Jews first started to settle in the vicinity of Bydgoszcz in the Middle Ages. The royal charter of 1555 forbade Jews from living in the town itself. The incoming Jews settled in the neighbouring Fordon, which boasted an active kehilla. A new stage of the Jewish settlement in the town situated on the Brda River began in 1766. After the First Partition of Poland (1772), four Jewish families were registered as residents of Bydgoszcz. In 1774, there were 11 Jews living in Bydgoszcz. In 1804, this number amounted to 40, in 1816 – 233, 1837 – 420, 1842 – 683, 1852 – 820, 1861 – 1,372, 1871 – 1,963. The Jewish community started to constitute a bigger and bigger percentage of the population, from 0.7% to 7.8% over the previously defined period. In the last three decades of the 19^th century, however, the Jewish population of the town shrank in size.

As early as the 18^th century, the Jewish community of Bydgoszcz started to seek independence from the Fordon kehilla. In 1800, its representatives submitted an appropriate petition to the Bydgoszcz District Office. Despite receiving a negative response, the Jews of Bydgoszcz organised their own house of prayer and a religious school for boys. In the 1820s, they started to seek permission to build a synagogue. In 1816, the authorities issued a permit to establish a Jewish cemetery on Wissmann Hill. In 1834, the Jews of Bydgoszcz became formally independent from the Fordon kehilla. The new community (corporation), as defined in its statute (modified in 1867), had jurisdiction over Bydgoszcz itself and over the following villages: Górzyskowo, Szwederowo, Białe Błota, Rupienica, Bocianowo, Okole, Grodztwo, Wierzchucin Szlachecki.

Initially, the new community was managed by a three-member board and a nine-person representative body. In 1867, after the amendment of the statute, the corporate board consisted of 5 members and 2 deputies, while the board consisted of 12 members and 6 deputies. The construction of the first synagogue in Bydgoszcz was completed in 1834. The process of furnishing its interiors took place over the subsequent six years. Ca. 1882, the building was sold and demolished. In 1840, certain rabbinical duties were entrusted to Dr. G. S. Hirschfeld, who came from Berlin and worked as a teacher in Jewish schools. He was succeeded by Dr. Julius Gebhadt, who came from Gniezno. He performed the function of the rabbi in the years 1852–1885. Among other rabbis of Bydgoszcz were: Dr. Wilhelm Klemperer from Gorzów (1885–1892) and Dr. Gottchild Walter from Łobżenica (1892–1919). In 1880, the community also started to employ an assistant rabbi. Until 1887, this function was performed by Dr. Julius Theodor. In 1882, the construction of a new synagogue began; the members of the community had been asking for its foundation since the 1860s. The building was put into service two years later. Until the end of the 1890s, several Jewish institutions were established near the synagogue (e.g. a community office, a Jewish school, and a ritual slaughterhouse).

In the late 19^th century, the Jews of Bydgoszcz were mostly engaged in trade and craft. They sold agricultural products, horses, leather, cigars, ran pawnshops and provided river transport services. Some monopolised the local cloth trade market. Many Jews were also members of liberal professions – the majority of them were booksellers and industrialists. Jews became important players in the world of business and finance (e.g. the Aronsohn family). Jewish bankers, lawyers, notaries, doctors, teachers and publicists were members of the municipal government and represented the town in the Berlin Parliament.

At the beginning of the 20^th century, around a dozen Jewish organisations and associations operated in the town, some of which had been established in the mid-19^th century. These included, among others, the Society for Visiting the Sick and the Dying, the “Chevra Kadisha” Burial Society (with the statute dating back to 1850), the “Chevra Achim” Union (est. 1869), the Association for the Support of Jewish History and Literature, and the Society for the Aid for German Jews in Berlin, Bydgoszcz Branch.

In the first years after the establishment of the Second Republic of Poland, Bydgoszcz experienced an exodus of its Jewish population. Between 1919 and 1922, ca. 1,000 Jews left the town. Soon afterwards, however, new Jewish residents appeared, hailing mainly from the areas of the former Congress Poland. In 1923, there were 823 Jews in the town, in 1928 – 1,480, 1930 – 1,644, 1932 – 1,907, 1934 – 1,971, 1936 – 2,101, 1938 – 2,042, and in 1939 – 2,057. In 1920, they accounted for 0.7% of the total population, and in 1939 – 1.44%.

In 1932, the Jewish communities in Fordon, Koronowo, and Solec Kujawski were incorporated into the Bydgoszcz community. The community owned a synagogue, offices, a ritual bath, a slaughterhouse, the so-called small synagogue and two cemeteries – one at Filarecka Street (old) and the other at Szubińska Street. In the years 1921–1939, Dr. Efraim Sonnenschein was the rabbi of Bydgoszcz. In 1920, Louis Aronsohn was the chairman of the community board, followed by Willy Baerwald. In the years 1921–1925, this function was performed by Isbert Adam. In 1925, Dr. Max. Chaskel was appointed chairman of the community. In March 1926, he was succeeded by Max Schiffmann, followed by David Elbaum in June 1929. In the years 1930–1932, Jakub Braciński was the chairman of the board. At the beginning of 1932, he resigned, and Aron Cohn declared himself the chairman. After the appointment of forced administration, the Jewish community was led by Franciszek Dukat, soon replaced by Bertold Dobrin (1932). The latter held office until the election in May 1933. Afterwards, Zygmunt Klotz remained in charge of the community until the outbreak of the war.

Most Jews lived in the city centre, in the vicinity of the synagogue complex – on Długa Street, Podwale, Wełniany Rynek, Old Market Square, and Jezuicka Street. Jews also lived in the Śródmieście district, on the following streets: Dworcowa, Gdańska, Marszałka Focha, Jagiellońska and Cieszkowskiego. In 1935, 189 enterprises were run by Jews living in the area controlled by the Jewish community of Bydgoszcz. Among the largest ones were the “Elhardt and S-ka” wholesalers and warehouses of furs and hides, chicory and coffee, as well as manufacturing plants, haberdasheries and textile stores. A large group of Bydgoszcz Jews were craftsmen. In 1937, there were 50 Jewish craft enterprises operating in the town. The most popular professions were tailors, shoe upper makers and furriers. The Jewish intelligentsia was also strong in numbers. Before the outbreak of World War II, Bydgoszcz was inhabited by 47 officials, 6 doctors and dentists, 5 engineers, 2 attorneys, 2 army officers, a draughtsman, a musician, and an editor. Jewish representatives of the working class, both entrepreneurs and workers, constituted a small group in the socio-professional structure of the pre-war town.

Throughout the interwar period, many social, professional, cultural and educational organisations and political parties were established in Bydgoszcz. As early as in 1923, local merchants set up a branch of the Jewish Merchants' Association in the town. In the mid-1920s, a branch of the Central Union of Jewish Craftsmen was founded. The year 1934 saw the establishment of the Association of Jewish Travelling Salesmen and Small Merchants. There were also many youth organisations, for example the Jewish Youth Union established in 1924 or an active branch of the Zionist-Revisionist youth group “Betar,” founded in Bydgoszcz in the 1930s. In general, Zionism was the most popular political movement in inter-war Bydgoszcz; it was represented by such parties as the Zionist Organisation or the General Zionist Organisation. Zionist leanings of the local population were clearly made evident in the elections to the community authorities. In 1937, the representatives of the following organisations ran in the election to the community board: the Jewish Democratic Bloc, Zionist Revisionists, the Union of Jewish Craftsmen, the Zionist-Economic Bloc, the United and Non-Partisan Bloc of Craftsmen and Small Merchants, and the Zionist List. Representatives of Zionist groups received the largest number of votes. Meanwhile, the “Bund” General Jewish Workers' Union, whose Bydgoszcz branch was established in 1938 and remained in opposition to Zionist organisations, enjoyed very little popularity.

It is believed that at least half of the entire Jewish population of Bydgoszcz left the town before the beginning of the German occupation (3–4 September 1939). Several dozen people were killed in the first days of the German rule. By 4 October, almost all local Jews had been imprisoned in the barracks at Artyleryjska and Warszawska streets. The Germans also opened a Judenbarak in the military barracks at Gdańska Street. The synagogue was demolished and the cemeteries were destroyed. Some of the residents of Bydgoszcz were shot in the forests near Tryszczyn, Rynków, Koronowo, Borówno. In October, Fordon Jews were executed near Miedzyń. A site in Fordon known as the Valley of Death was the murder site of ca. 400 Jews from Bydgoszcz and the surrounding areas.

A group of Jews from Bydgoszcz was sent to the Tomaszów Mazowiecki Ghetto, and from there to the Treblinka death camp; some were also brought to the Warsaw Ghetto. Between 1941 and 1943, Jews from Gdańsk were held in the prison in Bydgoszcz, and in 1944, ca. 250 Jews from Poland, Hungary, Austria, Romania, and France were imprisoned in the Gestapo investigative facility at Wały Jagiellońskie. In July 1944, more than 805 women were transported from Stutthof to the Bydgoszcz Commando, a sub-camp of Bromberg Brahnau. Displaced Bydgoszcz residents died in gas chambers of Auschwitz, Dachau, and Stutthof. A man named Bitter from Bydgoszcz (Abram Bitter, an official – P.N.) is mentioned as a gravedigger in the account by Szlama Winer (early 1942), the first detailed report on the extermination camp in Chełmno upon Ner (Kulmhof), a place of extermination of Jews from Reichsgau Wartheland. In January 1945, ca. 1,500 Jewish women of various nationalities were sent to the vicinity of Bydgoszcz and Fordon. They were prisoners of the Chorab sub-camp, subordinate to the Stutthof concentration camp.

It is estimated that ca. 100–120 Jewish inhabitants of Bydgoszcz survived the war. In June 1946, 75 people were registered at the Provincial Committee of the Central Committee of Polish Jews. The very same year, the Department of Education of the Jewish Community in Bydgoszcz opened a half-boarding school for children. A Jewish Library was also established, followed by a public eatery a year earlier. At the end of the 1940s, the Bydgoszcz branch of the CKŻP (the Central Committee of Polish Jews) had ca. 250–270 members, but this number also includes Jews from the following cities: Toruń, Golub, Rypin, and even Koszalin. In December 1948, the branch had 247 members. In the first half of the 1950s, there were about 150 Jewish inhabitants in the town. A decade later, only 48 people were left, and at the beginning of the 1970s – around a dozen.

Since 1951, the Jewish life in Bydgoszcz was managed by the local the TSKŻ (Social and Cultural Society of Jews in Poland) branch. Other organisations established after 1945 were liquidated in the late 1940s (e.g. the branch of the Society for Health Protection of the Jewish Population). In the aftermath of the so-called March 1968 events, the number of people who decided to emigrate was increasing each year, while the liquidation of the TSKŻ branch in 1971 led to an almost complete disappearance of the Jewish diaspora in Bydgoszcz. The few Jews who remained in the city in the 1970s did not manage to revive the local social life. According to the 2002 census, eleven people of Jewish descent lived in Bydgoszcz.

Przemysław Nowicki

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