By Peter Cullman
History of the Jews of this town (now Piła, Poland).
History of the Jewish Community of Schneidemühl: From 1641 to the Holocaust
Peter Cullman spent fifteen years compiling a history of Schneidemühl (today Piła, Poland). The result is a portrayal not only of the Jewish minority, but also the community in which it resided. The book begins by describing the slow growth of this tiny Polish town and the arrival of Jews in the 16th century. The reader is provided a detailed account of the synagogues, the arrival of rabbis, and the changing nature of this community against a background of major European historical events.
As a result of his painstaking research, the author was able to trace the fate of most members of the Jewish community as it existed in the 1930s, many of whom could emigrate in time and others who ultimately perished in the Holocaust. What is unusual in the book are the detailed person-by-person chronologies of many as they were deported, sent to various towns, labor camps and hospices, and their ultimate fate. An annotated Jewish burial register, 1854-1940, lists the names of more than nine-hundred persons. Today, nothing remains of Jewish Schneidemühl, but the book brings to life what once was a small but vibrant and notable Jewish community.
7" x 10" 400 pp. hardcover $56.00
Table of Contents
FOREWORD IX
PREFACE X
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS XI
PART ONE INTRODUCTION 3
1 Polish – Jewish Symbiosis (950 – 1500) 3
Va’ad (1581 – 1764) 6
PART TWO PYŁA-SNYDEMÖLE: FIRST 200 YEARS 9
2 Transition from Village to Town 12
3 Pyła’s Jewish Beginnings (1540 – 1623) 15
Pyła’s First Synagogue 15
Pyła’s Rebirth 16
Pyła’s Ghetto 18
Language in the Ghetto 20
Pyła’s Rabbinate 20
First Rabbi 21
Rabbi Mose 25
Rabbi SAK 25
Rabbi Jehuda Löb 26
Rabbi Broda 26
Rabbi Wolf 27
Rabbi Sak 28
Rabbi Broda 29
PART THREE PRUSSIAN CONQUEST 31
4 Friedrich II 33
5 Schneidemühl (1772–1945) 36
Statistics 38
Fire of 1781 39
6 Life Under Prussian Rule 41
Politicization of Education 41
Schutzbrief 42
Prussian Bureaucracy 43
Economic Progress 44
Rabbi Kalischer 45
PART FOUR NINETEENTH CENTURY 47
7 Haskalah 49
8 Emancipation 51
Call to Arms 52
9 TIDES OF CHANGE 54
Rabbi Scheier 54
10 NATURALIZATIONS OF THE 1830s 58
11 LAST GREAT FIRE 61
12 NEW SYNAGOGUE 64
Locale 64
Architect 65
Exterior 66
Interior 68
Bimah and Holy Ark 69
Inauguration 70
13 RELIGIOUS TRANSITION 73
Freedom to Choose 73
Austritt and Eingliederung 74
14 EXODUS AND THE EXPERIENCE OF 1848 76
Early Emigrants 76
Revolution 79
15 INDUSTRIALIZATION AND SOCIAL ADVANCEMENT 81
16 RABBI SCHEIER’S DILEMMA 84
17 A NEW EPOCH 87
Rabbi Brann 87
18 THE CEMETERY 89
Matzevot 91
Burial Records 92
19 Tzedakah 94
Charity and Welfare 94
Education Revisited 96
20 Anti-Semitism 98
Names and Stigma 100
21 Social Life: Status 103
22 Schneidemühl’s Jewish Heart 106
Chazzanim 110
Rabbi Grzymisch 111
Rabbi Lewkowitz 112
PART FIVE: FACING THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 115
23 The Great War and Its Aftermath 117
Schneidemühl’s Role 117
Schneidemühl’s Jewish Patriots 118
Rabbi Nobel 120
Organ and Harmonium 122
24 Weimar Republic 125
Attitudes 126
Stirrings of the Right 127
Optanten 128
Rabbi Rosenzweig 130
PART SIX: TURMOIL, PERSECUTION, DESTRUCTION 133
25 Schneidemühl Under the Swastika 135
Chicanery 136
Rabbi Jospe 138
Rabbi Plotke: The Kehillah’s Last Rabbi 139
Kristallnacht 141
Cemetery’s Desecration and Obliteration 146
26 Emigrants 151
Flight to the Orient 153
27 Untergang 157
The Facts 158
Motives 160
Timetable 162
Odyssey of Despair 163
Transit Camp Główna 167
Confiscation 170
Last Head of the Kehillah 171
28 Aftermath 174
1945—Military Annihilation 174
Polish Piła Reborn 176
29 Reminiscences 178
Piła Today 179
30 Z’Chor — Remember 180
Dispersion 248
Known Holocaust Survivors 265
EPILOGUE 268
PICTURES AND ILLUSTRATIONS 269
APPENDICES 297
A. Calendarium 299
B. Rabbi Israel Nobel’s Eulogies 302
C. Burials in Schneidemühl and Neighboring Towns 303
D. Epitaphs in the Jewish Cemetery of Schneidemühl 313
E. Burial Records of the Jewish Cemetery of Schneidemühl 315 F. Census of Schneidemühl in 1774 348
G. The 1939 Census in Schneidemühl 349
H. Rabbis of the Kehillah of Pyła-Schneidemühl — 1641–1938 362
I. Schneidemühl’s Street Names — Then and Now. 363
BIBLIOGRAPHY 364
GLOSSARY 369
INDEX 377