First Jews appeared in Koniecpol at the beginning of the 17th century. This happened thanks to Hetman Stanisław Koniecpolski, the then owner of the town, who wanted to boost the development of the town. Some of the first Jewish inhabitants of Koniecpol took part in the Leipzig Fair in 1675. This proves the wealth of the Jewish merchants who settled in the town.
In 1764, 110 Jewish families (394 people) already lived in the town and owned 69 private houses. Among them were: 3 tailors, 2 goldsmiths, a glazier, a bookbinder, 4 butchers, a male barber, 2 musicians (klezmer), 2 jesters (artists), a teacher, 2 rabbis, a cantor and a synagogue servant (shammes). At that time, there was already an independent Jewish community in Koniecpol, which had a synagogue, a kahal building and its own cemetery with a pre-burial house. The first known rabbi was Avigdor Margoliot (who died in 1741) who served in Koniecpol until 1724 and then moved to Chęciny. Then Rabbi Salomon, son of Benjamin Wolf (died 1761), rabbi of Pińczów, served for a short time. Rabbi Salomon Wolf was for some time the scribe of the Sejm of the Four Lands. He wrote a five-volume work on the Torah entitled Vayakhel Shlomo (Livorno 1785) and Beit Shlomo book (Jerusalem 1926). In the second half of the 18th century, Moses son of Tzvi Hirsh (one of the students of the Baal Shem Tov) and Arie Leybush son of Eliezer Hakohen (son-in-law of Rabbi Salomon Wolf) were the rabbis of Koniecpol.
At the beginning of the 19th century, Izaak Lisak became the new rabbi and then between 1852 and 1853, Rabbi Abraham David served this function. In 1828, 490 Jews lived in the town, who constituted 31.5% of the total population. In the second half of the 19th century, a new brick synagogue was built. In the 1860s and 1870s, Reuben Juda Lejb was the rabbi. From 1878, the post of rabbi was held by Dawid Dow Ber Taub, who moved to Dobrzyn in 1880. At the beginning of the 20th century, Eliezer became the rabbi in Koniecpol.
In 1921, 1,077 Jews lived in the town, making up 45% of its total population. Many of them were wealthy people of high social standing. They owned, among others, a copper factory and a sawmill, others were merchants. There was a Commercial Bank (Polish: Bank Komercyjny) in the town, which was a branch of Częstochowa's bank. A special fund provided interest-free loans, which were used by about 20% of poor Jews. Wealthy factory owners and merchants helped with the charity work. One Jewish doctor lived in Koniecpol. There was a religious school and a yeshiva of the Chasidim from Góra Kalwaria.
In the interwar period, the next rabbis were Chaim Aszer Bornstein (who was killed during the Holocaust), Dawid Kleinplatz (who died in 1936 or 1937), and his son, also named Kleinplatz.
In 1922, Polish landowners carried out an action in Koniecpol aimed at removing Jews from their rented properties. Economic matters were the background to this anti-Semitic situation.
In 1924 a branch of the General Zionist Organisation (Al-Hamishmar group) (Polish: Powszechna Organizacja Syjonistyczna) was established in Koniecpol. It owned its own building and had a theatre group. In 1928-1929, it prepared its own group of pioneers who left for Palestine. In 1928, the organisation called The Young Zionists (HaNoar HaTzioni) (Polish: Młodzi Syjoniści) was founded with about 70-80 members; it established a library named after Bialik. There was also a branch of Betar in the city, which set up its own club after 1929. The political party Poale Zion (Polish: Poalej Syjon) had many supporters as well.
A Chasid from the Radomszcz group, who supported the Zionists, was the president of the Jewish community. Three Jews sat on the Koniecpol town council (out of 11 members). During the last two councils, which were elected before the outbreak of war, the vice mayor of Koniecpol was a Jew.
In 1937, anti-Semitic riots took place in Koniecpol. The cause was a fight in the town market. When a young Jewish boy gained the upper hand in the dispute, the enraged crowd rushed against the Jews. Nationalist activists planned a pogrom for the following week, but it was prevented by the appearance of armed young Jews on the streets of Koniecpol.
1 September 1939, Germany attacked Poland, thus beginning World War II. The German army occupied Koniecpol in the first days of the war. The Nazis very quickly ordered all Jews to leave the centre of the town and move to houses on the outskirts. During this action, Alter Szlomo Staszewski, the leader of the local Chasidim from Aleksandrów, was shot. After some time, those expelled were allowed to return to their homes.
Even as late as in 1939, the Germans introduced slave labour for Jews. Young men, most of whom came from wealthy families, were forced to do hard labour extracting stones and gravel for road construction. However, the most difficult work was at the railway station. The railwaymen and police cruelly exploited the Jewish workers.
Between September 1939 and January 1940, a high contribution was imposed on the Jewish community three times. Until this was paid, a rabbi and several rich and respected Jews were held hostage.
In 1940, a group of Jewish workers was selected in Koniecpol and sent to a slave labour camp. There were repeated attacks on Jewish houses in the town, in which the local German police and occasionally the police from Radom participated. The German policemen from Radom were particularly cruel; they fired guns to terrorise the Jews. In May 1941, there were 1,182 Jews in Koniecpol, 518 of whom came from outside, mainly from Płock.
At the end of 1941, the Germans established a ghetto in the town. A Judenrat, headed by Kornberg, was established. The tasks assigned to the Judenrat included collecting fines and supplying workers for slave labour. In September 1942, the Germans liquidated small Jewish centres in the surrounding villages (Przyrów, Olsztyn, Złoty Potok, Cieletniki, Lelów, Zielona Dąbrowa and Janów). Their inhabitants were gathered in the ghetto in Koniecpol. In this way, about 1.6 thousand Jews found their way here.
On 6 October 1942, German and Ukrainian gendarmes gathered all the Jews in the market square and then escorted them to the railway station in Koniecpol. Several executions took place during this action. In the village of Koniecpol-Mały there were 25 Jews; the Germans did not want to lead them to the railway station in Koniecpol (4 km), so they shot them on the spot. On the next day, all the Jews were loaded onto freight wagons and taken to the selection camp in Skarżysko-Kamienna. The train on which they were loaded was already carrying a transport of Jews from Częstochowa. Many were shot during the transport. Those who remained alive were eventually sent to the Treblinka extermination camp.
Only 10 Jews from Koniecpol survived the war. One of them, Dawid Gruszka, was murdered on a train on 4 July 1946.
Bibliographical note
- Koniecpol (Sadeh Hadash), [in:] Pinkas ha-kehilot polin: enciklopedia szel ha-jiszuwim ha-jechudijim le-min hiwasdam ve-ad le-ahar szo’at milhemet ha-olam he-sznija, ed.s D. Dąbrowska, A. Wein, Jerusalem 1976, p. 233 [online] https://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/pinkas_poland/pol1_00233.html [accessed: 20 April 2021].
