or Kutnes found among Jews in the 17th and 18th centuries in western Germany and in Amsterdam.

After 1753 the town was soon rebuilt and the Jews reestablished their institutions. The Pinkas of the chevra kaddisha (burial society) contains records from 1755. Various institutions were built only at the beginning of the 19th century, e.g., the chevrah kaddisha hospital, erected after 1808. Jews from Kutno attended the fairs at Leipzig and Frankfort on the Oder in 1793. The number of Jews in Kutno increased from 928 in 1765 to 1,376 (70.2% of the total population) in 1800 and 8,978 (63.1%) in 1908, but fell to 6,784 (42.4%) in 1921 and 6,440 (27.5%) in 1931. Kutno was a center of torah study and haskalah; the most famous of its rabbis was Israel Joshua Trunk.

In 1939 Kutno had 6,700 Jewish inhabitants out of a total population of 27,000.


The Holocaust Period

The Germans took Kutno on September 15, 1939, and immediately rounded up a few score Jewish men and sent them to forced labor camps or Leczyca and/or Piatek.

The synagogue was burned and Jewish property plundered. The head of the gestapo especially indulged in beating up Jewish women, jailing members of the Judenrat, and extorting precious gifts. In February 1940 a group of Volksdeutsche arrived and took possession of about 70-80% of Jewish property. For a while the Jews were able to engage in illegal trade with the areas of the general government. In June 1940 the Jews were transferred to a ghetto on the site of a destroyed sugar refinery. Close to 7,000 persons were crowded into this small area without fuel, with three lavatories, and one water pump. Typhoid broke out and 280 died. The only medical care was at first provided by a single Polish doctor, who did not even reside in the ghetto, and no medication was available. The Judenrat managed to bring in two Jewish doctors from other localities. Extra provisions were brought into the ghetto by guards. The situation deteriorated in the latter half of 1941 when the ghetto was sealed off because of renewed epidemics. Despite the gravity of the situation, the Judenrat took care of refugees from other localities, arranged a public kitchen, and even provided some educational facilities for the children. At the end of March 1942 the entire population was rounded up and sent to Chelmno death camp.

Poland

Rzeczpospolita Polska -  Republic of Poland 

A country in central Europe, member of the European Union (EU).

21st Century

Estimated Jewish population in 2018: 4,500 out of 38,500,000 (0.01%). Main umbrella organization of the Jewish communities:

Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland - Związek Gmin Wyznaniowych Żydowskich w Polsce (ZGWŻP)
Phone: 48 22 620 43 24
Fax: 48 22 652 28 05
Email: sekretariat@jewish.org.pl
Website: http://jewish.org.pl/

HISTORY

The Jews of Poland

1096 | Migration of the Heretics

Where did the Jews come to Poland from? Scholars are divided on this question, but many believe that some came from the Khazar Kingdom, from Byzantium and from Kievan Rus, while most immigrated from Western Europe – from the Lands of Ashkenaz.
One of the theories is that the “butterfly effect” that led the Jews of Ashkenaz to migrate to Poland began with a speech by Pope Urban II, who in 1096 called for the liberation of the holy sites in Jerusalem from the Muslim rule. The Pope's call ignited what would come to be known as The Crusades - vast campaigns of conquest by the Christian faithful, noble and peasant alike, who moved like a tsunami from Western Europe to the Middle East, trampling, stealing and robbing anything they could find along the way.
Out of a fervent belief that “heretics” were “heretics”, be they Jews or Muslims, the militant pilgrims made sure not to bypass the large Jewish communities in the Ashkenaz countries, where they murdered many of the local Jews, mostly in the communities of Worms and Mainz on the banks of the Rhine. Following these massacres, known in Jewish historiography as the Massacres of Ttn”u (after the acronym of the year of Hebrew calendar), Jews started migrating east, into the Kingdom of Poland.

1264 | The Righteous Among The Nations from Kalisz.

In the 13th century Poland was divided into many districts and counties, and to rule them all an advanced bureaucratic system was required. In 1264 the Polish prince Boleslav, also known as the Righteous One of Kalisz (Kalisz was a large city in the Kingdom of Poland) issued a bill of rights that granted the Jews extensive freedom of occupation as well as freedom of religious practice. This bill of rights (privilegium, in Latin) allowed many Jews – literate merchants, experts in economy, bankers, coin makers and more – to fill various roles in the administrative apparatus of the kingdom.
At that time, the Catholic Church in Poland was in the habit of disseminating all sorts of blood libels against the Jews. Article 31 of the Prince Boleslav of Kalisz's privilegium tried to rein in this phenomenon by stating: “Accusing Jews of drinking Christian blood is expressly prohibited. If despite this a Jew should be accused of murdering a Christian child, such charge must be sustained by testimony of three Christians and three Jews.”

1370 | From Esther to Esther

It turns out that Esther from the Scroll of Esther was not the only Esther who saved the Jewish people. Legend tells of a beautiful Jewish woman from Poland named Esther'ke who was a mistress of King Casimir II the Great of Poland (1310-1370) and even bore him two daughters.
It is unclear whether it was love that aroused Casimir's sympathy for the Chosen People. What is known is that according to legend, like the Queen Esther from the Purim story, Esther'ke also looked out for her people and asked the King to establish a special quarter for Jews in Krakow (and this quarter is no legend). The King acquiesced to his lover's request and named the quarter for himself – the Kazimierz Quarter. In addition, and this is no legend either, messengers were sent to all Jewish communities in Poland and beyond inviting the Jews to relocate to Krakow, then the capital of the kingdom.
The invitation to come to Poland was like a much-needed breath of air for the Jews of Ashkenaz, for those were the days in which the Black Death ravaged Europe, which for some reason was claimed to have “skipped” the Jews. For the audacity of not contracting the plague, the Jews faced baseless accusations of having poisoned the drinking wells in order to spread the plague.

1520 | A State Within a State

In the early 16th century the center of gravity of Jewish life gradually moved from the countries of Central Europe to locations all over Poland. According to various historical sources, in the late 15th century there were around 15 yeshivas operating throughout Poland. The study of Torah flourished in the large communities and became the central axis of Ashkenazi religious life. It is no surprise, therefore, that the common name for Poland among the Jews who lived there was “Po-lan-Ja” - or in Hebrew: "God resides here".
The status of the Jews in Poland had no equal at the time anywhere in the world. Almost everywhere else in Europe they were persecuted, expelled and subject to various restrictions, whereas in Poland they were granted a special, privileged status.
In the early 16th century there were some 50,000 Jews living in Poland. During these years an interest-based alliance began to form between the Jews and the Polish nobility. The nobles, wishing to avail themselves of the Jews' connections and skills in business management, appointed Jews to various positions in the management of their feudal estates and gave them bills of rights according them special status.
In 1520 the “Council of Four Lands” was established in Poland. This council, which was a sort of “state within the state”, was composed of the representatives of all the Jewish communities of Poland, from Krakow and Lublin to Vilnius and Lithuania (which were then still part of the Polish “Commonwealth”). The main function of the Council was to collect taxes for the authorities, and it enjoyed judicial autonomy based on Jewish halacha. The Council operated for 244 years, and is considered the longest-lasting Jewish leadership in history, at least since the First Temple Era.

1569 | Demon-graphics

In the year 1618 the authorities of Krakow appointed a commission to find the reasons for hostility between Jewish and Christian merchants. The chairman of the commission, an academic by the name of Sebastian Miczynski, found that the reason for the animosity was the rapid increase in the number of Jews in the city, stemming from the fact that “none of them die at war or from plague, and in addition they marry at age 12 and multiply furiously”.
Miczynski's conclusion was not without basis: The growth rate of the Jewish community in Poland, known in research as “The Polish Jewish demographic miracle”, was indeed astounding. By the mid 17th century the number of Jews in Poland reached several hundred thousand – about half of all Jews in the world. By the mid 18th century their numbers reached approximately one million souls.
However, although Miczynski's diagnosis was correct, the reasons he offered for it, which were heavily tainted by anti-Semitism, were unsurprisingly wrong. Various researchers have found that the reason for the relatively rapid growth of Jews in Poland was a low rate of infant mortality among them compared to the Christian population. Among the reasons for this one can offer are the culture of mutual aid prevalent among Jews, the fact that newlywed couples usually lived with the bride's family, which offered better nutrition, and the fact that Jewish religious laws enjoin better hygiene practices than were the norm in the rest of pre-modern Europe.
In 1569 Poland annexed large parts of Ukraine under the Treaty of Lublin. Many Jews chose to migrate to Ukraine, and found a new source of livelihood there – leasing land. This they once again did in conjunction with the Polish nobility. Many of the Ukrainian peasants resented the new immigrants. Not only did the feudal lords tax them heavily, they thought, now they also “enslave us to the enemies of Christ, the Jews.”
During this time some brilliant intellectuals emerged in the Jewish areas of Poland, including Rabbi Moses Isserles (aka “The Rema” after his acronym), Rabbi Shlomo Lurie and Rabbi Joel Sirkis, and the great yeshivas of Lublin and Krakow were founded. The rabbinical elite was also the political elite among the Jewish community, setting the rules of life down to the smallest detail – from the number of jewels a woman may wear to requiring approval by community administrators in order to wed.

1648 | Bohdan The Brute

Had there been a senior class photo of all the worst oppressors the Jewish people have known, Bohdan (also known as Bogdan) Khmelnytsky would probably be standing front and center in it. Khmelnytsky, the leader of the Ukrainian Cossacks who fought for independence against Poland, was responsible for particularly lethal pogroms against the Jews of Ukraine. These pogroms were fueled by a combination of Christian revival and popular protest against Polish subjugation. The Jews, who were seen as the Polish nobility's “agents of oppression” paid a terrible price: Approximately 100,000 of them were murdered in these pogroms.
The Khmelnytsky Massacres, also known in Jewish historiography as “The Ta”ch and Ta”t Pogroms”, left the Jewish community of Poland shocked and bereaved. The community's poets composed dirges and the rabbis decreed mourning rituals. A chilling account of these events can be found in the book “Yeven Mezulah” by Jewish scholar Nathan Hannover, who fled the pogroms himself and described them in chronological order. In time many works were written based on this account. The most famous are “The Slave” by Isaac Bashevis Singer, and the poem “The Rabbi's Daughter” by the great Hebrew poet and translator Shaul Tchernichovski.
Despite the grief and sorrow, the Jewish community of Ukraine soon recovered. Proof of this can be found in the accounts of English traveler William Cox, who wrote 20 years after the massacres: “Ask for an interpreter and they bring you a Jew; Come to an inn, the owner is a Jew; If you require horses to travel, a Jew supplies and drives them; and if you wish to buy anything, a Jew is your broker.”

1700 | A Very Good Name

The year 1700 saw the birth of the man who would reshape Orthodox Judaism and become the founder of one of the most important movements in all its long history: Rabbi Israel Ben Eliezer, far better known as the Baal Shem Tov, or The Besh”t for short.
The Baal Shem Tov began his career as a healer with herbs, talismans and sacred names, thus becoming known as a “Baal Shem” - a designation for someone who knows the arcana of the divine names, which he can use to mystical effect.
Rumor of the righteous man who performs miracles and speaks of a different Judaism – less academic and scholarly, more emotional and experiential – soon spread far and wide. Religious discourse soon included terms such as “dvekut”, which means “devotion”, and “pnimiut”, meaning “inner being”. Thus was the Hasidic movement born, emphasizing moral correctness and the desire for religious devotion, placing a high premium on the discipline of Kabbalah. The immense success of Hasidism stemmed from its being a popular movement which allowed entry to any Jew, even if he wasn't much for book smarts.
The Besh”t also set the template for the form of the Hasidic circle: A group of people coalescing around the personality of a charismatic leader who provides each member with personal guidance. Among the most famous Hasidic movement today one can count Chabad/Liubavitch, Ger and Breslov, which was founded by Rabbi Nachman of Breslov (the great-grandson of the Besh”t), and is unique in having no single leader or “Rebbe” or Admor, a Hebrew acronym which stands for “Our Master, Teacher and Rabbi”, the title of other Hasidic leaders, as none is considered worthy to carry the mantle of the founder.
Those were also the years in which Kabbalist literature began to spread in Poland, along with various mystical influences, including the Sabbatean movement. One of the innovation of the Kabbalist literature was the way in which the issue of observing commandments was perceived: In establishment rabbinical thought, the commandments were seen as a device for maintaining community structures and the religious lifestyle. The Hasidim, on the other hand, claimed that the commandments were a mystical device through which even a common man may effect changes in the heavenly spheres. In modern terms one may say that the meaning of observing the commandments was “privatized”, ceasing to be the property of the rabbinical elite and becoming the personal business of every common observant Jew.

1767 | What Came First – Wheat or Vodka?

To paraphrase the eternal questions of “what came first – the chicken or the egg?” 18th century Poles asked “What came first – wheat or vodka?” What they meant is, was it the great profitability of grain-based liquor that created mass alcohol addiction, or was it the addiction to alcohol that created the demand for wheat? Either way, the idea of turning wheat into vodka had a magical draw for Jews in the steppes of Poland. In the second half of the 18th century vodka sales accounted for approximately 40% of all income in Poland. The Jews, who recognized the immense financial potential of this trade, took over the business of leasing liquor distilleries and taverns from the nobles. In fact, historians have determined that some 30% of all Jews in the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania had some connection to the liquor business.
But liquor was far from the only field of commerce the Jews of Poland engaged in. They traded all manner of goods. In a sample of data from the years 1764-1767, collected from 23 customs houses, it was found that out of 11,485 merchants, 5,888 were Jews, and that 50%-60% of all retail commerce was held by Jewish merchants.
The reciprocal relations between the Jews and the Magnates, the Polish nobility, became ever tighter. Save for rare phenomena, such as the habit of some nobles to force Jews to dance before them in order to humiliate them, these relations were stable and dignified. Historians note that the Jewish leaser “was not a parasite cringing in fear, but a man aware of his rights, as well as his obligations”.

1795 | The Empires Swallow Poland

Until the partition of Poland, Poland's Jews could live in cities such as Krakow or Lublin, for example, with almost no direct contact with the outside political and legal authorities. Most of them resided in towns or hamlets (“Shtetl”, in Yiddish) where they lived in a closed cultural and social bubble. They spoke their own language, Yiddish, and their children were taught in separate institutions – the cheder for young children and then the Talmud-Torah. The legal system and political leadership were also internal: The tribunals and the Kahal, which operated on the basis of halacha, were the sole court of appeals for the settling of disputes and disagreements.
The only connection most Jews had with the outside world was in their work, which usually involved leasing of some sort from the nobles. Proof of this can be found in the words of Jewish storyteller Yechezkel Kutik, who wrote that “In those days, what was bad for the paritz (the Polish feudal lord) was at least partly bad for the Jews. Almost everyone made their living from the paritz”.
In 1795 Poland was partitioned between three empires – Russia, Austria and Prussia, the nucleus of modern Germany. This brought an end to the shared history of Poland's Jews, and began three distinctly different stories: That of the Jews of the Russian-Czarist Empire, that of the Jews of Galicia under Austrian rule, and that of the Jews of Prussia, who later became the Jews of Germany.
The situation for Jews in Austria and Prussia was relatively good, definitely when compared to that of Jews living under Czarist rule, which imposed various financial edicts upon them and allowed them freedom of movement only within the Pale of Settlement, where conditions were harsh. The nadir was the outbreak of pogroms in the years 1881-1884, which led to the migration of some 2 million Jews to the United States – the place that would come to replace Poland as the world's largest host of Jews. Upon the partition of Poland, most Jews living in that country found themselves under Russian rule. Please see the entry “The Jews of Russia” for further information regarding them.

1819 | The Jews of Galicia

The image of the “Galician Jew” was and still is a code not only for a geographic identity, but mostly for a unique Jewish identity which combined a multicultural-ethnicity with a cunning, humorous, warm and sympathetic folklore figure. The “Galician Jew” could be a devout Hasid, an enlightened educated person, a Polish nationalist or a Zionist activist, a great merchant or a vendor trudging from door to door. This Jew was weaned on several different cultures and could gab in several tongues – German, Yiddish, Hebrew, Russian and Polish.
Galicia extended over the south of Poland. Its eastern border was Ukraine, but the Austrian empire ruled over it from 1772 to the end of WW1. In the second half of the 19th century Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph granted the Jews fully equal rights. The city of Lvov became a magnet for educated Jews from all over Europe. Yiddish newspapers, including the “Zeitung”, operated there at full steam, commerce flourished and Zionist movements, among them Poalei Zion, played a central role in reviving Jewish nationality.
At the same time the Hasidic movement also flourished in Galicia, branching out from several Hasidic courts and dynasties of “Tzadiks”. Among the best known of these Hasidic sects were those of Belz and Sanz, which preserved the traditional Hasidic lifestyle, including dress and language, and maintained tight relations with the “Tzadik” who headed the court.
Galicia was also the soil from which the writers of the age of Haskala (the Jewish Enlightenment movement) grew – from Joseph Perl, the pioneer of Hebrew literature, who in 1819 wrote “Megale Tmirin” (“Revealer of Mysteries”), the first Hebrew novel, and ending with Yosef Haim Brenner and Gershon Shofman, who lived in Lvov and skillfully described Jewish life there in the early 20th century.
The multicultural, equal-rights idyll ended for the Jews of Galicia against the backdrop of cannon shells and flames of WW1. The region of Galicia passed from hand to hand between the Austrian and Russian armies, and the soldiers of both massacred the Jews again and again. This is what S. (Shloyme) Ansky, author of “The Dybbuk” and the writer who commemorated the fate of Galician Jews during the war, wrote on the subject: “In Galicia an atrocity beyond human comprehension has been committed. A large region of a million Jews, who but yesterday enjoyed all human and civil rights, is surrounded by a fiery chain of iron and blood, cut off and set apart from the world, given to the rule of wild beasts in the form of Cossacks and soldiers. The impression is as though an entire tribe of Israel is becoming extinct.”

1862 | The Siren Call of HaTsefira

While the Haskala, the Jewish Enlightenment movement, was born in Western Europe, its echoes soon reached the eastern part of the continent as well, and Poland in particular. One of the seminal events illustrating the roots put down by the Haskala movement in Poland was the founding of the periodical “HaTsefira” in Warsaw. “HaTsefira” became one of the most highly-regarded Hebrew newspapers and sought to take a real part in the process of secularizing the Hebrew language and turning it from a liturgical tongue to a living, everyday medium.
The newspaper gained steam in the late 1870s, when the editorial board was joined by Nachum Sokolov, journalist, author and Zionist-national thinker, who in his latter years served as President of the World Zionist Organization. Sokolov gradually reduced the emphasis of “HaTsefira” on popular science, giving it a serious journalistic and literary character instead. Under his leadership the periodical became a daily in 1886, and soon stood out as the most influential Hebrew newspaper in Eastern Europe, until it died out in the decades between the World Wars.
All of the most prominent Hebrew writers of those days published their works in HaTsefira: Mendele Mocher Sforim, Y.L.Peretz and Shalom Aleichem in the 19th century, Dvorah Baron, Uri Nissan Genessin, Shalom Ash and Yaacov Fichman in the early 20th century, and just before WW1 it was home to the works of a few promising youngsters, including Nobel-winning authour Shmuel Yosef Agnon and acclaimed nationalist poet Uri Zvi Greenberg.

1900 | Warsaw

In the first decade of the 20th century Warsaw became the capital of the Jews of Poland and a global Jewish center. The city was home to the headquarters of the political parties, many welfare institutions, trade unions, and Jewish newspapers and periodicals published in a variety of languages. Prominent in particular was juggernaut of literary and publishing activity in this city from the 1880s to the eve of WW1.
Among the most famous literary institutions of the period were the Ben Avigdor Press, which ignited the realist “New Movement” in Hebrew literature; Achiassaf Press, founded by the tea magnate Wissotzky, which operated in the spirit of Achad Haam and published books of a Jewish-historical nature; the HaShiloach newspaper, which was copied from Odessa and was edited for a year by Chaim Nachman Bialik (later anointed national poet of the State of Israel), the newspapers “HaTsofeh” and “HaBoker” and more.
All these and many others were produced at hundreds of Hebrew printing presses which popped up like mushrooms after a rain. This industry attracted Jewish intellectuals who found work writing, editing, translating and doing other jobs required by publishing and the press. In his essay “New Hebrew Culture In Warsaw” Prof. Dan Miron wrote that: “All the Hebrew writers of the time passed through Warsaw, some staying for years and others for a short time”.
Also famous were the “literary tribunals”, especially that of author Y.L. Peretz, who held a sort of salon or court at his home which was frequented by eager literary cubs. These would submit their callow works to the revered giant of letters and tremblingly await his verdict. The Peretz court was far from the only one, though. Jewish writers and intellectuals arrived from all over Russia to “literary houses”, “salons” and other establishments, convened mostly on Sabbaths and holidays to discuss matters of great import. One of the most famous of these was the home of pedagogue Yitzchak Alterman, whose lively Hanukkah and Purim parties drew many intellectuals. These, we assume, served as inspiration for little Nanuchka, the host's son, later to become famous as poet Nathan Alterman.

Jewish Demographics In Warsaw

Year | Number of Jews
1764 1,365
1800 9,724
1900 219,128
1940 393,500
1945 7,800


1918 | The First Jewish Party in Poland

Upon the end of WW1 the Jews of Poland also fell victim to the game of monopoly played by Poland against its neighbors, particularly Soviet Russia. The Poles accused the Jews of Bolshevism, the Soviets saw them as capitalists and bourgeoisie, and these accusations turned into dozens of pogroms and tens of thousands of Jewish murder victims.
In 1921, after 125 years under various occupiers, Poland once again became a sovereign and independent state. At first the future seemed bright. The new Polish constitution guaranteed the Jews full equality and promised religious tolerance. However, like many of the supposedly democratic states formed between the two world wars, the regime in Poland also swayed between the values of Enlightenment and equality and an ethnic-based nationalism.
This was the unstable reality under which the Jews of Poland lived for 18 years, until the start of WW2. During these years the Jews experienced some bad times, during which for example they were banned from public office, and were discriminated against in matters of taxation and higher education admissions, where quotas were set limiting the number of Jews at the universities. At other times, mostly under the reign of Jozef Pilsudski (1926-1935), who was known for his relative opposition to anti-Semitism, the edicts issued against the Jews were eased.
During the Pilsudski era the Jewish parties combined to form a joint list for the legislative elections, winning 6 seats in the Sejm (lower house of the Polish parliament) and 1 in the senate, which made them the sixth-largest party. This was a mere 11 years before the outbreak of WW2 and the Holocaust of Polish Jewry.
One of the most influential figures among Jewish political leadership in Poland was Yitzhak Gruenbaum (Izaak Grünbaum), leader of the General Zionists Party, who foresaw the rise of dictatorial elements in the Sejm and made aliyah in 1933. He was right. From 1935 until the German invasion Poland was ruled by an openly dictatorial, anti-Semitic regime. During these four years some 500 anti-Semitic incidents took place, the system of “ghetto benches” was put in place, separating Jewish and Polish students at universities, and the employment options of Polish Jews were limited to such a degree that the Jewish community of Poland, numbering over three million people at the time, was considered the poorest diaspora in Europe.

1939 | The Holocaust of the Jews of Poland

September 1st, 1939, the day the Nazis invaded Poland, was etched into the collective Jewish memory in infamy. Of 3.3 million Jews who lived in Poland on the eve of the Nazi invasion, only around 350,000 survived. Some 3 million Polish Jews were exterminated in the Holocaust.
The annihilation of the Jews of Poland took place step by step. It began with various decrees, such as the gathering of Jews in ghettos, the obligation to wear an identifying mark, the imposition of a curfew in the evenings, the marking of Jewish-owned stores and more – and ended with the execution of the “Final Solution”, a satanic plan of genocide, which culminated in the deportation of the Jews of Poland to the extermination camps of Auschwitz, Majdanek, Sobibor, Chelmno and Treblinka – all located on Polish soil.
One of the best known expressions of resistance by the Jews of Poland to the Nazi plan of annihilation was the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The revolt symbolized a triumph of spirit for the Jews of the ghetto, who embarked on it although they knew that their chances of winning or even surviving were nil.
Alongside the armed resistance by the Jews of the ghetto there was also cultural resistance. In October 1939 Emanuel Ringelblum – a historian, politician and social worker – started the “Oneg Shabbat” (“Sabbath Delight”) project in the ghetto, in which he was joined by dozens of intellectuals including authors, teachers and historians. This collective produced many works of writing on various facets of life in the ghetto, and thus became an archive and think tank dealing with current events while documenting them for future historians' reference.
In August 1942, in the midst of the deportation of the Jews of Warsaw, the archive was divided in three and each part buried for safe-keeping. Two of the three parts, secreted in metal crates and two milk jugs, were found after the war. These two parts, located in 1946 and 1950, serve to this day as imported first-hand sources on Jewish life in the ghetto, and also as testament to the courage and spiritual strength of the intellectuals whose only weapons were the pen and the camera.

2005 | Jewish Renaissance in Poland?

At the end of WW2 there were some 240,000 Jews living in Polish territories, 40,000 of them who survived the camps and another 200,000 refugees, returning from the Soviet Union territories. The displaced Jews lived in poverty and cramped conditions, and were treated with hostility by the general population despite their attempts to integrate into Polish society. In July 1946, just a year after the war ended, this hostility erupted in a pogrom in the city of Kielce. The pretext for the murder of 42 out of 163 Holocaust survivors in the city, and the wounding of most of the rest? The ancient blood libel about matza and Christian children.
This is where the Zionist movement swung into action, managing to smuggle about 100,000 of the remaining Jews in Poland to Israel under the “Bricha”, or “Escape” movement.
After WW2 Poland became a Communist country, which it remained until 1989. 1956 saw the start of the “Gomulka Aliyah” (named after Wladislaw Gomulka, Secretary General of the Polish Communist party), which lasted for a few years and brought some 35,000 more Jews to Israel from Poland. In 1967 Poland cut off relations with Israel and in 1968, amidst an anti-Semitic incitement campaign, another few thousand Jews made aliyah. This practically brought an end to the Jewish community of Poland.
At the start of the new millennium, Poland was considered the greatest mass grave of the Jewish people. The numbers speak for themselves: Before WW2 there were around 1,000 active Jewish communities in Poland, but in the year 2000 only 13 remained. Before the war Warsaw was home to almost 400,000 Jews. In 2000 only 1,000 Jews remained.
And then, at the start of the new century, a so-called “Jewish Renaissance” took place in Poland, and is still going on today. In 2005 a museum was opened across the street from the Warsaw Ghetto, where 1,000 years of Jewish history in Poland are on display. Once a year a Jewish festival is held in Krakow, exposing thousands of curious visitors from all over the world to Jewish songs and dance, kleizmer music and Yiddishke food. The Jewish theater is thriving (although it includes but one Jewish actor), and around the country “dozens of “Judaica Days” and symposiums on Jewish topics are held annually.

* All quotes in this article, unless otherwise stated, are from “From a People to a Nation: The Jews of Eastern Europe, 1772-1881”, Broadcast University Press, 2002

Gąbin

Russian- Gombin

Small town in Warszawa province, central Poland.

Of the 352 houses there in 1564, seven were owned by Jews. The wooden synagogue was erected in 1710. The community numbered 365 in 1765, 2,539 in 1897, and 2,564 in 1921 (out of a total population of 5,777). Abraham Abele B. Chayyim Ha-Levi Gombiner, author of "Magen Avraham", was born there. Yehuda Leib Avida (Zlotnik) was rabbi of Gąbin from 1911 to 1919.

At the outbreak of World War II, there were 2,312 Jews living in Gąbin. When the Germans entered the town, the Jews were immediately subjected to compulsory hard labor.

At the end of September 1939, German soldiers set fire to the synagogue and to nearby Jewish houses. The Germans imposed a "contribution" (fine) on the Jewish community, placing the blame for the blaze on the Jews themselves. In October 1939 a Judenrat was formed, consisting of six members and presided over by Moshe Want. Early in 1940 a ghetto was created for 2,100 Jews, 250 of whom were deportees from surrounding localities. Most of the ghetto inhabitants continued to perform hard physical labor for the Germans in the town and neighborhood. During the ghetto period, the Jews were compelled to pay some "contributions", and when the collection took too long the Germans seized hostages and plundered the Jewish houses.

In the first half of 1941, the Germans began sending transports of Jews to labor camps - the majority of them to Konin. In the beginning, the Judenrat called up young men by lists for the transports, and they appeared, but when the tragic conditions of the camps became known the men began to hide. Then, German police, with the help of Jewish policemen, raided the streets and houses. In 1942, 2,150 Jews lived in Gąbin, and despite transports to labor camps the Jewish population grew, because of an influx of Jews from the region. But on May 12, 1942, all Jews in Gąbin were dispatched to the death camp in Chelmno. Only 212 Jews from Gąbin survived - 32 on the "Aryan side" and in concentration camps, and about 180 in the U.S.S.R. nearly all of them subsequently left Poland, most of them, subsequently immigrated to Israel.

Krosniewice

A town in Łódź Voivodeship, central Poland. 

Krosniewice, a town since the 15th century, stands on the crossroads to Warsaw, Poznan, Lodz and Gdansk. It is a commercial and artisan center with an agricultural hinterland.

History

Jews settled in Krosniewice in 1568. A conflagration in 1576 and the wars of the mid-17th century left their mark. It was only in the 19th century, following the growth of the Jewish community, that independent institutions were founded. Its famous rabbis included Rabbi Shimshon Erenstein, who stood at the head of the yeshivah in the years 1849-1864; for a short time the Admor of Ciechnow, Rabbi Abraham Landau, a gaon and a halacha interpreter, who prayed in the Ashkenazi version, served in Krosniewice; he was followed by Rabbi Abraham Bornstein, who headed a yeshivah and was the son-in-law of the Rabbi of Kuzk, introducing a special halacha teaching system and wrote about the settlement of Eretz Israel in his book Avnei Netzer; later he was elected admor, and was the founder of the Sochaczew dynasty.

In 1765 most of the town`s Jews owned the houses in which they lived. In the mid-18th century half of the Krosniewice`s artisans were Jews. Others made their living from commerce in agricultural products and textiles, and a few were shop owners or leased inns. At the end of the 19th century several villages were owned by the Jewish timber merchant Yaacob Engelman; one of them was named after him Yancovicze. During the First World War the Jews suffered from hunger and epidemics. At war`s end most of the Jews in Krosniewicze could scarcely meet ends.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Bund groups appeared, but their members were arrested or fled after the 1907 revolution. All the Zionist organisations in Poland were active in Krosniewicze. Conspicuous were the League for the Working Eretz Israel and the Zionim Klallim. They organized a club, an orchestra, drama circles and libraries. In 1920, during the Polish-Russian war, Jews were goaled as Russian spies, and others were tortured by the Polish army which passed through Krosniewice. In the 1930s the Bund increased in strength, building a party headquarter with a theater hall and a library. Activists of the communist party were sent to concentration camps.

In 1939 the Jewish community of Krosniewice numbered 1,300 persons.

The Holocaust Period

Many Jews were killed by the occupying Germans during the bombardment of the town in September 1939. Others were beaten to death by the Poles. With the arrival of the German army in the middle of September 1939, restrictive laws were introduced. They were accompanied by beatings and torture, fines, confiscations, desecration of torah scrolls and damage to the synagogue. The Judenrat was busy with the transfer of money and goods to the Germans and mobilization of work-groups which suffered maltreatment. Some 1,600 persons were imprisoned in the ghetto which was closed in 1940. Overcrowding, hunger, scarcity of water and lack of facilities, as well as robberies and beatings, characterized life in the ghetto. Men of the 18-60 age group had to perform forced labor. After four transports of youngsters to work-camps in the vicinity of Poznan only women, old people and children were left in the ghetto.

In March 1942 some 900 of the remaining Jews were taken to the Chelmno death camp, suffering torture on the way.

Some 80 Jewish survivors of the Holocaust returned to Krosniewice.
Postwar

The synagogue and mikveh were still intact. In October 1945 only eight Jews were left in the town.

Lowicz

A town in the province of Lodz, central Poland.

The Jews began to settle in Lowicz at the beginning of the 16th century. In 1516 they were expelled by archbishop Jan Laski and established themselves in the surrounding towns. Until 1797 the presence of Jews in Lowicz was authorized only on market days and during fairs. At the regional church synod held in Lowicz in 1556 it was decided to inflict severe punishment on four Jews of Sochaczew who had been accused of host desecration. At the close of the 16th and during the 17th centuries Jewish merchants played an important role in the Lowicz fairs. From the beginning of the 19th century the Jewish population of the town increased rapidly. The 60 Jews (2.5% of the population) who lived in Lowicz in 1808 earned their livelihood mainly as innkeepers and craftsmen. With the renewal of the Lowicz fairs in 1820 much of the trade in the town was in Jewish hands. In 1827 the Jewish community of Lowicz numbered 405 (11% of the population). In 1829 a wooden synagogue was erected; the local Jewish cemetery was founded in the early 1830s. In 1897 the construction of the great synagogue was completed.
During the years 1828--62 the Jews were allowed to live only in the Jewish quarter. In the course of time Chasidism gained influence in the community. In 1863 some Lowicz Jews contributed funds to the Polish rebels and collaborated with them in smuggling arms.
The Jewish population increased from 1,161 in 1857 (21% of the population) to 3,552 in 1897 (35% of the total). Their principal sources of livelihood were shop keeping, trade with the neighboring peasants and the soldiers of the local Russian military camp, and crafts. A considerable part of the Jewish poor was employed in the textile, stocking, and food manufacturing industries. Under the influence of the Bund, Jewish workers and students participated in the revolutionary incidents which took place in Lowicz in 1905.
From the beginning of the century Zionist groups were organized. At the end of 1914 there were Jewish victims and severe damage to property as a result of the battles which were fought in the town and its vicinity. In 1917 six Jewish delegates were elected to the municipal council, forming half of its members. In 1921 there were 4,517 Jews (30% of the total population) in Lowicz. In the inter-war period CYSHO (central Yiddish school organization) and Beth Jacob schools functioned. From 1935 to 1939 the weekly Mazovsher Vokhenblat was published in Lowicz. In 1931, 4,339 Jews (25% of the total population) lived in the town.
In 1933 anti-Jewish riots occurred, which were repelled by the Jewish self-defense.
On the outbreak of World War II there were about 4,500 Jews in Lowicz. The German army entered the town on September 9, 1939. That day all Jewish males were ordered to assemble in the market place. They were imprisoned in the synagogue and tortured for two days. During 1940 about 3,500 Jews from the town of Lodz province, which had been incorporated into the third Reich, were forced to settle in Lowicz. In May 1940 a ghetto was established there. On June 17, 1941, a decree forbidding Jews to live in the town or country of Lowicz was issued. All the Jews were transferred to the Warsaw ghetto and shared the plight of Warsaw Jewry. No Jewish community has been rebuilt in Lowicz after the Holocaust.

Gostynin

A town in in the Masovian Voivodship, Poland.

The Jewish population numbered 157 in 1765, 634 in 1856, 1,849 in 1897, and 1,831 (27.5% of the total) in 1921. Between 1823 and 1862 there were special residential quarters for the Jews. The old synagogue, destroyed by a fire, was rebuilt in 1899. It was situated in the former Jewish lane, and a side alley there was popularly known as the "alley of the dead", recalling the location of the old Jewish cemetery. The Chasidic leader and Rabbi Jehiel Meir Lipschuetz lived in Gostynin in the 19th century. There were 2,269 Jews living in Gostynin on the eve of World War II.

Immediately after the German army entered the town on Sept. 1939, mass arrests and attacks on Jews began along with requisitioning and looting of Jewish property. Jews were ordered to hew the old wooden synagogue into pieces and carry them to German inhabitants for fuel. The Jews in Gostynin were ordered to pay two "contributions" (fines) in to collect the second sum in time, he sent a delegation to the Warsaw Jewish community (on a German suggestion) and received the required amount.

A ghetto was set up in Gostynin which was at first open, but subsequently surrounded by barbed wire. Order was kept by Jewish police. Most of the Jews left the ghetto every morning for hard labor assignments. In august 1941 labor transports of men and women began to be sent to camps in the Warthegau. The ghetto was "liquidated" on April 16-17, 1942, when nearly 2,000 of the Jews there were sent to the death camp at Chelmno.

By the end of the war all traces of Jewish life in the town had been obliterated. The cemetery had been desecrated and destroyed, the tombstones hauled away, and the tomb (ohel) of the local tzaddik destroyed. The few Jews from Gostynin who survived the holocaust subsequently emigrated.