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