History of Jewish settlement

According to some information, Jews had appeared in Drohiczyn already in the 15th century. They were there temporarily; without forming a community. At the beginning of the 16th century, prince Aleksander issued an order expelling the Jews from the town; however, they returned. The Jewish community might have developed in the mid-16th century.[1.1] At that time, Jewish settlement had occurred in areas where Jews had leased aptly. Trade routes had positive impact on the standard of living of the Jewish community. Maybe, the history of the Jewish community takes its beginning earlier. Drohiczyn was a small town in the Brest voivodeship. In 1747, the Jewish community numbered 843 people. According to the census of 1766, 510 Jews had lived in the kehillah and its environs.[1.2] According to a description from 1778, there was a synagogue, although it had existed earlier. In small towns synagogues were predominantly wooden.[1.3] The shtetl in the Russian Empire After the Third partition of Poland, the Jewish community had to function according to the regulations limiting the rights of the Jewish population. Enterprising Jews had a big influence on the modernization of Drohiczyn’s economy. The life of the Jewish community developed. During the national uprisings against Russia in 1830 and 1863, Jews were subject to losses from both fighting sides.[1.4] In 1897, 784 Jews had lived in Drohiczyn out of a total population of 1,707. People of Jewish nationality had comprised almost half of the shtetl’s population. Jews had traditionally lived in the center, maintaining traditional characteristics of a Jewish shtetl. In 1908, Judel Piasecki headed the town’s council.[1.5] Small enterprises occupied with wood and farming products processing were characteristic of the shtetl. The Jewish community distinguished itself with high standard of traditional education. Prior to World War I, there was a Talmud-Torah and a few cheders.[1.6] Traditional Jewish mutual help societies were also active. A shelter for poor Jews was located in the shtetl.[1.7] The Jewish population had actively participated in political life. Modernization might have had an impact on the decreasing influence of the Orthodox circles in public life. Some Jews supported the ideas of Zionism, which different organizations had represented in the town. The youth had slowly become engaged in the revolutionary movement, and workers began to fight for their rights. In 1903, a local Bund organization was created with the support of the Central Committee in Pinsk. Their leaders included: Mordechaj Weissman (the son of a local physician) and W. Polak. Secret meetings of the Bund members were held in the forest or in a building near the old cemetery. The workers’ strike in the shoemaking workshop of Reuven Beit, who did not want to accept the demands made by the workers, became the Bundists’ first serious victory. Areleh Rosenzweig, a Bund member, forced the entrepreneur to accept the workers’ demands: 8-hour work day and higher pay.[1.8] During World War I World War I had negative impact on the evolution of the Jewish community. The retreating Russian army had burned many buildings to the ground; synagogues were affected.[1.9] The entrance of the German army into the shtetl coincided with the outbreak of typhoid fever epidemic. A field hospital was created in the town. Jewish doctors and nurses made efforts to fight the epidemic.[1.10] Religious life continued during the war. A group studying the Talmud moved to the only remaining synagogue in the town, a Hassidic one.[1.11] When the Germans retreated from Drohiczyn, the peasants, who had previously evacuated to Russia, had begun to return. This was problematic for both Jews and the peasants because the Germans lined the roads in the town with wooden planks from the abandoned peasant households. Before the Germans managed to destroy the buildings, the Jews had moved the wood planks onto their fields where their houses, completely burned down by the Russian army, had once stood. The returning peasants demanded the return of their households. This situation was convenient for the antisemites, who had incited the peasants to pogroms; the land manager was especially active. In order to prevent violence against the Jews, self-defense units were created. Soldiers tried foremost not to allow for robbing Jewish merchants. The bandits were armed.[1.12] Political instability, postwar desolation, and the economic problems caused by them, all had negative impact on the life of the Jewish community. During the Polish-Bolshevik War, property was robbed on considerable scale. The Jewish population of Drohiczyn was shocked by the horrible murder of few Jewish families done in 1921 in a small settlement called Zakoziele. The Jews, who were murdered by the soldiers of S. Bułak-Balachowicz, were buried the cemetery in Drohiczyn.[1.13]

During the Second Republic of Poland

With the establishment of borders in 1921, Jewish spiritual, economic, and cultural life had begun to revive in Drohiczyn. The town’s location within the borders of the Polesie voivodeship in the Second Republic of Poland had positive influence. New buildings began to be erected. Jewish artisan workshops and stores were being rebuilt. In 1921, 1,521 Jews had lived there.[1.14] A savings and lending society was active that gave Jewish artisans credit.[1.15] Jews held important positions in craftsmanship and trade. Jewish artisans’ stalls were located in the town square. They managed to make good use of Drohiczyn’s position as the center of the province. Peasants from neighboring villages, who came to settle various issues in Drohiczyn, came to the Jews. A fair took place monthly in Drohiczyn.[1.16] Jewish entrepreneurs owned hotels. The largest hotel belonged to Sidrer; the hotel had six rooms costing 2.5 zł a night.[1.17] The social and cultural life of the Jewish community in the shtetl was rather active. Many families were able to survive thanks to the support of Jewish charity organizations and other Jews who had emigrated abroad. During the interwar period, Jewish mutual help societies that supported their coreligionists were active in Drohiczyn. The Linat HaTzedek Society supported impoverished Jews, and the CENTOS society helped Jewish orphans. Coreligionists from Chicago had provided considerable financial help in the form of monetary donations to the Jewish community in Drohiczyn.[1.18] Jewish education was well developed, and families could choose to which institution to send their children. In 1930, in the Drohiczyn county there were five private schools with Hebrew as the language of instruction and also one school with Yiddish as the language of instruction.[1.19] In the shtetl there was a Tarbut school and a Talmud Torah. The branch of Culture League had played an important role in the cultural life of Jews. A drama circle had garnered particular popularity among the shtetl’s residents. It was connected to the Jewish library, which collected many books in Hebrew and Yiddish.[1.1.15] Jews played an important role in the health services in Drohiczyn. Two in three practicing physicians were of Jewish nationality. The medical doctor Dawid Lampel served as a provincial doctor and directed the clinic, where patients consulted regarding treatment of tuberculosis, and venereal and neurological diseases. Jonasz Tennenbaum was an internal medicine specialist. There were two Jewish female dentists: Złata Małka Ginzburg and Chaia Goldman.[1.20] Medical help was provided free of charge thanks to the support of co-nationals from America, who had sent money orders.[1.1.18] In 1937, the Jews of Drohiczyn had feared pogroms aimed against them and their property. The chief rabbi of Drohiczyn, Kalenkowicz calmed down the community’s members that he would not allow for a pogrom. A delegation to the Catholic bishop was organized. The group was composed of: Rabbi Kalenkowicz, the physician Dawid Lampel, G. Grossman, Zachariasz Szmid, Menachem Auerbach, and others. They wanted to present the bishop with a Torah scroll, bread and soil, and ask him not to allow for violence against the Jews. On 13 August 1937, the bishop of the Pinsk diocese, Kazimierz Bukraba (1885-1946), had accepted the delegation of Jews from Drohiczyn. He gave a sermon, in which he emphasized that he would not allow the worshipers for any antisemitic activity. Shortly afterwards, the sermon had appeared in the Polish press.[1.21]

Under the Soviet rule in 1939-1941

In September 1939, the town was overcome by Red Army units. Immediately after instituting a Soviet regime, a planned and successive liquidation of Jewish communal and religious offices and institutions, and political organizations, had been undertaken. Soviet punitive measure (NKVD) arrested many members of wealthy Jewish families, and deported them into deep Russia. The exiles had feared that they would be sent to Siberia. Some Jewish families had tried to prove to the Soviet officials that in reality they were poor, and asked them to be allowed to remain at home.[1.22] In Drohiczyn, nine state stores and a booth were set up, which had previously belonged to the Jewish population.[1.23] The new regime confiscated the entire stock-in-trade from the stores and, in consequence, the shtetl’s residents were forced to stand in long lines in order to buy bread and food. There was no sugar or salt on the market; no money could buy it.[1.24]

During the Holocaust

The Nazis entered Drohiczyn on 25 June 1941. The evacuation was conducted improperly, but representatives of the Soviet administration and their families were able to leave the town. Jews, who were employed in Soviet offices and the NKVD, were able to save themselves. The following people were evacuated; the photographer Izrael Schwarz, the schoolteacher Yachas (born in Swisłocz), a manager of cobbler workshop Rubinstein, and a few others. Other Jews, such as the cobbler Israel Pomerantz requested to be drafted into the army; they wanted to fight against the Nazis. Unfortunately, the Soviet administration panicked, and the day after the German army had invaded the USSR (on 23 June 1941), all Soviet offices had been closed.[1.25]German military units that entered Drohiczyn had searched Jewish homes, trying to find weapons and valuables. During the first days of the occupation, a German military commandant had taken control over the town. After some time, he appointed an administration, headed by a Pole, Czapliński.[1.26] He created the local police, which accepted only local Poles. Local Jews received an order to sew yellow patches onto their clothing and draw a Star of David on their homes.[1.1.24] Jews from nearby villages were resettled to Drohiczyn. In July 1941, local auxiliary police arrested Jews accused of cooperating with the Communists. According to some information, 11 Jews were shot. They were murdered 4 km from the shtetl. At the same time, bloody anti-Jewish incidents took place in Chomsk and Motol. At the beginning of August 1941, a Judenrat was created. It was located in the home of Icek Krawiec. None of the Jews wished to join it voluntarily.[1.27] In that case, the German administration appointed the head of the Judenrat. Feldman Litman was forced to exercise all Nazi orders as they pertained to collecting contributions. Later, Jakow Sidorow had replaced him. Rosenberg became the head of the Judenrat. Two Jewish physicians had also belonged to this organization. A Jewish police was appointed, headed by Boruch Hersz Rabinowicz. In September 1941, the military leadership transferred authority in Drohiczyn to a civil administration. The town was part of the Kobryn region of the General Commissariat “Volhynia and Podolia.” Jews, just like the Christians, were forbidden from meeting and associating with one another under the penalty of death. The Jewish population was prohibited from walking on sidewalks, listening to radio, and reading newspapers. Local police tormented Jews; beatings and robberies were common.[1.28] The main task of the Judenrat was to force Jews to fulfill Nazi orders.[1.1.26] Jews performed hard physical labor. The Nazis demanded from the Judenrat 2 kilo gold and 10,000 Soviet rubles. The Judenrat had to collect the contribution in two hours; otherwise mass shootings could have taken place. In fear, the Jewish population collected gold valuables.[1.1.22] Rumors about a planned creation of a ghetto had spread around the town already in the first months of the Nazis’ rule. No one could have imagined how a ghetto would look like, but everyone felt that it would have been the beginning of an end for the Jews. On the eve of the German occupation, 2,675 Jews had lived in Drohiczyn. In November 1941, the Nazis brought to Drohiczyn some 1,000 Jews from the town of Szereszowo in the Pruzany county and from Kolonia (a Jewish village near Drohiczyn). Jewish escapees from the town of Chomsk and nearby villages had also stayed in Drohiczyn. Immense overcrowding existed in the shtetl because Jewish homes were full of refugees. According to former ghetto inmates, the creation of the ghetto was marked by the so called “decrees,” which required Jews to leave Piaskowa Street (leading to the new cemetery), part of Markiewicza Street, and Chomskiego Alley. The “decrees” concerned only part of the Jewish families. Nearly 4,000 Jews had lived in Drohiczyn on the day the “decrees” became valid.[1.29] In spring 1942, during Passover, two ghettos surrounded by barbed wire were created. Young abled-bodied Jews and artisan specialists were kept in ghetto “A.” Ghetto “B” was created for “useless Jews.” Former store keepers, employees of various organizations, accountants, teachers, etc. remained there. Inmates of ghetto “B” tried to acquire diplomas attesting to their workers’ occupations.[1.1.29] The manager of the workshop and employment expert from Kobryń took gold watches and other valuables from the Jews. In return, he issued them certifications that they had previously worked as tailors, cobblers, or carpenters. Thanks to those documents Jews could end up in ghetto “A.” Some Jewish artisans (for example the poor shoemaker Naska) did not receive a certification and had to remain in ghetto “B.” many artisans, who were not accepted into the workshops, ended up in that ghetto. Inmates of ghetto “B” received orders to participate in various forced labor assignments as cheap labor. Due to contributions and requisitioning of property, many Jewish families were bereft of savings and their property. Barter helped in some instances. Local Christians passed food to the ghetto inmates in return for clothing and shoes. German watchmen had severely punished everyone involved in the act. Jews, however, managed to exchange many things until the ghetto had been closed off.[1.30] Police patrols with dogs attacking passersby appeared on the streets of Drohiczyn.[1.31] Witnesses recounted that they were afraid to go outside; and Germans soldiers who had patrolled the streets were worse than their dogs.[1.32] A cemetery in the center of the town, close to the prison, served as one of the execution sites. In July 1942, another liquidation action took place in the ghetto. On the evening of 25 July 1942, weak noise coming from engines of German cars entering the town was audible in ghetto “B”; so the people were very worried. At 11:00 PM, the police had announced that all inmates of ghetto “B” should head towards the market square, although no one had known the reason. Some had bad premonitions and, instead of going to the market square, they tried to run from the town and into the forest. Unfortunately, all exit routes were manned by Polish and Ukrainian police, while the ghetto was patrolled by Jewish police. The policemen searched for and dragged out inmates from all buildings, attics, and basements, directing them towards the market square. Policemen robbed the inmates on the way. They took their clothing and valuables, which some women and the elderly still possessed. People were hit with butt rifles on their heads. Jews understood what was happening and began to pray.[1.33] The watchmaker Haim Ber Altwarg and tailor Leon Pesacz, and a few others were killed on their way.[1.1.29] Towards the end of the action, which had lasted almost seven hours, the Germans had noticed that some 100 men were missing. Their names and last names were on the Judenrat’s list. In reprisal, the murderers took a few hundred Jews from ghetto “A,” as well as members of the Jewish police and the Judenrat.[1.34] On Sunday, the murderers took 1,700 Jews, under the pretext of work, to the Góra Bronna train station, where a large scale action of exterminating Jews from various counties was taking place. Five trains, which contained mainly inmates of ghettos, entered the station. The second, combined, train numbering 46 cars took Jews from Drohiczyn, Janów, and Grodziec. The cars were overcrowded – no less than 200 people were locked inside each of them.[1.35] Inmates of ghettos in Polesie were shot in the area of Góra Bronna. On 26 July 1942, ghetto “B” in Drohiczyn was dissolved. In summer 1942, 1,700 Jews were murdered. A medical outpost operated in the ghetto, in which Jewish doctors Dawid Lempel and Henryk Szechter (municipal doctor) had worked. Their task was to provide medical help only to workers working for the Germans. A few days prior to the liquidation of the ghetto, Dawid Lempel assembled the workers and related the tragic news to them. He said the Nazis had wanted for him to stand close to the ditches of death and observe how victims died. Both physicians took poison. Zvia Tennenbaum, a survivor from the ghetto, certified that the Germans had shot Dr. Schechter in the head upon finding him.[1.36] The final extermination of the ghetto’s population in Drohiczyn took place in fall 1942. On 15 October 1942, ghetto “A” was dissolved. The 3rd unit of Police Battalion 306 and a Latvian police battalion had shot to death 1,500 people (according to other information – 2,500 inmates) near the railroad station.[1.37] Upon retreating from the town, the Nazis forced local peasants to dig out the corpses of Jews and burn them[1.38] There were not that many survivors from Drohiczyn. Escape from the town into the forest and hiding in dug outs was the only way to survive.[1.39] Many were discovered or had to return and submit to the police. Individual instances of rescuing Jews had taken place. One case involved saving a Jewish girl, whose mother had pushed her out of the column of the doomed. She was hidden in an Eastern Orthodox church. The priest took her to the forest and helped her reach the partisans. After the war, the girl went to the United States. During an execution, a young Jewish man escaped from before the ditch of the doomed and hid in a swamp. A Nazi, riding on a horse, could not catch him.[1.40] A girl named Żanna had survived the execution. She was the sole survivor of her family. Having failed in finding help in the town, where people feared the Nazis’ reprisals, she returned to the execution site. She recounted seeing people who were still alive but already dying. She could not help them because she was very weak. She survived because she was able to reach a partisan unit.[1.41] Drohiczyn was liberated on 17 July 1944. Many mass graves of Jews were discovered following the Red Army’s entrance into the town. The largest execution site was on a cemetery, near the District Grocers’ Company. The Special State Commission (ЧГК) for the investigation of Fascist-German crimes had uncovered the corpses of 3,816 people, including 895 men, 1,083 women, and 1,838 children.[1.42] It was established that the perpetrators used sadistic methods: they hit their victims with hard objects and weapons. Corpses of people who had their skulls pierced through, broken or twisted limbs, broken ribs, deformed faces, were all found in the mass graves. Jews were murdered in groups; while having their hands tied with barbed wire.[1.43] Another place of mass execution was located 250-300 m from the Jewish cemetery in the Zalesie forest landmark. Thirteen pits with corpses of 250 murdered Jews were found here.[1.44] Among them was rabbi Eliagu-Zeew Oltwarg. In the center of Drohiczyn, near the prison, 11 graves were found, which contained 150 corpses. Residents claimed that people were killed by dogs that were let loose by the Germans. Next, shots were fired at the massacred bodies.[1.45] In total, 4,991 people were killed in Drohiczyn and its environs during the three years of occupation. Jews (residents of Drohiczyn, refugees, and Jews brought from other ghettos) accounted for 3,338 of those killed.[1.46] Officers Ernst and Paulin Fryc were the organizers and perpetrators of the mass murder on Jewish population. Their supporters included: Iwan Zundicz, Wasilij Łopuch, Roman Brycz, and two others who had worked in the SD under the nicknames “Kola” and “Musia.”[1.1.46] One of the killers, a Volksdeutsche, was a German from Powołże, who knew Russian very well. Drohiczyn’s residents claimed that he actively participated in the executions. After their fulfillment, he went to a café and talked with people, readily telling jokes to the guests.[1.47] The Jewish community in Drohiczyn was not revived after the Shoah. Part of Jewish survivors (mainly those exiled into deep USSR before the German occupation) had moved to Poland, Germany, or Israel.[1.48]Currently, Drohiczyn belongs to the former shtetls, where no Jews live anymore.